Share
RSS
Sustaining the Body and the Spirit in Eastern Africa
“I now know that God does love me and I have some chance of justice.”
These are the words of Mary, a 29-year-old mother of two from the village of Chicopelo in Tanzania. She spoke them just after attending a seminar supported by Episcopal Relief & Development on how to productively raise chickens and small animals.
This was a transformative moment for her and the other women present. Transformative in the material sense, because seminar participants gained tools and skills to better feed their families and generate income. But it was also transformative in the spiritual sense, because the women felt a sense of self-worth and empowerment for the first time ever. It gave them a kind of control they’d never had before.
That is the outcome Episcopal Relief & Development seeks to achieve through its partnership with the Diocese of Central Tanganyika to alleviate hunger and increase economic opportunity in this poverty-stricken region reeling from drought, famine and the global recession.
The work extends throughout a wide area covering more than 300 parishes and involves several different projects enabling communities to band together to produce the food and generate the income needed to improve their lives. The project Mary participated in is helping women keep their chickens healthy, in part by building chicken coops to keep the birds from running wild, where they often acquire deadly diseases. Women are banding together in groups of five, building a coop in one of their yards and keeping all their chickens there.
Already, they are seeing their chickens survive and thrive, leading to greater egg production, more food and new revenue.
Another project is helping farmers end their traditional practice of burning the stalks, leaves and husks that remain after harvest, instead leaving it on the fields to make them more fertile. This message is being communicated not only in special workshops and trainings but from the pulpit. As one minister told his congregation, “You attend church on Sunday and express your love for God, his creation, his land, and then on Monday you go and destroy his land.” But now, that’s no longer the case!
In neighboring Burundi, which is recovering from a 20-year-long civil war and afflicted with a high rate of HIV infection, Episcopal Relief & Development is partnering with six dioceses to make farming practices more sustainable and to incorporate proper planning practices. Farmers are being taught to build storage houses for drying potatoes in order to produce the seeds they will need for the next planting, with financing provided through micro-credit loans. They are also learning how to “harvest” clean water for drinking and other purposes through the construction of gutters and placement of barrels to catch the rain running off their roofs.
Positive results are already being felt, with less hunger, better planning and increased income as communities produce excess food that can be sold. As with Tanzania, the project is also empowering women by ensuring they play a central role in making decisions and implementing changes. As one program manager said, “Oh, they have a strong voice!”
