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Tanzania Resource Pack

Tanzania, home of the Serengeti plains,19,340ft Mount Kilimanjaro and around 38 million people, is the largest of the East African nations, bordered by Mozambique, Malawi, and Zambia to the south, Zaire, Burundi, and Rwanda to the west and Uganda and Kenya to the north. . The United Republic of Tanzania was formed out of the union of two sovereign states: Tanganyika and Zanzibar on 26th April, 1964. Since gaining independence, the country has, like many African nations, experienced considerable strife accompanied by extremely weak economy. The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo between rebel soldiers and government forces has been raging since the mid 1990's and has taken around 3.3 million lives thus far: the largest number of casualties in war since World War II. Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing armed conflicts in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda have found refuge in western Tanzania. Currently about 500,000 refugees, including 125,000 Congolese, live in camps in this area, many under harsh conditions and separated from their families.

Since 2000, the Tanzanian economy has consistently achieved growth rates above 5% per year, up from an average of 3% per year in the late 1990s. The government implemented a Poverty Reduction Strategy in 2000 and continues to work towards poverty reduction. A huge portion of the Tanzanian people live in rural areas, with their economy and livelihoods being heavily based in agriculture. Many rural communities have no access to safe drinking water and, with so many rural communities in need, it is difficult for the government aid to reach them.

Volunteers will have the opportunity to work in one of two programmes, both focusing on care and general education of orphans and street children in two different regions of Tanzania: one in the former capital and one in a coastal town. As well as various forms of teaching and education including computer skills, English language and sports education, volunteers will act as a mother/father/sister/brother to street kids who have no family and are in need of care attention. With more than one million people infected with HIV, AIDS care and prevention have been major public health issues and volunteers will have the opportunity to be involved in education with the means of lowering this statistic.

"I left there feeling so emotional because of how little they have and how appreciative they are of life. Standing there, in their ripped second hand clothes, some smelling of urine and some with ring worm, they waved us goodbye and blew us kisses. It was all worth the trip!" - Karen Perez, Tanzania Volunteer

Easy Facts

For the Tanzania Easy Fact Sheet, click here.

Articles

Keeping the Faith: The Story of Tatu Shabani: http://www.volunteer.org.nz/media/articles/tatu.php.

Further Reading

Environment Key to Poverty Reduction in Tanzania, Blandina Cheche and David Howlett, The Environment Times: The National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (NSGRP) or Mkukuta as it is known in its Swahili acronym builds on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) of 2000, which was linked to debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). The Mkukuta represents a new, more comprehensive approach to poverty reduction. Although it is built on its predecessor, it differs in a number of key areas. In particular it pays greater attention to cross-the-board issues such as environmental sustainability that contribute to both poverty reduction and growth. http://www.environmenttimes.net/article.cfm?pageID=209

Tanzania Women's Pains of Poverty, Daniel Dickinson, BBC News, January 12th, 2004: A fan blows a gentle breeze across a women's ward in a hospital in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3382957.stm

Country Profile

For Tanzania's country profile, click here.

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