Maimuna: The Hidden Mastermind for Change

By Kisuma Mapunda

Maimuna Said is a farmer animator in Shinyanga region, she has been behind successful Parliamentary Committee for Land, Resources and Environment visit to Buzwagi Mining to facilitate payment of Tshs 180/- million to Mwime village.



This fantastic accountabilty success began with an advert placed on village’s notice board in January, 2011 for village representative on the Board of Trustees that was about to be formed for managing funds that will be provided by Barrick Gold Mining in Buzwagi to the village.

Among the people who saw it, was Maimuna Said; she quick realized that there was a problem with the advert. This reflected a core element of animation, accessing information and asking the why question in everything. 

“The advert specified those eligible to be in Board of Trustees. It stated that the candidate should have ordinary level of secondary education and be not more than 60 years old. Why these criteria, those who are capable but do not have the qualifications would not be part of this. I know several people in our village who are good, but not qualified and this was supposed to be set by the village assembly,” explains Mainuna.

In 2007 Pangea (Barrick) Gold Mining and Mwime village agreed that the company will be paying Tshs 60/- million to the village each year for five years then both parties will review this and agree on new a new amount. The payments were supposed to begin in 2009, but nothing was paid to the village. Moreover, the payment was intended to be paid through Board of Trustees as per clause 1.2 of Additional Agreement of Main Contract.

The question is why did the payment not been made in 2009?

“The leadership weakness is main reason why the payment was not made all these years. Our former leaders were not seriously, however we were not pushing much. You know here, everything starts from leaders,” narrates Dadi Mashirimo.

This narration detailing how Mwime villagers were; they were expecting their leaders to lead the process. It is a normal practice in many places of Tanzania the direct root for people to demand is not there due to old political structure, whereby leaders left to make all decisions even for matters that are of community itself.

“We did not have general meetings for a period of 12 years until last year (2010) when we elect new new leaders in general election. So they quick started with the formation of the trustees by placing the advert,” explain Maria Pima village council member.

This Board was to be formed by six members; two from Barrick mine, two from the village and two from the district government as overseers. The problem was raised when villagers realized that they had not participated in the whole process.

The advert was placed in January, 2011 and on 11/02/2011 the Board was formed without the approval of the villagers; two names were nominated secrectly and were legally registered. The advert remained in notice board for couple months as if nothing was happening. This is the animator played a secret agent assignment.

“After seening the advert I quickly rushed to the Village Executive Officer and asked him when the next village assembly will be held. The answer was in two days time. I had no time to meet with my collegues about this, so I decided to text them through my phone informing them about the meeting and what we should do about the issue of Board selection,” narrates Maimuna.

Without knowing that the board has been formed, she requested her three collegues to ask about the process that has been used in selecting the village representative in the Board of Trustees in the coming village assembly.

Two days later the meeting was held. Using her animation skills, Maimuna mobilized the three people; two women and one man each with one question, all aimed to raise the same issue, to gain support from other villagers as well.

More comments came from the villagers and they demanded the issue be brought to the next village assembly and refused to accept the proposal of having representatives who had not been selected by them.

This how the truth was revealed and people realised that something cooking was going on. They take action by denounced the board of trustees on the meeting.

It is a very big step for Mwime people, but as well as rural dwellas in Tanzania, Why? Few years ago people were afraid to ask, but now they are asking.

“Ignorance is the killing machine, I was afraid to ask, because I was not so sure what I will say or what people will be thinking of me, but is because I did not what to do. The animation has been of great help and makes things work for me, but as well as giving confidence to myself,” narrates Maimuna.

Changes are started to be seen now, while on training animators were assigned to visit District Council and ask for information like income and expenditure reports etc. For some of them this was first time to be in those offices and talking to their district Directors. They realised that this executives were very cooperative in assisting them to know things. The action of visiting, meeting and asking questions and the response they get in a wide way have help them to overcome fear. Yes action destroys fear for animators and manages them to influence others like Maimuna did to her fellows.  

 The strategy Maimuna proposed worked well. A councillor decided to take the matter seriously without knowing that Maimuna had masterminded the meeting. Her second move was to push the councillor after the meeting to take action, since she had no authority and power in decision making organs.

