Company Profile

Company Description:

Africare’s History in Tanzania

Africare opened its doors in Tanzania in 1994. Since then it has worked closely with the government and community groups to implement many development activities.

On the islands of Zanzibar, for example, Africare assisted indigenous self-help groups to develop a counseling program for AIDS victims. Tanzanian craftspeople received help from Africare to improve the quality and marketability of their products. A major child survival project, begun in 1998, delivered life-saving assistance to families in the district of Kongwa. Also in 1998, Africare began an integrated poverty alleviation and environmental conservation project in communities adjacent to the Ugalla Game Reserve.

From 1996 to 2005, Africare provided emergency shelter, education, food and medical care to tens of thousands of refugees from the ethnic warfare in neighboring Burundi. By 2005, many of those refugees were gradually returning home. Africare assisted local governments and communities in Kigoma, Tabora and Dodoma regions to build hundreds of classrooms, health clinics, staff housing and water systems in a program which ended in 2006.

Since 2005 Africare has been assisting orphans, other vulnerable children and their caregivers throughout Dodoma region. That work expanded to Coast region and Zanzibar in 2006, where it was complemented with home-based care for people living with HIV/AIDS. In 2005 and 2006, Africare assisted the Zanzibar Ministry of Health to distribute life-saving insecticide-treated bednets to all women of child-bearing age and children under five years of age. In 2007, Africare began assisting local groups to fight HIV/AIDS among high-risk groups along major truck routes.

In the year 2005, Africare also began assisting the Ministry of Health in the roll-out of the malaria treatment Artemisinin combination therapy throughout mainland Tanzania.  Since the same time period, Africare-Tanzania has hosted the secretariat of the Tanzanian Non-governmental Alliance Against Malaria.

Africare-Tanzania Today

Africare-Tanzania’s programs continue to build local institutional capacities at village and broader community levels. The sustainability of any project and the long term improvement of any community’s living conditions depend on capacity building support for stronger local institutions. Africare-Tanzania ensures that all its projects involve participation and input from the ground level, as well as support and governance from local bodies, skills training, and instruction for future sustainability. Africare-Tanzania prioritizes strengthening indigenous organizations’ capacities tostrategize and mobilize for response to community demands beyond external support.

Our philosophy supports sustainable socio-economic development inspired and guided by local communities and their governments.