VISION

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ABOUT US

 

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PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE

 

KATAVI REGION

 

 

MPANDA DISTRICT

 

Mpanda District is among the oldest district in Tanzania, it was started before independent and it was among Tabora Region’s district including Rukwa district.

 

On 1st of May 2012, Mpanda district was officially upgraded from district level to region level and it was given a new name katavi.The inauguration day was celebrated on 25/11/2012.

 

Katavi Region is one of Tanzania's 30 administrative regions. The regional capital is Mpanda.

 

In March 2012, shortly after the Katavi Region was created, Dr. Rajab Mtumwa Rutengwe was appointed Katavi Regional Commissioner. He was formerly the Mpanda District Commissioner.

 

Districts

 

The region is administratively divided into two districts:

District of Katavi 

Mlele-282,568

Mpanda-282,036

Total Population 564,604  (according to the census of 2012)

 

 

Economy and Population

Anthropological History

Katavi Region

Stone Age and Iron Age sites (one iron kilns site is just north of Sitalike) testify to the early settlement of human ancestors in this area. Sacred sites and places of worship still exist inside the Park’s boundaries.

The people of the Pimbwe, Fipa, Gongwe, Bende and Konongo tribes are known to have already inhabited the area in the 19th century. The European explorer Joseph Thomson described in 1880 the fortress of the Konongo’s chief Simba (lion) as the largest town he saw during his travels along the slave roads. However, this town, as well as the palisaded Pimbwe town Maji moto (hot waters), was destroyed in 1881 by Nyamwezi chief Mirambo. J. Thomson also noted the influence of Arab traders in the area who introduced firearms in the 1840s. They traded them for ivory with local leaders and were involved in the slave trade.

Due to the slave trade, rinderpest and small pox epidemics, the recruitment of soldiers for the First World War and various localized wars, the human population heavily declined in the early 20th century. The bush encroached and wild animals increased accordingly, especially as the area remained uninhabited as it was infested by tsetse flies transmitting sleeping sickness. Additionally the British colonial authorities evacuated the area of the current national park in 1927 in order to establish “tsetse settlements”. For the Gongwe, who maintained a palisaded fortress in the centre of the current park’s perimeter, it was tantamount to a confiscation of their territory. As a result, they formally came under the authority of the courts of the Bende and Pimbwe chiefs. Natural catastrophes such as the red locust swarm in 1933 and a severe drought in 1949 had serious impacts on the remaining agriculture activities in the area as well, leading to serious famines.

Since 1975, the Sukuma, an agro-pastoralist tribe, has moved from the overgrazed and deforested areas in Shinyanga and Mwanza into Rukwa area.

Communities Bordering Katavi National Park

Today, the villages adjacent to Katavi National Park still depend heavily on natural resources for their living: charcoal, firewood, honey, timber and pole wood, fish, bush meat and medicine. Besides keeping livestock, small-scale subsistence farming of finger millet, beans, maize, sunflower, sesame, cassava, bananas and potatoes are the villagers' main occupation. A few commercial rice farms and some small-scale mines exploiting gold, silver, iron ore, limestone, nickel, mica, etc. are further income sources.

Risks

The farming of maize and rice, especially the replacement of the traditional pick-axe by new methods imported by the Sukuma using ox ploughs, can damage natural resources. The increase of cattle herding, due to the evacuation of an estimated 50 000 cattle from the plains of Rukwa Game Reserve by the Wildlife Division in 2002, threatens to lead to further soil degradation. Furthermore, the recent development of small tobacco plantations is destructive to the surrounding areas of Katavi because it requires the continuous clearing of woodlands to benefit from nutrient-rich fields and firewood used during the drying process.

Katavi's Spirits

Katavi National Park is named after a spirit of the Wabende known as Katabi who is married to the equally strong spirit called Wamweru. His spirit is known to exist near Lake Katavi in a twin pair of Tamarindus indica trees and his wife stays far from him on the other side of the lake in the hills called Wamweru. But Wamweru and Katabi can greet each other from the distance every morning.

Some members of the local communities still use the site for worshipping today. Leopards are sighted frequently close to Katabi’s tree. The Wabende tribe believes that Katabi appears as an unusual human being or a strange animal, like a bird with one leg, deformed animals or albinos. Actually there are Albinos giraffes and reedbuck in Katavi National Park.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND ACTIVITIES OF MORAVIAN CHURCH IN THIS REGION

Introduction

The Moravian Church in Tanzania Rukwa province is divided into five districts. The format of these districts does not follow the government format. This particular format was passed by Provincial synod of 1997. During that synod the districts were given fully administravely authority. The main aim was to draw pastoral and social services near to Church members.

