Tanzania

KIUMA - a project in Tanzania’s underdeveloped south

In 1995 the medical practitioner Dr. Matomora KS Matomora left his safe job at the University of Heidelberg. He returned to his Tanzanian homeland of Matemanga in the Tunduru District, where he had grown up. What he brought back with him was a “Public Health” concept for this underdeveloped region. The target: to create public and social structures, which enable the healthy development of the people living there - a massive task in the strip of barren bush land, stretching over an area, which is 100 kilometres long.

Until Dr. Matomora arrived, the ca. 300,000 people living there felt literally deserted by God and the world. The region belongs to the poorest in the country and even during the dry season it can only reached with great effort via a dirt road, the main highway of the south. The locals lived as small farmers from the harvest the poor soil provided. Hunger – dependant on the seasons and the amount of rain during the wet season – was a frequent visitor; the medical care provided by an ill-equipped health clinic was rather inadequate. Whilst during the nineties, a certain level of development was perceptible in other parts of Tanzania, the situation in the Tunduru district got decisively worse.

In 1996, with the assistance of wortundtat, Dr. Matomora started the project KIUMA, the abbreviation for Kanisa la Upendo wa Kristo Masihi – Kituo cha Elimu na Maendeleo (in German: Church of the Love of Christ – Community Centre for Education and Development Promotion). Since then a lot has changed. The people are once again nourishing hope and joy has returned to their huts – on the one hand by spreading the Gospel and by concrete aid projects on the other, in particular in the areas of responsibility mentioned below. Thanks to the support of Dr. Matomora and wortundtat, the people are increasingly more successful in standing on their own two feet. An overview:

Schooling and vocational training

• Secondary school
• Two-year training courses in vocational training colleges
• Nursery training colleges

Medical aid

• Clinic with 70 beds for basic care

Agricultural centrey

• Shop for agricultural tools and materials
• Training courses for farmers

A review of the year 2008

Extension of the school

The “KIUMA Secondary school BONITA” has taken a further step. Last year it was officially registered as a high school. Now pupils who have completed their first four school years can also be taught at secondary level.

Vocational and teacher training 

In June 2008, the new vocational training centre was opened in the presence of the Tanzanian Minister for Education and Vocational Training Jumanne Maghembe. The centre now provides equipment for drilling, sawing, grinding, milling, planning, welding and lathing. The centre is particular proud of its grinding and edging workshop for hacksaw blades, mills and other tools. The people in the surrounding area are also able to get their tools repaired or sharpened in KIUMA. In addition, the craftsmen centre enables the best - after passing their final exams - to train at the machines.

The foundation centre for the Ruth Deichmann Teachers Training College was also laid in June 2008. It was named in memory of the wife of the wortundtat founder Dr. Heinz-Horst Deichmann, who passed away in 2007. The Tanzanian government participates among others by constructing some of the buildings and making building materials available. The project is very important for the region, as teachers in Tanzania are scarce, in particular in such a remote and isolated district like Tunduru: qualified teachers prefer the well developed north of the country over the underdeveloped south. Apart from that, by providing the Teachers Training College, KIUMA gives the people of the Tunduru district the opportunity of a better and targeted education.

Spiritual life

For over ten years, KIUMA has maintained the contact to the surrounding Christian communities. The members of staff provide help in word and in deed. In the meantime, the people in Matemanga have come to trust their helpers and gratefully accept their help for helping themselves. They are increasingly opening themselves to the Gospel, which is shown and brought closer to them by KIUMA. Many people have been publically baptized and have become Christians. In the last two years, 30 new small communities have been created in the villages in the working region of KIUMA.

New territory

80 % of the inhabitants of Tunduru belong to the minority ethnic community of the WaYao. They are strict Muslims. Unfortunately, until now the people of this ethnic group have hardly participated in governmental tasks in Tanzania, as they are extremely critical of education and progress – definitely a reason why the Tunduru district is so underdeveloped. The traditional authorities and leaders of the WaYao, the Sultans, however, have now decided that they want to improve the living conditions of the people for whom they are responsible. They visited KIUMA in September 2006 to get an impression of the projects in their direct vicinity of which they had heard so many good things. In June 2008 they invited the men behind this successful and beneficial work: Dr. Heinz-Horst Deichmann and Dr. Matomora came to Kidodoma, the residence of the most important Sultan. In doing so they opened the doors for KIUMA throughout Tunduru. Then they asked the residents to accept and use the educational and aid offers of KIUMA, even if it is a Christian missionary project. Religion was a personal matter and no obstacle for progress in the region, said the Sultans. They asked the WaYao to use the educational opportunities provided by KIUMA and to have their children educated in KIUMA.