The activities of TCRS in Tanzania are shaped by a sincere desire to enable marginalized communities to enjoy fundamental human rights and empower them to achieve self-reliance along with a sustainable quality of life. “Empowerment” in this sense refers to the TCRS-facilitated process of awareness creation, capacity building, and training for marginalized members of rural communities and their local leaders, paving the way for those individuals to be the primary actors involved in improving their livelihoods. In other words, rather than imposing structures and temporarily providing material assistance through a top-down approach, TCRS believes that development programs are most effective and sustainable when local people and communities are given the responsibility for defining and directing their own development. Simply put, the TCRS Community Empowerment Programme (CEP) is one way of transforming the idea behind a simple Swahili proverb – usimpe mtu samaki, bila mfundishe kuvua samaki (don’t give a man a fish, but teach him how to fish) – into a development plan that has seen widespread success over the years.

Areas of Intervention & Participants

Since TCRS aims to work with the most disadvantaged members of rural communities and to assist individuals affected by refugee populations, poverty, refugee presence, and vulnerability to (or history of) disaster are the main criteria for selecting CEP intervention areas. Using the District Development Index (a tool developed by the Tanzanian Government to measure poverty and development) and institutional knowledge about refugee impacted locations, TCRS identified the seven districts of Karagwe, Kibondo, Kigoma, Kilwa, Kishapu, Morogoro, and Ngara as intervention areas. Then, working with local leaders and councils, the poorest villages from the poorest wards in those districts were selected as CEP target sites. The final step in the selection process – the enrolment of village leaders and marginalized individuals – is then accomplished through meetings with local leadership and comprehensive household surveys.

Empowerment Curriculum & Leadership Training

Each district’s CEP is staffed by a District Manager, Field Officer, Area Facilitators, and Volunteer Village animators who organize trainings for the enrolled individuals using the unique empowerment curriculum designed by TCRS. The first component of the course focuses on helping participants to become aware of their respective situations, analyze the causes of various hardships, and identify local resources that can help to alleviate these issues. Illiterate and innumerate beneficiaries are also invited to attend literacy lessons through the curriculum. During the subsequent components of the course, participants form groups based on common interests or situations and work with TCRS staff to develop and enact plans allowing them to put lessons learned in the classroom into action. Additional projects are undertaken as groups complete their initial plans and TCRS staff gradually phase out their involvement, eventually acting more as monitors than facilitators.

In addition to the empowerment curriculum, a leadership training program for village officials is also provided by TCRS. Like the empowerment course, the leadership program begins with a training component that then leads to a cycle of project planning and implementation and culminates in the execution of a 3-Year Rolling Development Plan.