BUMACO LTD

Thinking about Faith and Development – Insights from Tanzania following Lutheran World Federation (LWF) ‘s #MaranguConference

by Bumaco LTD on 05/25/15

Since we started offering consultancy services in 1981, one group of our major clients has been faith institutions in Tanzania and the whole region of Africa. This is because faith institutions are the key development partners in Africa. They are at the forefront in the fight against poverty. As a management consultancy firm that works towards development, we have been close to these institutions in various capacities including training, development project formulations, monitoring and evaluation, strategic planning, and capacity building.

From 19^th to 24^th May 2015, there was a big regional conference for all Lutherans from Africa. The Conference titled - Marangu Conference - commemorated 60 years after the first Lutheran Conference in Africa (1955), which was held in Marangu, a village on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The Conference was organized by the Lutheran World Federation and hosted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania. Our Managing Director, Mr. Clement Kwayu, was one of the hosting committee members. The Conference brought hundreds of people from different countries in Africa and outside Africa to Kilimanjaro. It provided opportunity to share experience and talk about issues in Africa.

These issues included diseases such as Ebola, terrorism, and other threats to peace. The need to join efforts in eradicating poverty and fighting traditional and new enemies could no further be emphasized. The participants discussed the role of the church in countering these issues in Africa as well as to ensure peace and stability in the region.

The Lutheran Church in Tanzania is an example of the ability, willingness, and capacity of the church in pushing development in Africa. With 24 major hospitals across the country, and hundreds of dispensaries and health centers, the church provides 15% of health care services in Tanzania. The church also owns hundreds secondary schools in the country and the second biggest University in the country- Tumaini- with various constituent colleges across the country offering various courses including medicine, pharmacy, law, theology, education, and business studies.

In addition, the church runs income-generating businesses such as banks, bookstores, buildings for office rents, hotels and conference centers. In this way, it has provided employment to hundred thousands of people in the country.

For such reasons, we, at BUMACO, are very proud to have worked closely with the Lutheran Church together with other Churches in Tanzania and Africa towards fighting poverty. We have, with favorable rates due to their charity nature, provided management and other expertise services to church organizations so as they can be more effective and efficient.

Literatures emanating from the World Bank and other donor agencies together with academic analyses have proven that faith institutions are key to development in Africa and crucial partners in fighting poverty. We will keep walking together with them until we realize the light that Africa is!

BUMACO- The Light To Manage!

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Promoting Local Tourism along with the economic benefits of Mount Kilimanjaro - By Shirumisha Kwayu

by Bumaco LTD on 05/20/14

Towards promoting local tourism, the Kilimanjaro National Park (KINAPA) has waived park fees for local people. As a result, various institutions organize day trips for its employees and their families to climb the Mountain for a day. This means covering one or two stops maximum. Usually to reach the pick, one needs at least 5 days of climbing and coming down. Well, so I last week I joined a group of local people hiking the Mountain through Lemosho route for a day. The hike started from Shira plateau to Shira 2 camp. The trip was invaluable as I saw (by my eyes) many economic benefits of the mountain. So in this brief entry, I will share my experience with little analysis to what I saw.

We started the trip in Moshi town around 7:30 am. Before the bus started to move, our guide announced “here (Moshi town) your on 800 meters above the sea level, today you’re going to be on altitude of 3800 meters above the sea level! If you have not been on an airplane before, this is almost the same, the difference is that in the plane you’re on an air condition but there will be real.” The guide had much rhetoric similar to this throughout the trip. Such included phrases like “these species are only found here and may be in some part of America, or Norway.” These phrases were meant to encourage us all and to show the uniqueness and worthiness of climbing the Mountain. Although clouds covered the mountain peak, the changing picturesque as we were gradually ascending from Moshi town to Shira plateau and then Shira 2 is a living testimony explaining why the mountain gets on the list of the Seven Wonders of the World. These scenic views that brings together all types of biomass in the world (rainforest, savanna, desert, and temperate, etc) attract hundreds of thousands of tourists in the area. Tourism, without much explanation to it, has significant positive effect into Tanzania’s economy. Apart from being one of the main sources of foreign currency, it has multiplier effect penetrating to each household around Kilimanjaro region as well as the country in general.

Moshi is a town of Mt Kilimanjaro. It’s a business town generated by agriculture and tourism. Under the slopes and in lowland areas of the mountain, there are enormous trading activities going on. Coffee as a cash crop has been going hand in hand with tourism. In fact, Moshi is the only town in the country that hosts an international coffee auction every week. People in Moshi have diversified their agricultural products by making use of the fertile soil on the slopes of the mountain. While ascending towards the mountain, one observes markets for food products and relatively intensive farming taking place. In West Kilimanjaro you see both peasants and large-scale farming by investors. The negative thing about large investors is that they distract animals’ habitation. For instance, elephants that migrate from Kenya to West Kilimanjaro are prevented from doing so for a contemptible reason that they destroying crops. The investors assemble tractors with sharp light rays on to divert elephants as they confuse the lights with fire. Although, the large scale farming in the area provides employment and income to women and youths, the benefits of keeping the animal’s natural habitation outweighs the farming benefits.

