The Mukuni Environmental, Cultural and Economic Development Trust (MDT) was formed in 1998. It acts as a legal vehicle that aims to raise funds from local resources and use these funds for the betterment of the local people.

Volunteer Zambia has a lease agreement on one piece of land where we run a tourism activity and we have a second agreement with the trust where we pay a percentage of our turnover. In total Volunteer Zambia and our related companies paid over US$12,000 to the MDT in 2007.

Volunteer Zambia has been given 2 hectares of land on the outskirts of the village to develop into a cultural and tourism centre where the manufacture of local printed fabric can take place and tourist can see the manufacture of the items and purchase them from the shop. Such arrangements give the village a viable income where the land is not suitable for cultivation; Tourism has become the community's main source of income and Volunteer Zambia is working with the MDT to help the village realise their full potential. Development on the village site will start in 2009.

Chief Mukuni has been instrumental in tying the village and Volunteer Zambia together and he works tirelessly to promote the village and its people. Chief Mukuni was born in June 1948. His first formal school was Mukuni primary. He then enrolled for priesthood in 1964-65 at Mpima mini-seminary. He later completed secondary school in 1967 at Hillcrest secondary in Zambia.

Having passed, he started working for the then Northern Rhodesian government, now Zambia, as an accounts clerk under the provincial secretary. He later joined British Petroleum and Shell in 1967 as a clerk but doing part-time studies at the University of Zambia. In 1980 he graduated with a BA honors in economics and continued working for BP and Shell until 1987.