Community Development in Tanzania

Program Title: Community Development in Tanzania
Academic Credits: 6 in Political Science
Location: Kayanga, Karagwe, Tanzania
Instructor: Eric Hartman
Dates: July 10 – August 7, 2008

Amizade Student Application (pdf)

This course provides an opportunity to serve small, local nonprofit organizations in Kayanga, Tanzania while critically analyzing the history of development efforts and better understanding the meaning and challenges of community development. Students prepare for the immersion experience by reading about development and its history, the region around Kayanga, and specific documents provided by our community partners that represent their work and experiences. Some, but by no means all, of those documents were developed through previous courses where students cooperated with local organizations to enhance evaluation and organizational materials.

The primary partner organizations are the Family Alliance for Cooperation and Development (FADECO) (www.fadeco.org) and the Women’s Emancipation and Development Agency (WOMEDA). During the summer 2007 course, students completed an evaluation of the sign-in book at WOMEDA and were able to determine that women who visit the organization for legal rights walk an average of twenty miles for that opportunity.

The academic portion of the course considers the history of development by examining modernization theory, state-driven development, the expansion of the nonprofit sector, and increasing efforts to scale-up small, community-driven organizations to meet larger and broader needs. Additionally, the global service-learning approach developed by Amizade ensures students the opportunity to consider these academic questions in light of tangible community experiences and service opportunities. Throughout the course, students will be challenged to identify ways in which their experiences in rural Tanzania will connect to and inform their individual approaches to global citizenship and ethics in their home communities.

The course and community partnership truly provides an opportunity to experience and begin to understand life in rural East Africa. The community partners are dynamic and innovative organizations that have been recognized for the profound value they contribute to the community by improving women’s rights and helping farmers and others improve their livelihoods. Students will walk on the same mountain trails as little girls who are carrying water back to their own homes, and then students will work with the organizations trying to better guarantee rights and opportunities for those girls.

After a three week immersion period in Kayanga, the students, instructor, and course facilitator will travel together to Dar es Salaam, where they will visit with and continue to learn from larger development organizations based there. The immersion portion of the course will officially end in Dar es Salaam, at which point the students will have the opportunity to choose to fly home or connect with tour options common in that region, such as Safaris or visits to Zanzibar.

Throughout the course students will be asked to draw upon experiences living and working in Karagwe, on the one hand, and academic texts and best practices regarding development, on the other. The challenge throughout will be to develop personal conclusions regarding development practice. The service and academic exposure will combine with intercultural experiences to create a forum for critical reflection on community-driven service, intercultural communication, global citizenship, and development itself.