Muganyizi Melchoir

I was born in Kyerwa District in northwestern Tanzania, where schools were far away and essential services were almost non-existent. I did not attend the first grade until I was nine because I had to wait until I was strong enough to walk several kilometres to the nearest classroom. When I finally reached school, we sat on the dusty floor without desks or chairs, and hunger often followed us through the day. Those early hardships taught me that geography and poverty do not define potential, but they also taught me that opportunity can feel distant. After secondary school I relied entirely on a government loan to pursue university. My first choice, pharmacy, was not funded. I was denied the loan, then accepted into teacher education before withdrawing after two weeks because it was not my passion. I eventually gained funding for Natural Resources Management, a field that connected to my childhood experiences in the forest. After graduating in 2015, I returned home to help transform rural life. I worked as a Project Officer in agriculture and environment, training smallholder farmers across Biharamulo District. One moment that changed me was when a mother asked my supervisor for a ride to the hospital and was refused. I realized rural people suffer not from lack of will but from lack of access, empathy, and capital. In 2018 I launched PALES (Participatory Livelihood Improvement, Ecology and Sanitation). We started with women’s empowerment, sustainable agriculture, and environmental protection, and in 2021 we registered as an NGO. PALES has supported hundreds of women through vegetable farming, chicken rearing, and goat keeping, even though funding shortages have limited our reach. We also created JamboMama, a maternal health project to reduce home deliveries and maternal deaths, and an Artemisia initiative to fight malaria with locally grown herbal medicine. These ideas are ready to grow — they need partners, funding, and technology to scale. My work is driven by the belief that rural communities can lead their own change when they are trusted, resourced, and connected.