Temecula Rotary - Rotary Club of Temecula

Project Peanut Butter

Project Peanut Butter is a therapeutic feeding program for malnourished children in the African countries of Malawi and Sierra Leone. It was founded by Professor Mark Manary, M.D., a pediatrician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and a professor of pediatric medicine at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Manary is recognized worldwide as a leading authority on severe childhood malnutrition.

PPB manufactures a Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), a peanut/dairy/vitamin/mineral food that offers a 95 percent recovery rate for severely malnourished children and is easily administered in the home. The RUTF is a vast improvement over milk-based formulas that only offer recovery rates of 25 to 40 percent. Milk-based formulas also require hospitalization, which can subject vulnerable children to further infection and disease, and require mothers to leave crops untended while seeking treatment for children. 

The focus of this project is to provide funding for necessary supplies and equipment that will be used at PPB’s new facility in Sierra Leone. . The facility uses local resources (peanuts) and trains and employs local people.

This project will be ongoing as part of our “African Program”. We are providing support directly in this Rotary year and seeking support from a Rotary Club in Sierra Leone for a Matching Grant opportunity. Other area Rotary Clubs are invited to join this effort.

Gardens for the Gambia

The Gambia is a small State in West Africa. The population of the Gambia is estimated to be 1.6 million, and the density per square kilometer is 128, one of the highest in Africa. Three quarters of the population is rural. Women constitute 51 per cent of the population. Currently, the crude birth rate is 46.2 per thousand though dropping is still high. Life expectancy at birth is low at 55 years overall, and 54 years and 57 years for males and females respectively.

The Gambia is among the poorest countries in the World, ranked 155th out of 177, in UNDP’s Human Development Index for 2004. As is the case in many developing countries, water is a precious and critical resource for the Gambian people. Without access to adequate wells, women spend an inordinate time searching for and transporting water in order to feed families and grow crops.

Gardens for the Gambia focuses on digging wells at schools.  The wells provide three critical things for Gambian school children: 1) Knowledge of agriculture; 2) A meal – sometimes their only meal of the day - for the poorest children; and 3) profits from surplus produce sold at market enable the school to buy supplies and equipment.  Each well serves 100 to 300 people.

Many individuals wonder why such a long period of time is required in The Gambia and why matters cannot be attended to more efficiently or with much less time.  Unfortunately, much of West Africa, including The Gambia, is part of the developing world. As a result, there is a lack of infrastructure and communication is often difficult. However, we have opted to make this project an ongoing part of our “African Program” and are joining with a Rotary Club in The Gambia to apply  for a Matching Grant.  San Bernardino Sunset has joined us as a MG partner.

Oduworo Village, Uganda

District 5330 International Project
Village Name and Location: Oduworo Village, Ongino Sub-County, Kumi District, Uganda

Oduworo Village is located about 6 hours drive northeast from the city of Kampala, Uganda; accessed by Land Rover on miles of dirt road through the jungles and plains of Uganda. The village is stretched out for several miles along a dirt road. We were told the village was raided over 20 years ago by a renegade tribe that took all their livestock, and anything of value and killed anyone who resisted. In 20 years they have not been able to recover from those loses.

The people there are wonderful! Over 600 showed up at the meeting tree just to greet us, not asking for help, or a handout, but to thank us for being only the second organization to ever to find them, (the other was a church that never came back) and they gave thanks for the miracle of us coming from the other side of the world and of all the places we could have found; we found them!

The people are very proud and we had to ask them if there was anything we could help them with. They were very humble with their answer, making sure we understood that if they only had water that they could help themselves, but they did not know how to get Clean Water.

We were surprised that the village elders allowed 4 different people to speak. One represented the youth, one represented the women, one represented the elderly, and then the village elders spoke. Their requests were very basic but the one that touched our hearts was the man representing the elderly. He said that they are a burden to the village and if only they had Bee hives they could make an income that would make them a useful part of the village society.

Some information about the village;

• Average household size is 8 people
• Life expectancy for men is 45 years and women, 48 years
• Average income is .30 cents per day
• The village grows their own food
• Infant mortality rate is 3 out of 10
• Nearest health clinic is 18 miles away
• Incidence of malaria in the village is 53%
• Incidence of AIDS is .4%
• Available water source is 2 miles away
• Village sanitation is poor
• There is no electricity in the village
• There is no school in the village, but one is nearby
• Children start work at 7 years old
• There is no vocation in the village
• Common health problem is malnutrition
• Typical meal is cassava and greens (no meat)
• There is no transportation in the village

The District 5330 International Project is a four year project and will start with the major needs of the village; number one is water. We are including with the wells treated mosquito bed netting to help fight the incidence of malaria.  The village has committed to digging three latrines in exchange for the three bore hole wells we are providing. Various needs will be addressed throughout the project  including items such as; farm animals, bee hives, micro-lending, a medical clinic, vocational training, tree planting, sanitation, transportation, farming techniques, agricultural supply and training, to name a few.

If you are interested in supporting any aspect of this project or have an idea to help foster or improve this project please contact Steve or Vicky Wallace at (951) 471-2793 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .