CWM Tanzania plays its role of bringing together Tanzania Catholic Workers of all walks of life under one umbrella for a full struggle towards renewal and invigoration of the neighborhood communities that usher the society towards wholeness living based on love, justice, peace and harmony while preserving catholic ecclesial identity.
The National movement was initiated in 2012 by the dioceses of Morogoro, Songea, Mbinga, Rulenge-Ngara, Bukoba and Dar es Salaam. The initiatives of this movement in taking the collective actions towards pursuing the positive social changes can be observed through;
I.Improving the spiritual morals of members through sharing deeply their Catholic values.
ii. To sensitize members always adhere to the Biblical call and teachings to work hard, forgive one another and reconciliation at work places.
iii. To educate members learn and acquire skills of relating with the laity, the clergy and the religious while at work for personal and collective spiritual and material development.
iv. To instill in members the sense of dignity by creating awareness on human rights, living and working conditions and ensuring they are recognized and respected.
HISA Program in Tanzania
HISA is one of the programs operated by the movement in Tanzania. HISA is an acronym for Household Investment Savings Association which means the unity for generating ideas and accumulating small investment capital for household’s enterprises in order to improve community, family and individual livelihood.
It started in 2014 in Rulenge-Ngara Diocese with small Christian Communities and disseminated into the Dioceses of Morogoro, Songea, Mbinga, Tanga, Bukoba and Dar es Salaam. There are more efforts for expansion to more parishes and sub parishes of members’ organizations.
HISA scheme is a program embracing a number of activities for capacity building of households that ranges from discovery of problems to performing a number of joint solutions based on joint savings that are accumulation of venture startup capital, creation of social security funds and ecclesial development fund.
HISA scheme is a tool of change for socio economic status of both; individuals as well as the entire community through creation of small but effective collective funds accessible by every member i.e. loan fund; social security fund and church development fund.
HISA scheme is meant to complement the wholeness living that is propagated by the church into its faithfulness. Through HISA all human needs of the poor workers gets some interventions.
(i) The physiological needs are provided through the savings and inter-lending among members for their identified investments to generate incomes both at individual level as well as at family level.
(ii) Spiritual needs are met through prayerful during the weekly encounter as well as voluntary contribution towards ecclesial development funds which provide for outgoing spiritual formation, new evangelization and general church development from the small Christian communities up to diocesan level.
(iii) In sociological needs the base groups are instructed to start and run special fund that cutter for social needs. It provides for social security nets for interventions whenever the group is forced by members’ needs and wants e.g burial ceremonies, medical attentions for members and other problems in the society. The fund also acts as seed money towards socio-economic projects for the entire base group. It is also a source of training fees for the group once they decide to outsource trainers from other NGOS or extension workers from the Government.
Through HISA many income generating activities are initiated. These activities are either managed individually or by the group. Such activities are soap making, agricultural activities, poultry keeping, piggery projects, diary keeping and many others initiated according to the wishes of members. The income obtained help the families to have some basic necessities including decent houses, paying the school fees for their children, healthy and balanced diet. Also the group is able to support the local churches in celebrations like ordinations, rehabilitations, assist the orphans, taking care of old people and unprivileged people with mental disabilities.
Testimonies
There are some success stories to show how CWM Tanzania has been the roof to the lives of our people in the communities. One member from the Diocese of Songea had the following to say;
….I took the loan of Tshs 300,000/- from our HISA group after investing Tshs 100,000/- in the group saving and qualify to get three times of savings. From that loan I managed to buy the cow.Luckly after one month I was able to get milk from it, whereby from daily sales of milk I was able to repay back the loan easily. I am now enjoying the milk and the income from daily sales of milk.
Another member from Morogoro Diocese had the following to share so as to appreciate the initiatives of CWM Tanzania;
………. “I really appreciate HISA because it has been useful to me. I am only a simple farm with small income from farm, small businesses and sometimes working as a casual labourer.I am having seven children. HISA has helped me to send all my children to school and be able to pay for their school fees and other things like uniforms, shoes and exercise books.Formely it was hard to get money for school that is why most of children in our village were left without taken to school”.
Organic Farming Program
Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soil, ecosystem and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects. Due to elimination of agrochemicals the products of organic cultivation system are assumed to have a higher health value and enhance soil biological activities. Organic farming is the best way to serve the poor farmers who uses a lot of money purchasing agrochemicals in their farms instead they use natural resources in fighting against pests in their crops and ensure the farming of quality products.
The project idea was developed in partnership between KAB Munich and CWM Morogoro in order to enhance members of CWM to have a more secure and higher income through organic farming. In doing that, we will be taking care of Mother Nature as asked by Pope Francis and be less dependent on imported fertilizers, pesticides and seeds.
The Program started with the following objectives;
1.Promoting organic agriculture by creating awareness to small holder farmers of CWM on their base groups
2.To conserve the environment through the use of natural resources which will results to the protection of land and water sources and balancing the ecosystem
3.Increasing healthier food security through sustainable organic agriculture to members of CWM
4.To create economic opportunities to CWM members where by individuals will be able to invest on agriculture and keep savings through HISA
5. To increase the productions of organic food mainly for selling it on local markets in Morogoro and neighbor districts. To reduce the burden to farmers who had to buy fertilizers and pesticides to deal with dying soil and to overcome diseases and pests resistance in the crops through the use of natural pesticides and fertilizers.
Farm Field Schools
Training on the basics of organic farming took place from 23rd April to 27th April 2018 at SAT Training center in Vianzi. Representatives from base groups attended the training for those days. Training included both theory and practical. At the end of the training members were given the certificate of appreciation for attending the training and provided with some materials about the subjects they were taught.
In all those days members were taught about introduction to organic farming, simple soil test, improving soil fertility, pests, diseases and weed management, budding and grafting of fruit trees, marketing, screen house farming and many more things. Facilitators from SAT also helped the members to prepare the work plan for the farm field school to each base group.
In the base groups some of the members have started practicing what they have learned in the farm field school to their individual farms because they were all encouraged to practice what they learn in their farms.
Achievements
Since, the priority of CWM Tanzania is to train its members to have a Christian approach of the lives of workers starting from the realities of the world of work, in reference to the social teaching of the Church. In this project members are engaging themselves on sustainable organic agriculture of crops, spices, vegetables and fruits according to the climatic condition of their area. We hope to expand the project to many base groups and member dioceses in Tanzania.
From the basic question on what is the situation with regards to access to housing in Tanzania. Generally speaking the condition is not yet good in as much as the standard of Hygiene is concern i.e. the floor, walls, ventilation, roof and basic sanitary infrastructure. However much of the efforts done through HISA Scheme as well as the Organic farming aim on improving the family income so as to enable them satisfy their basic needs where housing being among them. We have cases where our members have managed to construct at least better houses as could be captured here below. Though slowly we anticipate more transformation of our other members specifically peasants.
