TANZANIA

Danmission has had a presence in Tanzania since 1948 when our first cooperation, with ELCT (the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania), was initiated.

Danmission’s local partner organisations in Tanzania have developed strategies and increased their capacity to resolve conflicts and build peace at the community, village and ward levels. Likewise, our partners are now increasingly cooperating with other local and international NGOs, as well as with local government, to reduce the levels of conflict.

Rights-based conflicts over land demarcations, as well as women’s and children’s rights issues, have surfaced in rural Kagera. A lack of participation and a lack of knowledge of rights go hand in hand with increased lack of improved economic development. Establishing platforms for economic, social and political participation is therefore a focal point for Danmission and our partners in Tanzania.

Danmission’s poverty reduction programme in Tanzania is based on the following strategies aimed at reducing poverty and strengthening civil society:

• Promoting advocacy activities as a strategic component in the dioceses
• Increasing participation in networks and greater cooperation with strategic partners
• Establishing community-based human rights committees, with a specific focus on women’s and children’s rights
• Training of grassroots mediators, as well as duty bearers, in conflict resolution and peacebuilding
• Establishing community-based cross-religious dialogue committees
• Promoting public-private partnerships at district level for the provision of education (for boys and girls)
• Establishing children clubs to promote life skills training for boys and girls
• Establishing Village Savings and Loans Associations that improve opportunities for local populations to secure increased incomes
• Working for improved levels of accountability and responsiveness in public development plans at ward and district level
• Promoting an increase in the allocation of land to women landowners at community level, and a change in property rights practises
• Promoting progressive national dialogue on the issue of land rights, including the government, CSOs and faith-based organisations
• Promoting increased use of improved farming strategies to strengthen climate change resilience at community level

As in many other countries Tanzania is fighting poor management on all levels of society and this is also the case within the church. The stewardship programme is trying to improve the economy of the church by stressing the responsibility that each individual member of the church must carry in order for the entire church to prosper. Courses in stewardship have been run for evangelists, pastors and heads of church councils in each parish and one person in each parish has been taught the fundamentals of stewardship in order to reach out to all of the 105 congregations in Mabira and Murongo deaneries.

The Sunday School work has improved over the last years as efforts to strengthen the capacity of the teachers and to raise the general awareness of the importance of children’s education have been successful.

Theological education

Danmission is supporting the education of evangelists and pastors in KAD, NWD and SELVD through Ruhija and Nkwenda bible schools. The need for well-educated pastors is great and especially in SELVD, where the church is growing. There are currently 40 parishes in the diocese; however, several of them are without trained pastors. Since the demand for foundational faith teaching is so high, Danmission is also supporting projects that seek to satisfy that demand.

Diakonia

Danmission also supports the Diakonia department of KAD, which teaches the diakonia committees in the local church congregations. The focus here is on sound procedures for handling and distributing funds and gifts within the congregations and how to report back satisfactorily.

Dialogue

In Zanzibar, Danmission is partnering with the interfaith dialogue centre Zanzic, which held an epoch-making national dialogue conference in 2014 that brought together 100 religious leaders from Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania. In the wake of the conference, 200 madrasa teachers were taught the principles of interfaith dialogue and a curriculum for a diploma course in intercultural relations is currently awaiting its final approval from the Tanzanian department of education.

On Zanzibar, Danmission is also running the sewing school Upendo, which is a project that gathers Christian and Muslim women together to teach them how to sew, so that they can help improve the financial situation of their families. They also learn how to talk and work together, however, in a culture in which religious violence is not unknown.