Community Adoption of Improved Agricultural Systems in Africa

TIAMOYO EMPOWER PROJECT INC STRATEGY DOCUMENT 2020

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Community Leadership Development

The precursor to economic development needs to be the empowerment of local village and religious leaders. This works best in stages. We have been involved in doing this for many years in Tanzania and have developed well proven strategies for training and empowering local leaders.

Empowered Worldview Training: Character and Integrity

This is a program developed by World Vision Tanzania and it now being used all over the developing world. It addresses the issues of Character and Integrity that hinder development. Many projects have failed because of character issues. People coming from tribal backgrounds need assistance and mentoring in a deeper way than just the adoption of some new technology or practice. They need to be able to identify malignancies and mindsets that have resisted progress in their communities, and they need the skills to enlarge their own personal capacity to be able to handle social and economic development, and to continue to effectively lead their communities through change.

Empowered Vision and Worldview

It propels the local leaders to expand their horizons of what is possible. In taking ownership of their present, it empowers them to dream of a better future for their communities and together to strategise how they can work together to see tangible improvements in their community.

Seed Project. To complete the training the local leaders have to nominate a ‘Seed Project’. That is they identify a real need in their community and design a strategy how they can all work together to meet the need. When the project is deemed a success, they graduate from the Empowered Worldview training. By this stage the local leaders already have a small committee and a chairperson. These are the most valuable people to us as it is their vision, and our goal should not be the ‘clever foreigners who come in and show them how to do it’, but our role is simply to serve them and empower them to fulfil the dreams that are in their heart.

Our Main Focus

Even though we are continuing to look for a large property as a base for our operations, our main focus is Tiers 1-3, as these represent the vast majority of the poor village farmers that we are wishing to assist. A permanent base would provide many opportunities for training and support of farmers and toward the long-term sustainability of the project.