Introduction to the House of Peace and Love

The House of Peace and Love Project was conceived in 2002 as an orphans and disadvantaged children’s support initiative in the nation of Tanzania. The project’s founder, Elvis Paul Kimisha, is a native of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. In 2002, Elvis Kimisha was a second-year sculpture student at the Bagamoyo College of Art in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. Elvis Kimisha’s initial concept for the House of Peace and Love Project was an actual orphanage. His plan was to construct an institution—a dormitory building and home for Tanzanian orphans.

The story of the HPLP’s last four years is the story of its evolution. It is the story of two young project administrators (Elvis Kimisha and Jay Boss Rubin), two new projects (the House of Peace and Love and the Portland Challenge), and two distinct cities in two distant nations (Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, and Portland, Oregon, USA). The aim of this report is to summarize the course of the HPLP up until now, describe where the project is headed, and tell how it hopes to get there in the years to come. As of 2006, the HPLP is nearing the end of its beginning period as an initiative. Four years after its inception, the HPLP is an active development program that will become more versatile, more effective, more efficient, and farther-reaching in the years to come.