THE IYELA PROJECT
The vision of Scripture Union of Tanzania is to establish a self-financing centre providing educational opportunities, health care and basic services to the community in and around Mbeya, a city of 600,000 inhabitants situated in south-west Tanzania near to the Zambian border. The land was acquired in 1999 and a start was made in April 2000 to construct staff housing.
Vocational Training
It is anticipated that the centre when completed will provide 80 primary school leavers (40% of whom would be women) each year with the opportunity of vocational training in the range of skills shown to be in greatest demand. Even those who obtain a qualification after training find it almost impossible to gain employment, leaving the only feasible option as self-employment. The project therefore seeks to help successful graduates to gain actual business experience by making small workshops, tools and machinery available at a low rental for one year.
Health Care
Basic primary health care and preventative health and AIDS education for the local community will be provided along with basic services of maize-milling and good access to the main water supply. The project centre will act as a base for a programme of AIDS prevention education in local primary and secondary schools and among groups of young adults. The programme would usel be the specially prepared courses and materials produced by Aid for AIDS in Zimbabwe, which is currently used in 20 other countries in Africa and widely welcomed in schools across the spectrum of social and religious divisions.
Pre-school educational provision
There is known growing demand for pre-school education and the proposal includes the provision of pre-school for 40 children aged 4 to 7 yrs. This has a three-fold function of a much-needed community service together with income generation and the provision jobs and experience for nursery teachers.