Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief – CPAR Tanzania
Canadian Funds making a difference in Tanzania
Canadians are making a difference in all corners of the world, especially in the Karatu
District in northern Tanzania. It is the Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief (CPAR)
who are improving the lives of many Tanzanians through their numerous field-based
programs. Established in 1984, this organization works with vulnerable communities and
diverse organizations to overcome poverty. The organization has helped build healthy
communities in a number of African countries: Ethiopia, Malawi, Uganda and Tanzania.
CPAR Tanzania works in Karatu District, one of 10 districts in Arusha region of northern
Tanzania. It is situated some 150 km from Arusha town on the road to Ngorongoro and
Serengeti National Parks. The Karatu District has the fastest growing population in
Arusha region with an annual growth rate of 3.8%. CPAR has been working in Karatu
since 2002. After spending three days at CPAR’s main office in Karatu, I visited a
number of their field-based projects and was witness to what difference they are making
in the community. I spoke with a number of people who are benefiting from their projects
and it is apparent that this organization with the help of Canadian funds are developing
and improving lives even in the most unreachable areas. This region is home to the Iraqi
ethnic group of mixed farmers who grow crops, keep livestock and maintain home
gardens and trees.
As a Canadian non-governmental organization (NGO), CPAR receives funds from the
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). In the Karatu District, CPAR is
implementing a community development program that integrates Sexual and
Reproductive Health (SRH) education with Natural Resource Management (NRM) and
Household Food Security. This includes providing support for tree nurseries, women’s
beekeeping, energy saving stoves, conservation agriculture, chicken rearing and other
economic activities. With matching funds from the Ryan’s Well Foundation and the
Rotary Club of Arusha, CPAR is successfully implementing a Rainwater Harvesting,
Hygiene and Sanitation program in many nursery schools in the Karatu District.
In brief, CPAR has four main objectives here in Karatu District:
 to reduce the rate of environmental degradation and increase crop production
through the adoption of improved natural resource management and conservation
agriculture practices;
 to increase and diversity sources of income, methods of food production and
consumption;
 to improve sexual and reproductive health of women, men, female and male
adolescents; and to reduce the burden of waterborne diseases among children in
primary schools.
Initially, when CPAR first started, it was a small office from which it implemented many
numerous projects with a limited number of staff. The Country Director, Jean Goerzen,
CPAR’s only Canadian representative, said that due to the amount of projects
implemented by the country office the office is currently expanding in size. On the
ground here in Tanzania, is Jean Goerzen, while the rest of the staff are Tanzanian.
CPAR’s success in its projects is greatly attributed to the strategy it employs. CPAR
Tanzania is establishing strong linkages with District line ministry personnel, local
leaders and local extension officers by seeking their guidance and involving them as
participants and facilitators in training and project implementation. In its projects, CPAR
collaborates with District Agriculture, Forestry, Health and Community Development
officers. This way, CPAR is guaranteed to build the capacity of its own staff with all this
involvement and collaboration with other members. There are many accomplishments in
CPAR’s ongoing projects. At the core of CPAR’s work, is the issue of sexual and
reproductive health education which is cross-pollinated with all of its activities. This
educational experience addresses all kinds of issues such as Female Genital Mutilation
(FGM), HIV/AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), family planning, safe
delivery, early pregnancy, safe sex and so forth; all of these targeted at women, men, girls
and boys.
I spoke with CPAR’s Public Health Nurse who informed me that the communities are
very receptive of this education. “They want to know a lot and they always tell me what
topics they want to cover,” she said. This is what makes CPAR different from all other
NGO’s, not only does it work at the community level with people that need this sort of
assistance, but it also incorporates this Sexual and Reproductive Health education in all
its projects. With such multi-faceted projects, the people of the Karatu District
undeniably have a brighter future.
CPAR Projects
CPAR is currently implementing a number of projects. Here is an overview:

Through the Natural Resource Management projects, CPAR provides seeds to
women to set up vegetable gardens to improve house-hold nutrition and to
generate income. As well, they facilitated beekeeping training for women and
agricultural extensions officers. These women learned how to process honey and
make beeswax candles and skin cream. They then return to their villages, organize
women’s groups and facilitate training for other women. They are now producing
some very popular skin cream. CPAR collaborated with women consultants to
train rural women in kitchen management which involves the construction of
energy saving stoves, stools and cupboards; as a result, the women use more than
2/3 less firewood, they can sit down when they cook and have everything on
nearby shelves. With improved stoves, there is an added health benefit; the
emission of smoke is greatly reduced. As well, CPAR supports women’s chicken
husbandry for improved nutrition and income-generation.

CPAR is also in charge of Formed Farmer Field Schools (Shamba Shule) with
women and men farmers. These schools are designed to educate the farmers on
how to strengthen the soil and water conservation and how to increase crop
production through building and maintaining contours, planting elephant grass
and maintaining cover crops and tree planting. This project is implemented with
the collaboration of Agricultural Extension Officers. I spoke with some farmers
who willingly informed me about their success; “we share the knowledge we
learn here at Shamba Shule with other farmers in the area and everyone is pleased
with the outcome.”

