Ask Christine Kilipamwambu to define extreme poverty and she’ll give you an equally extreme answer: she will tell you that the current benchmark of US$1 per day – a figure which an estimated 1 billion people worldwide struggle to survive on – is too simplistic. For the poorest households in her native Tanzania such statistics are too crude.
Try living on little but wild fruit for weeks or even months at a time before the next harvest, or scraping together just one meal each day, or your family being driven apart as the husband has no option other than to leave home and live in the city in hope of work – that is what poverty looks like.
With diminishing assets escape from a cycle of poverty may seem impossible, but Christine will tell you otherwise. She will tell you that leaving poverty behind is also about finding new hope. Alongside her stories of crippling hardship are tales of hope and transformation, of the local church involving itself with its local community, of the everyday miracles that come when God’s people choose not just to talk about God’s love, but to put it into action.
Christine works for the Diocese of Ruaha, co-ordinating community development programmes under the name of CCMP – Church and Community Mobilisation Process. Having started in 2002, the Tearfund partner project has always revolved around a simple, central purpose: to encourage the local church to serve and transform its local community.
These basic biblical principles – which we call integral mission - of meeting both the physical and the spiritual needs are at the heart of all that we do.
So what does this look like? According to Christine the signs are clear, both in the attitudes of the local churches and communities as well as in the practical ways in which they have overcome local problems.
CCMP has played a vital role for those living on or below the poverty line by instilling hope, breaking attitudes of dependency and opening their eyes to the resources that are at hand. The result is a dramatic shift, both in individuals and among communities. Lives have been changed as those who thought of themselves as poor now focus on the resources God has given them and have gained the confidence to call on government to support their efforts.
Christine tells a story of a school that had up to 96 children per class. The teachers were de-motivated and spent much of their time keeping control rather than teaching. The parents noticed that their children weren’t learning. Through the work of CCMP the local church and community realised they could solve the problem without waiting for help from outside. They decided to make their own bricks and succeeded in building four more classrooms. The government provided teachers and now there are 43 children in each class.