The Overview of ICA Tanzania
Development Work in Tanzania

1. Strengthening ICA Tanzania and Participatory Local Development Programme in Handeni District.

ICA Tanzania supported by Misereor of Germany introduced this three year programme in Handeni District in October, 1999. The emphasis of this programme was on training local leaders on planning and leadership, share experiences, solve problems, and to discuss alternatives for the future.

Under this programme, 80 groups, district/ward/village leaders were trained in participatory development approaches and various exchange forums were organized.

2. The community empowerment on HIV/AIDS prevention and Economic Activities in Handeni/Kilindi Districts Project.

While implementing the above programme different issues facing the community were identified through observations, discussions with government officials as well as the community. Another three year programme was designed. This aimed at achieving the following:

Empowering the community’s response to the health situation in 5 village communities of Chanika Ward; to lead open dialogue on social issues (e.g. HIV/AIDS, gender, Alcoholism, land ownership) in Handeni/ Chanika ward; to improve the income situation of small scale of farming families in Handeni District by capacity building of self help groups; to improve Socio-economic living conditions of women in Handeni, to increase self determination and participation in civil society at community level and to train local leaders in elaborating analysis of village environmental conditions on a participatory bases and to develop adequate local approaches of problem solutions.

Through this programme, People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) support groups have been formed, village plans are being implemented on how to deal with the HIV/AIDS problem and 100 orphans have been supported in school needs.

3. Community Empowerment on Children’s Rights

This programme aims at contributing towards improvement of rights through reduction of practices that undermines the attainment of, “Say Yes to Children” as stipulated under United Nations (UN) conversion of April, 2001.

The programme will work in 20 villages and 25 primary schools in Kilindi District as well as 15 villages and 15 primary schools in Kilindi districts. For sustainability, ICA Tanzania will facilitate formation of functional children rights protection councils at village level and establish children rights protection committees at school levels.

4. Promotion of People’s Participation and Participatory Local Leadership and Planning in Development Projects.

Since the year 2000, Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) Tanzania in collaboration with Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) United Kingdom has been working with 20 specific community groups in Monduli district, including locations in Kisongo, Makuyuni and Manyara divisions. The area was originally chosen because few other organizations were working here despite the overwhelming vulnerability of the population, who are predominantly Maasai pastoralists.

After 18 months, the project had outstanding outcomes which led to the development of another three year programme called “Kisongo, Manyara and Makuyuni Divisions Integrated Development Programme.

5. Kisongo, Manyara and Makuyuni Divisions Integrated Development Programme

Its main goal was to continue to strengthen the economic and social status of the 20 groups and their families in 23 villages in the three divisions, to create awareness of health, environment conservation, legal literacy and illiteracy issues. In so doing, the programme continued to contribute to poverty eradication through local community empowerment. It undertakes to manage development from the grassroots level using the building block approach to reaching development aspirations and needs. The above programme addressed the following issues.

Inadequate skills in participatory Leadership; local Planning, Small Business and Credit Management:
One of the outstanding outcomes was an increased confidence of Maasai women in various arenas including income. Most of these businesses are profitable. 85% of Maasai Women in the groups organized through ICA Tanzania are now running small businesses. When ICA Tanzania began working in Monduli, very few Maasai Women were in business-groups. ICA’s presence, training and follow-up activities, have revitalized Maasai women to engage in income-generating activities, instead of depending on milk whose production is on the decrease due to drought and overgrazing.

HIV/AIDS Prevention Community Mobilization Initiative.
Maasai traditional sex practices, young boys from the Maasai community moving to towns to seek paying jobs due decrease of cattle as well as the changing socio-economic conditions, exposes to the community to being infected with HIV/AIDS. The communities in the rural areas need to be told the truth about this deadly disease.

This activity aimed at mobilizing the community members to become responsive on HIV/AIDS problem. HIV/AIDS community counsellors were trained, village plans were formulated which are being implemented. Counsellors are active in their villages counselling and taking care of the sick on a voluntary basis. Also the use of protective gear to reduce infection among people caring for PLWAS has increased.

