Origin Trip #54: Mababu, Tanzania, 2025

Every other year we take a small group with us to Mababu. Not as tourists, and not to build anything: to sit in the meetings, walk the farms, and understand where a bar comes from before it is a bar.

This year's trip coincided with the graduation of the largest Empowered Girls cohort we have had. Forty-one students finished the year with school fees paid, and eleven are going on to secondary school in Kyela.

We cut-tested the July harvest and bought all of it. Fermentation is now handled entirely by the village committee, which was not true five years ago, and the quality has stopped being a question.

Profit share this year funded the lunch program for another twelve months and a second water point at the school, which halves the walk for about ninety families.

Asante sana to everyone who bought a Mababu bar this year. That is what paid for it.