“She was really pushing hard so that I take action and I realised that not only were we not participating, but even names of our representatives were already approved without our knowledge and one of them is a former councillor. I felt that something was going on here, I had to do something,” explains Ntabo Majabi ward councillor.

James Lembeli is the MP for Kahama Urban constituency; he normally pays a visit to his voters to feed back on parliament sessions and to listen if they have anything that they would like him to assist with.

While visiting and meeting with Mwime villagers on 29th September 2011, again the issue of trustees was raised this time by villagers and the councillor. Lembeli decided to undertake deeper investigate in order to gather for more information from the district and the mine. He managed to influence the Parliamentary committee to pay a visit to Buzwagi gold mine to meet with both parties and resolve the matter 26th October 2011.

On the side of Barrick they had no objections since they insisted that they were ready to deposit the fund, but did not want to use the Board which has not been approved by the villagers since they want to make sure the money is in safe hand.

Members of the parliamentary committee contributed Tshs 310,000/- on their visit in October for the village to open a bank account that will be used to deposit the fund and new represenatives were selected by villagers as the overseer of the whole process.

“We have already opened the bank account this month (November) as well as informing management of the mining to inject the money. We are planning to have a press conference and press release to thank the committee and our MP for the initiative they made for us,” explains Haji Omari village executive officer for Mwime.

This has been one example of many achievements for Oxfam’s Chukua Hatua where a flexible approach and fundings has enabled the programme to give the right support at the right time.

Maimuna has shown that rural women should not be stereotyped as voiceless and unable to defend their rights and entitlements. 

But Maimuna and her fellow group members have proven that they are able to strategise, plan and organise if she is assisted to do so. The farmer animation approach has been successful in changing the level and capacity of thinking, debating ability and taking action attitude in animators like Maimuna Said and 200 others in Shinyanga.

They have been able to search for information and the feedback they are getting which they are then discussing in their groups helps them to overcome fear and use existing structures to raise issues. The animators are well aware of power relations that exist within their communities. Another success is the way both the councillor and MP; they are good examples of active leaders who can work closely with their voters in changing their lives.

This is an area Chukua Hatua is doing a lot of work to improve responsiveness of leaders and enable communities to use them as a pontetially in grass roots campaigning. Our aspiration is that the animators will facilitate others to take action and the approach becomes self-perpetuating so that there are many more Maimunas.

Maimuna Said as she gesture while narrating her mastermind plan (Photo by Kisuma Mapunda)

Doing Development Differently

This is a speech that Oxfam's Associate Country Director Justin Morgan, made late last year under the topic of "doing development differently". The speech was made as part of VSO's 50th anniversary in Tanzania events,  on the 8th December 2011.

In the business community, when 80% of your ideas are successful, you are a market leader, looked upon with the highest regard and seen as a champion.  Within the development community, if you show that 20% of your programmes did not achieve their desired results, you are soon looking for a new job, or you just don’t look for it/report it.

Development, is a place where the Government, donors and NGO can get together, most often with the common higher goal of equitable growth and access to essential services, but regularly with differing views on what is needed to achieve this.  The views I am sharing today, aims to capture actions that affect each of these institutions, however with a bias towards the work of NGO’s as this is where my experience is.

Doing development differently is about aims that promote evolution of concepts.  Each programme should know where they want to get to “what does success look like”, but we should not be bogged down in thinking that we have to define each of the steps, with its cause and effects, before the programme has started.  We must trial, we must adapt, we must recognise that it is not bad to fail.  It is poor practice to dismiss the possibility of failure, monitoring to prove results only, and not monitoring so as to improve the work that we are doing.

I would like to draw on an example where I believe this type of thinking is going into development work.  The Accountability Tanzania Fund, or AcT, supported by DfID through UK Aid and managed by KPMG in Tanzania, is providing financial and technical support to civil society in Tanzania so as to increase the practice of good accountability. The programme has express aims around learning, expecting to see that different partners will adopt different approaches in achieving more accountability from the government to its citizen.  They expect success, but also accept failure, looking to stop things that do not work quickly and expand things that are showing positive change.  This AcT fund is important in terms of the way in which funding is provided, being primarily core funding of organisations, but also the way in which organisations are supported by KPMG.  KPMG has a team of development experts who are helping partners develop their thinking and demonstrate their learning.  This approach is beyond the log frame approach that is seen in some places within the development community.

