ELCT

The Directorate of Social Services and Women's Work is involved in four major areas.

The Christian Churches in Tanzania provide more than 50% of the health care services. The ELCT runs 20 hospitals and 120 primary health care institutions corresponding to about 15% of health care services in the country. Most of our hospitals are dependent on donations from partners abroad. These donations have enabled our hospitals and health care institutions to keep their fees at affordable rate. The cost of health services is a challenge to many Tanzanians, whose average per capita is US$260. The present approach to overcome this medical challenge is to institute community health funds. ELCT has embarked on this approach. Presently, funds for the scheme come from members. The government of Tanzania runs a parallel program.

Our cooperation with the government of Tanzania in running health services is a historical one. We have hospitals that are jointly run by government and the church. These are called District Designated Hospitals where the government is responsible for administrative costs. The rest of the hospitals receive a small grant per patient.

It is the feeling of ELCT that there is no equity in sharing resources from the government. We therefore are planning a consultation for the leadership of the Church to address and strategies on this issue this year.

As the government now receives debt relief funds, there is no reason why Church Hospitals and other NGO's should share only 10% of the funds.

We are completing a six year program in health delivery where the focus was on improving quality of health services by strengthening governance and financial stability of our health institutions. We will soon plan for the next phase of the program, which will focus on Primary Health Care among other areas.

We are grateful to our partners for their long-standing commitment. Our hospitals have benefited from World Hunger Appeal of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and other similar programs.

Our late President and father of the nation, Mwalimu Julius Cambarage Nyerere, once said, ''The best approach to assist poor persons is by educating their children.'. To him, this was one way of ensuring that there is equality in sharing resources that are aimed for poor nations.

Historically, the ELCT is among the founders of education in Tanzania, as our involvement in Education can be traced to the time the Churches were instituted in the country.

In the mid 70's schools were nationalized. Since that time, the focus of the church has been in secondary education and vocational training.

2 years of Pre-Primary Education
7 years of Primary Education
6 years of Secondary Education divided into
- 4 years of Ordinary Certificate of Education and
- 2 years of High School Certificate
Higher Education Colleges and University.

At present, the Government is on a program that aims at increasing enrollment of pupils at Primary Level. The Program includes financial support in terms of student fees and institutional physical resources.

ELCT runs more than 50 Secondary Schools, about 20 vocational training Institutions, 2 Colleges of Teachers Training and 1 university with 3 Colleges.

Through its Educational institutions, ELCT aims at keeping together learning and faith in god. The state of education in Tanzania has gone down over the last few years. Many eligible children are out of school mostly because of lack of fees. This has made our illiteracy level to come to 26.4% with that of female youth illiteracy standing at 13% while that of male stands at 8%.

Our involvement in many pre-schools that are managed by our parishes, as well as in other levels of education, is a move to participate in the eradication of poverty.

The membership of ELCT is constituted of more than 50% women. Their work in Church activities is very visible at congregational level. They are the ones who oversee the kindergarten and play schools that are owned by the parishes. However, when one looks at the decision-making mechanism and the hierarchy of the church, women are not visible. Various steps have been taken to address this discrepancy which include:

The decision by the national church to ordain women was made in 1990. To date, there are still some dioceses that have not ordained women. In some of these dioceses, the issue is a big one in the sense that discussion about it is minimal.

The reasons for women's secondary leadership roles are more than cultural. One sees the influence of the Mission Agency that works in the area. In the Executive Council of the Church which is the next highest decision making body to the General Assembly, amongst 52 members, 5 are women. In other decision-making organs, women constitute less than 20%. Some of the ways being used to address this situation include:

Gender Training Sensitization. This has been done for Bishops and General Secretaries of Dioceses.
Leadership Training for Women. This is a 10 weeks course that is conducted yearly.
Counselling courses. These are conducted yearly for women leaders.
English language courses. These are conducted for women leaders subject to the availability of funds.
Human Rights Training.

This program is at present located in the Health work of the church. Its focus is to enable and sensitize each parish to take care of people in their locality with special needs - people whose numbers are on the increasing due to various social and economic reasons. Special attention is given to people with disabilities. Advocacy work is also done on their behalf.