Tanzania: ESAT


Enriching Skills and Action Research Tanzania (ESAT)

ESAT is the lead GAMEchangeNetwork partner in Tanzania developing and implementing empowerment methodologies as a central element in their work.

https://www.facebook.com/esatanzania/

ESAT is an non-profit organisation founded in 2014 by Grace Murungi and Charles Kainkwa. It promotes ‘sustainable development in a society through community led innovative ideas ie: action research, capacity building and advocacy. ESAT envisage equal and fair community with enough knowledge, awareness of decisions they make and skills to achieve sustainable development’.

GALSatScale

Grace Murungi and Charles Kainkwa were the Tanzanian lead team working with Linda Mayoux for development of the Happy Family Happy Coffee methodology in Tanzania, together with champions in Vuasu Cooperative Union in Kilimanjaro District and champions from staff and farmer cooperatives of Tutunze and CMS in Mbinga District. This was part of the Coffee Partnership of Tanzania initiative implemented by Hivos, co-funded by Hivos and Tutunze Kahawa Ltd and Armajaro, with global consultant Linda Mayoux.

This process consisted of:

  • Catalyst workshop 21st-26th October 2013 for 20 champions from 5 Primary Societies: Bwambo, Chome, Gandu, Vuchama and Raa.
  • Vuasu Community Workshops October/November 2013 in Bwambo, Gandu, Chome, Raa and Vuchama villages.
  • Same Champions Exchange Workshop, 7th – 16th February 2016 The main objective was to share visions, strategies and experiences for promoting gender justice between different approaches and partners working in coffee in East Africa and come to an aligned approach, strategy and concrete action for CPT and 4@Scale and possibly other programs. Participants were representatives from ECOM, Armajaro, FaidaMali, Tanzania Domestic Biogas Program, AbiTrust, Africa Finest Coffee Association, DEG and Hivos staff. 10 TKL – ECOM champions (5 men and 5 women) and 2 from CMS – Armajaro were also invited.
  • VUASU organisational planning workshop, February 2013 Just before the exchange workshop, but feeding in to it, there was a half-day organisational visioning and planning workshop with the Vuasu Union Board and staff.
    An Organisational Planning Workshop was held for the Vuasu Board in February 2013, facilitated by Linda Mayoux and Grace Murungi.  This half day workshop was attended by all the members of the Vuasu Union Board (currently all-male) and three Vuasu staff.   This decided that a key aim of Vuasu in order to increase its membership and sustainability it was necessary to increase women’s membership and representation on the Board of both the Primary Cooperatives and the Union.
  • VUASU Review and Livelihoods and Leadership Strengthening Workshop July 2014 The Vuasu Review and Livelihoods and Leadership Strenghthening Workshop was a 3 day workshop co-funded by Hivos (for the review and livelihoods) and Tutunze Kahawa Limited (for leadership and governance). This was the first workshop after the withdrawal of Tutunze’s commercial operations in Kilimanjaro and was intended as a workshop to strengthen the capacity of the Vuasu GALS champions to continue the GALS process independently from TKL.

In Kilimanjaro by February 2015 (ie within 16 months)  1531 people had been trained in GALS (806 men and 725 female) by the initial 20 champions through the voluntary pyramid peer sharing process – first champions train at least 5, those 5 then train a further 5 and so on. Farmers were using the GALS Vision Journey tool to increase their coffee production as a means to attain goals, such as increasing savings, educating their children and diversifying income generating activities.The five cooperatives involved increased coffee production by 9% and income by 12% in the 2013/4 coffee season. These farmers accounted for 62% of the total coffee deliveries to the union. Agricultural and domestic work was more equally shared in these households; families decide jointly on the use of coffee income. More than 200 men and women were planning joint land agreements.

At the Cooperative Union level the five primary societies and the union were assisted to develop a gender balanced vision, and identify characteristics of good membership and leadership and a vision journey plan that they are in the process of implementing for increasing women’s membership and board members.  The Vision Journey developed by the Board in follow-up meetings specifies a timetable for promoting cooperative membership for women. Practical measures include sending personal letters of invitation to wives as well as husbands. And removing any barriers to multiple household memberships in the cooperative. By 2016 at least three of the original champions had been elected to leadership positions.

Linkage with Local Government: Same DistrictCouncil July 2014

A team of 6 (3 male and 3 female) champions from 4 cooperatives together with Grace, Linda and Elisante (VUASU operations manager) paid a visit to Same District Agricultural and cooperatives Officer) and District coffee subject matter specialist.

Vuasu subsequently received support from TWIN UK and Hivos using GALS to strengthen coffee production, livelihoods and the cooperative governance.

See http://www.twin.org.uk/projects/supporting-coffee-business-in-tanzania/

CMS Ngima

The GALS process in Ngima was led by Coffee Management Services Ltd (now part of Ecom Trading) as part of Hivos Coffee Partnership for Tanzania, starting  in November 2013.

The process in Ngima and Ilela consisted of:

  • CMS Mbinga Catalyst Workshop November 2013 facilitated by Linda Mayoux and Charles Kainkwa with 2 champions from Bukonzo Joint (Asasio Balitebya and Doviko Walina). The catalyst workshop trained 25 champions – 13 male & 12 female (15 staff and 10 farmers) in the Vision Journey and Gender Balance Tree. There was also a brief introduction to the Empowerment Leadership Map and Challenge Action Tree for the staff.
  • Ngima Community Workshop November 2013 As part of the Catalyst workshop there was a half day community workshop in Ngima. The community workshop was organized by the champions who brought a further 12 women and 21 men and introduced the Vision Journey.
  • Champion exchange workshop Same, February 2014:
    In February 2014, two of the  CMS staff (Joseph Mbepera and Lucas Ndunguru) attended the Gender Strategies for East Africa workshop in Same. There they met champions from Kilimanjaro and reviewed the basic tools including the Empowerment Leadership Map and Challenge Action Tree and were introduced to the Coffee Tree. After their return, they  introduced the tools to other CMS staff. Joseph started sharing the tools with the community in Ngima and set up Upendo Savings and Credit Group and TAG Church groups. Lucas introduced GALS to other people in Mbinga town where he lives including the school.
  • Ngima GALS Review June 2014 by Linda Mayoux (lead consultant) and Charles Kainkwa (Hivos CPT Coordinator) to look at achievements, challenges and lessons for future in Ngima village between November 2013 and June 2014. The review included four meetings of 2 to 4 hours with champions and new people focusing on facilitation skills and Gender Balance Tree. Charles interviewed the original 10 champions in Ngima

The review found that the champions had been making significant progress towards their original visions. Through the visioning champions have bigger ambitions for themselves and more visibility in the community. This has led indirectly to their getting employment, being a member of primary school committee etc.

The gender balance tree needed reinforcement and greater explanation. Nevertheless, whereas previously men thought they owned all the property. Now they think all property is owned equally.

Outreach was also significant with very little funding. Of the original 12 champions, 2 had moved out of the area. The 10 remaining champions had shared the GALS methodology with 471 other people. 40 people had started Upendo Savings and Credit Group. And a new group at the TAG church had also just formed.