On their side, KINAPA has practiced agroforestry in the lowland of Mount Kilimanjaro. They have planted trees and in-between they allow local people to plant carrots and potatoes. This type of farming is impressive as the trees influence the climate of the region and farming ensure food security. This type of farming is very important as it generates local and international trade. The timber is exported to other countries such as China while the food crops are traded to other regions within the country. This type of farming further stimulates other sectors such as transport and industrial sector.

To conclude, it is 100% fair to say that Kilimanjaro is a natural gift to the people around it and the world in general. It provides significant benefits to its residents and people across the world. The area has a lot more potential for various areas of interests. For instance research centers could be established in the areas doing various studies including agriculture, ecology, tourism, and business. The region could be turned to the peak of education in Africa. Historians, geographers, botanist, economist and many other scholars have a lot to learn from the mountain.

To this end, BUMACO with support from the CORDAID-Netherlands, started to train youths in rural Kilimanjaro (Hai District) in mountaineering skills. The aim is to enable these youths to tap into the tourism industry and gain economic benefits. The mountain can employ every single youth around as guide, porter, farmer, etc. At BUMACO we also train youths and women in handicraft so they can make souvenirs for locals and tourists. What these youths need is skills and the right attitude.

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Engaging the community at solving education issues at local level in Tanzania - By Shirumisha Kwayu

by Bumaco LTD on 05/10/14

There are significant improvements in education sector of Tanzania particularly in achieving universal primary education. From 2001 Tanzania waived primary school fees. This one factor has enabled the country to achieve the Millennium Development Goal 2 by 93% (World Bank, 2012). The expansion of education has contributed to the rise of primary education enrollment but also raised questions about the quality of education provided. This blog post is going to point out the challenges facing education sector at local level in Tanzania. It is about ground experience in a rural ward (Machame North B- in Kilimanjaro Hai District) meeting with one agenda- education school. The meeting included teachers, local councilor, district education officers, village government, school committees, and members of the public. The aim of the meeting was to discuss issues in the village schools. The motivation for such a crucial meeting stem from the poor standard seven results.

One of the impressing things of the meeting is that, the community at large knew the issues of education and their school. This was evident from the contribution and in general discussions. Below I will discuss some of the issues that were pointed out:

Inadequate food: It was pointed pupils are not fed properly at home and in school. Lack of food to children is the main cause for deterioration of education. They cannot concentrate. The problem starts at home when they do not eat properly or at all, and when they get to food is also scarce or unavailable. The reasons for the lack of food include social-economic changes, which are taking place such as women going to work very early in the morning hence children find no one to feed them in the morning before they go to school. Also, some parents have been reluctant to contribute for the school lunch.

Poor relation among parents, teacher and pupils: the relationship among these three key stakeholders has deteriorated causing a major setback in the quality of education provided. Parents have failed to give teachers enough support to enable them to deliver their duty to students; instead parents have been demoralizing teachers by aligning with pupils to attack teachers when they do their responsibility. Furthermore, the fact that parents align with pupils encourages truancy. This discourages teachers. It kills their motivation hence leading to poor delivery of quality education.

Inadequacy of funds and materials: This hampers provisions of teaching aids, training and seminars for teachers, books, sports facilities, water, and electricity. The lack of sport facilities, for example, makes pupils dormant and inactive in and out of the class. Lack of teachers training and seminars makes teaching difficult especially on new subjects such as ICT where teachers need to be constantly trained considering the consequent pedagogical implications of ICT.

Another aim of the meeting was to discuss ways through which the community will raise standard and quality of education. Members of the meeting came up with the following recommendations:

Food plan: in order to curb the food problem community members came up with a food plan that will enable pupils to have sufficient food throughout the year. They decided to make enough storage for each school in the locality that will be enough to store food to the next season of harvest. They also decided that food will be collected during the harvest period instead of collecting during the start of the year when there is shortage of food. Also during the harvest period the food prices are low and hence it cheaper for parents to contribute food for schools.

Disciplining parents: the meeting made a resolution that all non-committal parents should be summoned by the village government for disciplinary sessions. This resolution focused more on the root cause (parent) who also has the power to change things rather than punishing a pupil who is often not in control of his/her problem. A pupil, for example, should not be suspended out of class or sessions because his/her parents failed to supply exercise books or other related payments. The resolution came about after discovering that troublesome parents are not the poorest. This resolution takes the burden away from the teacher and pupil and places it upon the parent and the local government. Thus the teacher and pupil can concentrate on education.

Public education: lastly the meeting agreed to have public education for adults and parents on the importance of education and their role in enhancing education quality in the locality. This measure will be instrumental in dealing with ignorance of parents, and community members. The value of education will never be the same when this education goes to the public members of the local community.

To sum up, challenges facing education at local level in Tanzania can be alleviated by the community. The community only needs mobilization and leadership. Such meetings enable them to change perception, which is often the single most important change agent. Yes, the government can say primary education is free, but education is an expensive commodity. The fact that there are no fees should not be the reason for people not to contribute for the education of their children. People should contribute as much as they can so as to share the cost of education. This can be done through adequate food contribution, learning materials and teaching aid, sports facilities, among other related education needs. If community contributes, people’s hearts will be on education since they will have stored their treasures on it.

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