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Mothers’ Union Tanzania embark on exciting new partnership for country-wide transformation
In the latter part of 2017, the Tanzanian Mothers’ Union team began an exciting programme in order to support the Anglican Church of Tanzania (ACT) in realising their vision of spiritual and socio-economic transformation across the country.
The ‘Vicoba’ programme merges two approaches (Church and Community Mobilisation (CCM) with Village Savings and Loans (VSL) groups) which aim to support churches and dioceses in mobilising their own resources to bring change from within their communities. The first year of the programme was a huge success with savings group members across 13 dioceses saving over £32,000, some of which has helped to pay for church improvements and community initiatives.
This year, Tanzania MU are are taking the programme a step further by embarking on an exciting partnership with Tearfund Tanzania. This is in order to combine Tearfund’s experience and technical expertise in CCM/VSL with MU’s already established, deep-rooted and trusted position within communities across the whole country. The new approach has been rebranded as ‘ACT MU Pamoja’ and aims to bring the process to communities spreading across all five zones of Tanzania.
In order to undertake this work, five ‘Zonal Coordinators’ have been especially selected by the MU Tanzania team for their skill and experience in community work, resource mobilisation and/or savings and credit initiatives. These five MU workers will each partner with a Tearfund ‘counterpart’ who will provide them with technical support. The MU and Tearfund workers have had their initial training together and are already establishing effective working relationships.
In the first year the Pamoja programme will be taken to 11 dioceses, with the aim of establishing 480 Pamoja groups with a projected beneficiary count of 9,600 people (which, due to the average family size in Tanzania, can be multiplied by approximately 5 to get the indirect beneficiary number). We will continue to update our website with the progress of these groups, the savings figures and the changes this has made in the lives of group members, their families and their communities.
Let us Pray
Please join us in praying that God will bring strength and wisdom to our Tanzanian MU team and Tearfund partners during this busy, early implementation stage and that he will continue to guide them through the process in order to bring the results He desires. Amen