With financial assistance from the Ryan’s Well Foundation and the Rotary Club
of Arusha, CPAR has successfully established rainwater harvesting infrastructure
in 9 primary schools in the Karatu District. This involves the construction of two
30,000 liter concrete tanks at each school, setting up gutters along the roofs,
placing drinking stands and hand-washing stands and providing drinking cups.
These schools reported that since this has been established, there has been an
increase in school attendance and a huge reduction in incidents of waterborne
illness and stomach ailments among both the students and teachers. As well,
students are now alert in class because they are not dehydrated. After speaking
with some students, I can truly say that they are happy that they don’t have to
travel long distances to collect water from contaminated water sources.
Particularly, girls are relieved now that they are safe from running into
‘drunkards’ on their way to fetch water. CPAR also facilitated sexual and
reproductive health education in rainwater harvesting schools in response to their
concerns about primary school pregnancies.

CPAR has implemented a full-scale sexual and reproductive health education
program for communities and schools targeting women, men, youth, teachers,
school girls and boys. Their topics include FGM, HIV/AIDS, STDs, family
planning, dangers of early and late pregnancy, safe delivery, safe motherhood,
gynecological cancers, including breast and cervical cancer, nutrition and
immunization. CPAR’s Public Health Nurse can see the improvement in the
people; they are completely open about such topics, although they are considered
taboo topics in Tanzanian society. CPAR uses videos and discussions designed to
help adolescents and adults to build skills and confidence, to communicate and
negotiate and protect themselves. With the use of all kinds of communication,
such as theatre, the message is getting across through plays developed around
HIV/AIDS, FGM and rape issues. CPAR works with the District Health
Department to train FGM ‘safe’committees comprised of village leaders, teachers,
health workers and community members to strengthen their capacity to protect
girls and end this harmful traditional practice. CPAR is also encouraging school
kids to produce pictures with messages regarded sexual and reproductive health,
some of which are used for CPAR outreach banners and t-shirts.

They also host a growing support group of women living with HIV. These women
have formed their own group called UMATU (an abbreviation for Love and Hope
in Kiswahili, Tanzania’s national language) and they meet at CPAR’s office every
Wednesday to discuss all kinds of issues they are faced with. It currently has 27
members and most of them are supported by CPAR through small-business loans,
health education, good nutrition along with office space. They are women living
with love and hope despite their HIV+ status; they have ambitions to educate the
society about HIV/AIDS as a means of eradicating stigma and discrimination.
They have stories of strength that everyone needs to know about (review
document UMATU1-Overview and UMATU2-WomenProfile) to learn more
about these women. After spending one full day with these women, my
perspective on the essence of life has changed for the better.
At the end of my stay with CPAR, I left feeling pleased with what I saw and what I
learned. The staff willingly shared every aspect of their work, informing me that there is
so much that they have learned since 2002. For instance, the fact that women’s sexual
and reproductive health affects every aspect of their lives and livelihoods is the main
reason behind CPAR’s integration of sexual and reproductive health into all its work with
farmers, beekeepers, energy saving stove training, income-generating and tree nursery
groups. In order to encourage and enable women’s participation in project activities, it is
essential to work around their busy schedules and be available when they have time. This
often translates into long hours for CPAR staff and a somewhat slower pace for project
implementation but the result at the end of the day is that large numbers of women
participate. At CPAR, the door is always open and the staff is always welcoming; it is an
atmosphere that is necessary for the kind of work done by this organization. I have not
seen an NGO that works this closely with the community in places which many consider
out of reach because they are far away. CPAR is currently actively engaged in
fundraising to scale up its activities in this region; this organization deserves a sincere
thank you from everyone. CPAR’s success has everything to do with its belief; they
believe that there is tremendous capacity at community level to take information and
modify and adapt it to suit the local environment.
To contact CPAR Tanzania, please contact the Country Director, Ms. Jean Goerzen, at
jgoerzen@cpar.ca, P.O.BOX 17, Karatu Tanzania. Tel: +255 754 750426, +255 27
2534481, website: www.cpar.ca
Link
Development Studies
Health Studies
MultiMedia
-Documents
 UMATU profile (CPAR-UMATU1)
 Stories of Women of UMATU – Living with HIV/AIDS (CPAR-UMATU2)
-Video about CPAR Tanzania Projects
 Overview of CPAR Tanzania
 Interview A with Japhet Emmanuel, Program Manager, about CPAR Tanzania
 Interview B with Japhet Emmanuel, Program Manager, about chicken rearing
project of CPAR
 Interview with Teacher at Magesho Primary School about water consumption
(Rainwater Harvesting Project) – Teacher John H Kilimba
 Interview with Student #1 at Magesho Primary School about water consumption
(Rainwater Harvesting Project) – Constantino Karato
 Interview with Student #2 at Magesho Primary School about water consumption
(Rainwater Harvesting Project) – Maria Moshi
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Interview with Nurse Husna Hassan, CPAR Tanzania’s Public Health Nurse
Interview with Woman #1 about her work with CPAR Tanzania – Chicken
Rearing project)
Interview with Woman #2 about her work with CPAR Tanzania – Beekeeping
Project
Interview with Woman #3 about her work with CPAR Tanzania – Sexual and
Reproductive Health education