Center of Communal Life: The Banda
The Batwa Development Program (BDP) was formed to “help the Batwa help themselves.“ The BDP directly addresses the root causes of extreme poverty and poor health of the Batwa. The Batwa are one of the oldest people groups in Africa, and for millennia, lived as skilled hunters and gatherers in the area that is now the Bwindi National Park. They utilized every part of the forest including bark for their clothing and trees for protective shelter.
When they were displaced from the forest in 1991, they were given no land or compensation and their communal life was completely upended. The banda pictured here represents just one way that the BDP is helping the Batwa to recover and re-cultivate communal life that is so central to their culture. Batwa representatives from each of their 11 community settlements now help guide the work of achieving ongoing goals and programs including education, housing, income production, cultural preservation, agriculture, and spiritual outreach.
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