Day 13 – Strategy Workshop

For the last two days we have been participating in the Anglican Diocese of Tanga’s 3 day Strategic Planning workshop. The goals are 4 fold: deepen the understanding of the Diocese of Tanga’s mission; develop vision, mission, goals, activities, and effectiveness indicators; ensure shared/clear vision; and plan a way forward. The workshop is being held at St. Barnaba Christian college down the street from the diocese, and is being attended by educators, healthcare professionals, priests, and office staff from all of the diocese’s institutions in the Tanga region. Thus far, it has proved to be an interesting, and, against all odds, productive workshop, considering that we break for tea every 15 minutes. In the end, we hope that the diocese will have a refined vision, fully utilizing its resources in an effective and efficient manner to be a positive impact on its community.




Yesterday, we had the opportunity to visit a horticulture project near the Pangani river that runs south of Mandundu (New Korogwe), right behind the Korogwe Town Council’s office and the Anglican Diocese’s “Go-Down”. The project teaches good farming practices to youth and low-income farmers (most all farmers are low-income). Our visit, while informative, also appeared to be a propaganda campaign for a local political party as we later found out that our guide was the chair for one of the local parties. He was very happy to have us pose with him for a picture being taken by the photographer we picked up on the way to the garden! At least it appears that the project is having a positive impact on the community, and maybe, at some point, we will try to collaborate with the city on expanding and improving the project (the Korogwe Town Council (KTC) provided the land and planning for the project). Vote Chama Cha Mapinduzi, 2010!


Today, missing a portion of the workshop I attended two meetings at the Korogwe Town Council (KTC). Sam took one for the team, persevering at the Diocesan meeting for hours 6 through 10. My first meeting was with the Trade Officer for the Korogwe Distric Township. The officer expressed his support for the work The Korogwe Project hopes to do and added that there is a need for educating farmers on planting cash crops to sell in the market as opposed to planting only food crops and hoping that there will be a demand for them. Specifically, he mentioned that there is a demand for sunflowers that are later processed to make sunflower oil in a nearby district. In the future, Korogwe hopes to have its own processing plant, but for now producing more of the crop will initiate the first step toward that goal.


The second meeting was with the KTC’s economist, Renatus, who is currently preparing an investment profile for the district. Renatus provided information regarding proposed agribusiness opportunities in the area and offered to help our research by suggesting more opportunities as they came up. He also asked a number of questions about Obama and the current effects of climate change on the United States’ economy/environment. People in Tanzania often ask if the US is facing hardships similar to those they are experiencing. Frequently, the answer is, yes, we are facing similar problems. For instance, water shortages are a problem for subsistence farmers in Tanzania, but they are also plaguing farmers in parts of the Midwest that don’t have readily accessible water sources. The US uses far more fresh water each year than is available according the USGBC. This is a problem because it means we are rapidly depleting our freshwater sources, and in time, without change, we will have major problems. Problems that we think our localized to developing countries, but in reality, they plague the developed world where consumption far exceeds our production, resource efficiency, and conservation. We all have a lot of work to do.

As always, we want to give our thanks to those who are following our project and encouraging our success. We are so blessed to have this opportunity to experience community with the people of Korogwe, and to work together on projects that will facilitate opportunity and fight poverty. In such a short time, we have so much to share about our experience, and we hope that the adventure will continue to be as action packed and fulfilling as it has been thus far.

Take care,
Jesse & Sam