Changing the Whole Community

“You outsiders cannot see any changes, but we know where we came from and where we are now.”

If your goal is to transform the living conditions for people in an entire community, what would be the most effective focus—Health? Agriculture? Economic activities? Support for widows and orphans?

All these are valid, but our most effective focus is leadership skills. It’s based on our understanding of the Tanzanian culture. While village leaders and elders are greatly valued and respected, their decisions are often top-down, unilateral, and miss the opportunity to engage the whole community for positive change.

We’ve had a different outcome in communities where our partner, the Africa Inland Church of Tanzania (AICT), is working. With funding from the Manitoba Council for International Cooperation (MCIC), World Renew, and two dioceses of AICT have been working with village leaders to equip them with new skills and awareness for effective community transformation. Here’s one example.

Kwikuba Village 
Kwikuba, a village of about 4,000 people, relies on subsistence agriculture. AICT Mara/Ukerewe Diocese (AICT MUD) has been working with World Renew in Kwikuba for the last five years to improve people’s lives, but most of the initial changes were among individuals and groups. This project has now achieved community-wide change.

Before the AICT/MCIC project

• According to the village leaders, many of the village members did not know how to use their available resources effectively including labour, land, and time. In most cases, people were lazy, only depending on subsistence agriculture and many of them would spend the whole day in nearby shops drinking the locally brewed alcohol.
• The leaders in Kwikuba were elected to their positions but received little or no training from the government about carrying out their duties. 
• Many farmers did not know proper agricultural practices. They scattered seeds and then just waited for them to grow. Weeding was not effective, and the crop yield was two or three bags per acre.
• Villagers did not value education. Many children looked after the livestock instead. Classrooms were made of sticks and mud with no desks or chairs.
• With only a poorly-constructed dispensary, residents depended on the district hospital that was 30 km away. They relied mainly on local herbs or some medicines that were available at a village shop.
• Their wells were only productive in the rainy season. During the rest of the year, the women walked a long way down the hill to get water each day. “Water in this village has been a big challenge,” said the Kwikuba chairperson.
• The people’s only cash income, from growing cotton, was very low. Poor methods and drought led to poor yields. After harvest, the men sold the cotton to get cash for school fees, health care, and alcohol. If this income was not enough for their needs, they would even sell some of their food crop, leaving their families without enough to eat.

• Teach leaders how to achieve community consensus on the issues that make life difficult.
• Teach skills to address the villager’s chosen issues, like planning or fundraising, or lobbying the government.
• Teach better farming practices.
• Teach business skills for income generating activities. 

"Now I don’t need to use strong efforts to mobilize our village. When I ask, they usually respond positively, and come on time." – The village chairman

The project has improved the livelihood of the people and development of the village. Neema, a village member, explains the difference. "The training in leadership skills has disempowered the local dictatorship — the leaders are now like our family members. We sit down and discuss development issues with them and then come up with a common agreement. Before, they would only come and say, let us do this and that." The village chairman agreed, saying, “Now I don’t need to use strong efforts to mobilize our village. When I ask, they usually respond positively, and come on time.”

• ​Crop cultivation now uses proper agricultural practices. They prepare their land in anticipation of the rain; when it rains, they plant the seeds in rows. The project also gave them access to better seeds and homemade fertilizer. Crop yields are now nine or < /span>more bags per acre—three times what they were getting before.
• Village members are now involved in almost every stage of development. Participatory planning was already being done to a limited extent, but the project has given them more skills, focus, and resources. The results include a strong sense of community ownership, a primary school, and a new dispensary.
• A typical village house consists of sticks, mud, and thatch. New income – generating activities and higher crop yields have led to improved livelihoods. “Now if you pass through our village, you’ll find that eight of ten houses are built of burnt bricks and are ironroofed. In the years to come you will not see any thatched roofs.” Another villager said, “Families used to have two meals per day, but they were not nutritious. Nowadays, some still have only two meals and others have three, but they are all more nutritious because we are eating vegetables.”
• “Chronic water shortages have been reduced by a new well that provides water throughout the year. The deep well was dug through a collaboration between AICT/MUD and the community on land donated by one of our members.Everyone came with stones and sand for construction. It is the community’s well and not someone’s private property,” said Mr. Wambura, chairman of all of the self-help groups in the village. 

​Now, Kwikuba aims to build a secondary school in 2014 so the children don’t have to walk to Mugango for their classes. This would reduce the risk to girls, who often ask for rides from strangers. Now you see what I mean by “Strengthen the leaders, strengthen the community!”

Praise God for empowered communities that recognize what they can do together for their future.

Pray for Tanzania

Chris Enns

Program Consultant
World Renew Tanzania

Image above: A deep-water well gives women and children more time for other activities