Letters From Tanzania

Ron & Linda Locke's House in Dodoma

Greetings from Dodoma, Tanzania. We arrived in Dodoma, via Dar es Salaam, on 28 May 2010. We were warmly welcomed, at a dinner, by the General Secretary (GS) and 10 staff members from the Christian Council of Tanzania (CCT). We were each given a piece of material which was wrapped around us to “Africanize” us.

The following week we attended a three day conference, where the CCT hosted 80 bishops from the different dioceses in Tanzania. Some of the CCT staff acted as translators for us as it was conducted in Kiswahili. A great deal of information was passed on and we were introduced to the group.

A couple of days were spent moving into our house and getting settled, and then we were off to Morogoro where we had two days to tour and discuss the CCT Morogoro Women’s Training Centre. It is a great facility which was inaugurated in 1979 by the CCT with funding support from the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (IODC) Netherlands. It had a larger hall and two more housing units built in 2003. It is used to bring women in from the surrounding villages, for about two weeks, for courses on how to better their lives. We had a brainstorming session with the director to develop a course to reduce occurrences of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), aimed at birthing assistants who do this procedure. We drew up a rough budget and will meet with Foreign Donor Agencies in an effort to secure funding. The second day, we met the Chaplin at the Sokoine University of Agriculture and had a tour of the CCT Chapel on the campus.

Two days home and we were off to Kibaya with the CCT Women Development, Children and Gender Programme Officer for a seminar on gender based violence presented to 40 teachers from remote villages. The schools were closed this week so teachers were free to come for the four days. It was quite an awakening to hear the horrific stories they told about the violence against women and girls in the communities they are from. However, it was very heart warming to see the teachers’ enthusiasm and dedication. They have a very important job and hopefully by reaching the children changes can be made in the future. Note: Teachers in Tanzania are paid 100,000 Tanzanian Shillings a month or approximately $70.50 Cdn.

While having dinner with one of our colleagues from CCT, who heads up the department for HIV/AIDS, we learned about an aids-affected family who is in need of help. The father died and relatives sold their home and possessions leaving the mother, who is handicapped and HIV positive, with 4 children. They live in a mud house loaned to them by a kind neighbour. The oldest son, Mzigo, goes to school and is doing very well in his studies considering the time he has available. He and his brother carry water for their neighbours in order to bring some money in for the family to live on. It was suggested that if they had some land that they owned, they could raise some goats, chickens and have a garden to earn money. We were approached by relatives in Canada, who have young children that want to give their birthday money to help children here. What a good place to put their money – purchasing a small parcel of farm land for this family!

During the same dinner the husband of our colleague, was relating his job to us. He heads up the Centre for Community Initiatives (CCI) whose mandate is to improve the living conditions in slum or shanty neighbourhoods. Ron had worked in Afghanistan, with an organization from Canada called “Light Up The World” so we’re connecting the two groups to see if they can work together to provide solar-powered LED lights in their improved homes.

Besides this, Ron heads up the Information and Communication Department at CCT and is becoming familiar with that position while Linda works in the financial department at CCT.