Functional Literacy
The level of illiteracy in Monduli is very high. Based on the national literacy test and evaluation reports literacy rate in Monduli is around 34% of the population and for the Maasai community it is much less. Among the 5 Maasai women groups ICA Tanzania was working with, for example, only one or two individuals in each group could read or write.

Under this activity 60 functional teachers were trained from the community members and 11 (320 people) functional classes were ran for a period of 18 months. People who attended the functional classes can make informed decisions about participating fully in the general elections and voting for a candidate of their choice since they can read the names, something they could not do before and also can keep records of business transactions, read important documents including HIV/AIDS brochures. Before the programme intervention they could only communicate orally.

Reducing Health Risks for Mothers and Children from Indoor Air Pollution
It is estimated that the indoor air pollution (IAP) resulting from the use of biomass, inefficient stoves and poorly designed kitchens, to which women and children are particularly exposed, causes over two million deaths annually in developing countries .

Exposure to smoke form burning biomass fuels is linked by a strong and growing body of evidence to the incidence of a wide range of diseases including acute respirator, infections in children, chronic obstructive lung disease in adults, cancer, cataracts, blindness, low birth weight and TB. IAP is also strongly related to poverty, as poor people rely on biomass fuel and lack access to clean cooking and heating technologies. It is also linked to mother and child health as women and children are most exposed to indoor smoke, particularly in confined living spaces.

150 demonstration houses with indoor air pollution interventions have been built in Monduli districts, success of this project is observed in the requests of women to join the programme and the testimony of people living in hoses with interventions. Scientifically, the monitoring of reduction of smoke in Maasai done between ICA Tanzania, Intermediate Technology Development Group – East Africa and the University of Nairobi noted a tremendous reduction in indoor air pollution in Maasai traditional houses, though not at the World Health Organization standard.

Legal Literacy
Related to the low level of education, there is also a low level of legal literacy. in Monduli district. After the trade liberalization policy, there has been a move to increase agricultural activities and lessen pasture areas. Of late there has been an increase of squeezing pastoralists into areas that are non-viable for pastoral land use. Though customary land rights of pastoralist grazing land are still widely recognized, but they give no protection against claims of agriculturists. Therefore, the situation of land tenure in Monduli is one of the conflicts between the original Maasai population and what they see as, “intruders” on their land. Besides unawareness about their land rights, most of the people in Monduli do not know about their legal rights as stated in the constitution, the laws of Tanzania, or regional and international instruments that Tanzania is party to.

For women, development and human rights are closely linked. Development has to be placed squarely within the human rights framework if it is to be sustainable, equitable and democratic. A more holistic human rights approach to development will avoid the pitfalls of past development projects that have come to naught in many instances.

The activity has been an eye opener to most of the people even ward and village leaders on legal right s education. The ICA Tanzania legal aid clinic is providing legal services to community members, particularly women and children in fighting for their property rights after the death of the husband/children.

Low levels of financial capital and business skills
The traditional way of accumulating wealth amongst the pastoralist community is through building up their herds of cattle. With the recent droughts, and a growing recognition for the need to diversify their income generating activities, this traditional form of saving is seen as inadequate.

Members of the women groups whom ICA Tanzania is targeting have no access to credit facilities from financial institutions as they lack the necessary collateral to stake in commercial banks.

At the moment some of the groups have been registered as SACCOS and one of them is targeting to become a village bank.

6. YOUTH AS FACILITATIVE LEADERS (YOUTH & HIV/AIDS) PROGRAMME.

This programme aims at creating awareness of youth as facilitative leaders. Youth should become agents of development change instead of being targets of those changes. In this programme youths are trained in participatory leadership and planning skills. Also, they are lead into identifying their responsibility in combating the current number one youth enemy, i.e. HIV/AIDS which is related to drug and alcohol abuse.

Clubs are formed to ensure that, the gained knowledge is distributed to others and is sustained.