This district follows the government boarders.

Administration

Mpanda district has Eleven (11) Parishes  (one of them is under probation)

• Mpanda Parish

• Inyonga Parish which is 137 km away from Mpanda.

• Usevya parish-128 km away from Mpanda

• Mtisi parish-19 km away from Mpanda

• Ifumbula Parish-144km away from Mpanda

• Kamjela parish-128 km away from mpanda

• Karema parish-127 km away from Mpanda

• Mwese parish- 127 km away from Mpanda

• Mtapenda parish- 9 km away from Mpanda

• Katumba parish-32 km away from Mpanda

• Ilunde parish-209 km away from Mpanda

This district has 5,889 Christian members, 2,845 among them are children and 3,044 are adults. This is according to census that was done in 2013.

Evangelism task

The katavi Region has 124 villages. The Moravian Church has only 51 Congregations in the region. This shows that 73 villages have no Moravian Church and this is a challenge to Moravian Church that we have to do evangelism effectively otherwise we will remain as we are.

Economic situation

Over 60% of district economy relies on sources of income which have accepted by the province including Christian member’s manpower in which their capacity rely on agriculture.

Up to date the district has six business rooms which are hired by business men.

Challenges

The Moravian Church Mpanda district faces a lot of challenges as follows;

• Insufficient of Evangelism’s supportive equipments, such as Motor cycle, vehicles including human resources. This is a great challenge in the sense that this time many youth have no call of evangelism task. This is a very bad indication for the Church journey; the time is coming when the Church will experience a non church’s servant.

• HIV/AIDS new infection for Katavi’s communities including Moravians decrease manpower of the Church and the entire Nation. Even though the Government and the Church is doing HIV/AIDS’ capacity building awareness still directive and continuously awareness seminars are needed to our communities.

• Destruction of environment and water resources which are caused by economic activities such as agriculture and live-stock which is against environment protection.

• The increase of orphans and street children due to the death of their parents/guardians including extremely poor life for some of families who stay in town and villagers. These children need special assistance such as cloths, food, medication and education.

• Insufficient source of funds for running the church. The church depends only on Christians income as source of fund

• Lack of parent’s awareness on the importance of education. Parents do not send their children to school

Our Vision

The district has the following visions;

• To posses land legally for different kind of projects such as education, health and Churches

• To do evangelism and mission to 73 villagers where there is no Moravians.

• To find out evangelism and mission equipments such as motor cycles for pastors and evangelists and one vehicle for district use. Those equipments will be used for evangelism task.

• To find out HIV/AIDS capacity building awareness seminar support within and outside the country. The Church will continue to combat against HIV/AIDS through education.

• To offer environmental protection seminar to Christian members and the entire community

• To educate Christian members and the community on how to face the increase of orphans and street children and vulnerable children.

 

• To educate youth on the call of God’s task.

 

• To have one secondary school which will start from form one to form six whereby beneficiaries will be children of our Christians, orphans, street children and the entire community

 

• To provide entrepreneurship education to Christian members. This education will enable them to improve Christian income generations.

 

 

MPANDA MORAVIAN HOSTEL

Introducation

Mpanda Moravian Hostel is one of Moravian Church in Tanzania Rukwa Province’s project. The project was constructed to meet the following needs;

• Generating income and contribute to run the Church.

• Offering social service

The hostel was built by Moravian Church Western province and during that time the province was under the said Province (Affiliated Province).

The location of the Hostel

The Hostel is allocated at the centre of Mpanda town opposite side of Buzogwe market near to Police station along the two way of Mpanda town. At the opposite side of the Hostel there are different kinds of buses from neighboring regions. The owners and drivers of the buses use to park their buses there and that the customers from those regions find easy to get the buses and travel comfortably.

The background, the view and the safety of the place for customers is 100%. The customers who sleep at this Hostel enable them to implement their activities at time and easy due to fact that the Hostel is very close to the market.

The hostel has 15 rooms, 9 single rooms and 6 double rooms, there is a special area for entertainment and there is an enough space for car parking.

Hostel services

The Hostel serves customers with accommodation. We supply hot and/or cold water, depending on the customer’s interest.

Challenges

The only one challenge that we face is lack of double self-contained rooms.

Vision

• Since we are in competitive era, we expect to make self-contained rooms, to update facilities, and procure new assets such as modern beds and modern TV.

• Buying a vehicle for tourists, which would be used to take guests from the bus station to Hostel and from Hostel to Katavi National Park.

• We have a vision to build a new modern Hostel at the Church’s plot, near to the new airport.