In the village of Kipengere, nestled in the lush forests of Tanzania's Njombe region, Father Camillo—a Franciscan friar from Trentino known as "baba" (father in Swahili)—oversees a Catholic mission that serves a community of 35,000. With the help of Father Guido Douglas and a group of Benedictine sisters, he coordinates schools, an orphanage, and much more. Perched at over 7,200 feet above sea level on the vast plateaus of East Africa, the mission not only produces everything the community—engaged in farming, herding, crafts, and barter—needs to survive. It has also built schools, housing for teachers and students, recreational spaces for children, two nurseries, and a clinic. None of this came easily. Before Father Camillo arrived, children in the village could not attend school and never learned to read or write. The mountain paths, steep terrain, and long distances made it impossible to reach the schools in the valleys below.
As Father Camillo—a Consolata missionary from Turin who has lived in Africa for more than fifty years—travels thousands of kilometers visiting local communities, he meets the Alpine troops from Bolzano. He tells their commander, Claudio Maccagnan, stories and anecdotes of life in these lands. The priest's tenacity and profound humanity—he has brought agricultural enterprises, wood stove factories, and carpentry, plumbing, welding, and mechanical workshops to Kipengere from nothing—moves the Alpine soldiers so deeply that a partnership is born, one that has endured for over thirty-five years. After the first visits, Claudio realizes what is needed: guaranteeing at least elementary education to the children.
Back in Italy, Maccagnan gathers his comrades and together they organize fundraising efforts across the region to finance the "Africa project." It is an ambitious plan, and the first step is building a secondary woodworking school in the village of Igosi, eight kilometers from the Mission. Equipment and machinery necessary to run the workshops—planers, sanders, and other tools, many secondhand or decommissioned from trade schools in Trentino—are shipped from Italy and arrive in time to complete the first institute ahead of schedule. Next comes the challenge of restoring seventeen elementary schools scattered throughout the mission's villages. "The children couldn't study in collapsing buildings with no sanitation," Claudio recalls. "They risked accidents or disease amid floors full of holes and rusted corrugated roofs. In the village of Samaria, a tornado had reduced an entire wing to rubble—by a miracle, only a few children were slightly injured." The Alpine troops decide that within a few years, all the mission's schools would be rebuilt.
The visits became more frequent, and Claudio, who had enlisted his entire family in the effort, traveled to the village of Mwilamba in February 2010 to plan the school's restoration work. There, with his wife Nora, he encountered two cheerful children from the community. "The smaller one was carrying his classmate on his shoulders—both wore the same school uniform. I was struck by the joy in their eyes that I didn't notice the boy being carried had no legs," Claudio recalls. Only later did he learn the name and story of Ibrahimu.
During the coldest months, Father Camillo explains, families in the plateau villages heat their "njumba"—mud brick huts with a central hearth. On a particularly bitter night, Ibrahimu strayed too close to the flames. His clothes caught fire. Rushed to the nearest hospital, the European volunteer doctors could not prevent amputation; the damage to his lower limbs was beyond repair. A few years later, when Ibrahimu reached school age, he would have had to walk more than three kilometers to get to class. But his family could not afford proper transportation or a wheelchair suited to the rough mountain paths. It was Justo, Ibrahimu's playmate, who took on the task of carrying him each day, day after day, on his own shoulders.
"Faced with the sacrifices these children were making, we couldn't stand by and do nothing," Nora explains, her voice thick with emotion. "We arranged to have a custom wheelchair built for Ibrahimu so that when school reopened in September, he could finally attend classes."
That September the couple returned to Tanzania, this time with their granddaughter Noretta. "When we delivered the wheelchair, the rainy season had already begun. The vehicle, loaded onto the mission's pickup truck, could barely manage the red dirt tracks of the Tanzanian mountains. When we arrived at Justo's house, the boy had already set out with Ibrahimu toward school," Nora remembers, reliving the moment when the two wet figures emerged from the path. "As soon as the wheelchair was unloaded from the jeep, Ibrahimu, incredulous and disoriented, lit up—drawn by the bright colors of the fenders on his new chair. That asante sana (thank you so much) the boys said was worth every effort."
Today the Alpine troops of Bolzano continue to bring aid to Tanzania. Father Camillo has stepped back from leading the mission—now a parish—and handed it to Father Guido. But the Alpine soldiers remain focused on the schools, with special attention to children with physical disabilities who, having suffered injuries, cannot participate in the activities and experiences their peers share. And all because they cannot afford the equipment they need.