Our Story

Last Updated on Monday, 16 May 2011 14:59

Harambee Together for the Development  is, at first, an organization made up of people. For this reason we decided to tell its story: the beginning, our enthusiasms , our  disappointments, mistakes and our results. Harambee wants to keep on being an organization of  people, because it studies, plans and projects, in Italy and abroad, thanks to people and for the people as well.
Harambee originated during a November  evening in 1974, after  a dinner among friends. One of them, Domenico Aimar,  had just returned from a travel in Kenya with the Missionaries of the Consolata Fathers.
Domenico told his friends about  the world  he saw. It was a world full of colours, the rhythm of drums echoed all around; a world  with  wonderful landscapes and the warm-hearted  people. But this world showed Mr. Aimar also the other side of the coin, made up of the  desert, the dryness of the land, suffering voices, the  absolute poverty, hunger and children living on the streets. Domenico recognized the urgent need of solidarity, absolutely he didn’t want to remain defenceless towards the state of this suffering. Tony Vaux calls this impulse, not to being able to go beyond and to forget, “the principle of humanity” and defines it as  “concern for the person in need”  (The Selfish Altruist: Relief Work in Famine and War).
Domenico’s  friends listened motionless, about this world fast unknown for them and felt as a somewhere far away. While Domenico had continued telling his story, they understood, little by little, it was part of the same world in which they live. They bet not to remain still and to find a way in order to agree to the developmental projects, as volunteers, with their own professional competences. Who will hold back, will have to pay forfeit. This is how Harambee came to be as a legal recognized association.
Harambee begins to join part in the interventions and projects realization, promoted by other subject in underdeveloped nations

Between 1977 and 1982 Harambee  had collaborated with the Missionaries of the Consolata Fathers for the construction of a secondary school, a nursery school, a dispensary , a Missionary Fathers’ home and  a welcome home for old people in the locality of Timau and Gaturi in Kenya.
From 1982 to 1984 in Somalia, during the Ogaden War ,Harambee worked as  NGO consortuim partner COOPI for construction of medical facilities and doctors’ residence by the refugee camps of Jalalaqsi; for construction of the Health Center, and refugee camp of Qorioley.
In Burkina Faso Harambee collaborated with Fratelli della Sacra Famiglia di Cheri (TO)  in  the completion of the Church of Nanor.
In the Centralafrican Republic, in collaboration with the Carmelitani  Scalzi of Genoa,  Harambee helped by the construction of the Church of Bossentel and  also participated in  the construction of the  volunteerss home in Bozzoum.
In 2004 Harambee Togheter for the Development, felt itself ready to lead its own plans and decided to become a NGO (non governmental organization) and ONLUS (non lucrative organization for  social usefulness), adopting a new  Statutory.