Following on from the funding that is available, doing development differently can still be learnt from looking back to the past.  Paulo Friere shared with development practitioners in the 1960’s the importance of being context and cultural specific, seeking to listen to the questions that communities are asking and providing support for them to answer these questions for themselves.  Doing development differently is about depth as well as breadth.  The pressures of the government to provide sustainable services yet at the same time get re-elected, the donors to demonstrate results are being achieved to their taxpayers and from NGO’s to document positive results while maximising the usage of funds, often leads us to seek out the one size fits all solutions and adopt very linear or mechanical thinking to change. We are focusing a lot on breadth – numbers of beneficiaries, rather than quality of real change.  Our world today, and the rich and poor alike do not operate in unity.  Complexity is real, and we cannot realistically predict the future.  Therefore our solutions must be routed in the contexts of the individual country and at times the individual district or community.  This is looking at the visible resources available, but also understanding the power dynamics and cultural norms that so often shape how plentiful resources in fact benefit so few.

Drawing on an example of development work that I feel is doing things differently is Oxfam’s work on Chukua Hatua, or Take Action.  Within a variety of different approaches that are being used, one project is what we call “farmer animators”.  We have worked with over two hundred of these farmer animator groups, some of the groups already having being formed with membership to organisations like MVIWATA and some naturally forming around market access programmes that Oxfam is supporting.  Our engagement within the farmer animators is providing collective as well as individual support.  The approach has seen that within one year there are over 30 success stories (and equally a number of failings).  The successes are extremely diverse and varying in techniques used and the numbers of people engaged.  They range from animators getting community members engaged within government planning processes, to animators getting compensation for the communities from mining companies for sums of money in excess of $100,000.  What is clear, is the time spent understanding each community, each farmer animator as an individual has allowed for the collective changes led by communities not NGO’s.  The results are not predictive, with the main aims being to see that awareness raising of rights increased, communities are  mobilising around common issues, forums and spaces existing and now where people can freely contribute their thoughts, and that government leaders increasingly respond positively to the citizen voices.

Justin Morgan, Associate Country Director for Oxfam in Tanzania

Doing development differently, is about doing some things differently, but using success of the past as well.  There will not be a one size fits all to development, and we will progress further and faster the more we allow our programmes to evolve within a complex world.  The evolution of development work needs critical analysis, as VSO is doing today by bring different thinkers together, and also increased consciousness that both success and failure is a natural part of development.

Democracy Arrives in School

By Kisuma Mapunda

Student Council pilot is among Oxfam’s Chukua Hatua projects in Governance programme aiming to enable students to participate effectively   in electing their leaders.

In previous years students’ leaders were appointed by teachers based on their performance in class or good looking; cleanness and relation with other students in school. They were appointed by their teachers regardless to their acceptability by others.

Through the pilot students wish to be elected as prefects filled special forms for nominating their names for leadership position. Moreover, they conducted campaigns for them to be voted. In the rallies they promised their fellow students on what they are going to do such as how are they going to solve problems if they are elected.

“I promised them, that I will make sure teachers are following timetable effectively and also improving students’ discipline. If a teacher is late in class I report him/her to the head teacher,” explained Saidi Hamisi prefect for academics at Town primary school in Shinyanga municipal.

This whole process of campaigning and asking to be voted prepare students to be active citizens and leaders as they become adults.

This is different from what it used to be schools where teachers nominates and appoints names for students’ leadership, even when they are not accepted others.

“Giving a room for students to vote for their own leaders it simplify our responsibilities, because they help us in our day to day routine at school, thus their acceptability to their fellow students simplify our work,” narrates Town primary school teacher, Rosalia Makole.

These elections were held in February, 2011 for the first time in Shinyanga rural and municipal. One of the schools were Town primary school whereby students had to fill forms and campaigning for leaderships posts and thus were voted for the positistions they contended for.

In the last election more girls were elected as head prefects, out of ten schools eight were headed by girls. They potrayed high capacity in understanding and identify problems facing their school.

Felician John is a head prefect at Town primary school in Shinyanga municipal. She is among head girls who showed confidence and ability in solving students’ problems.

“One day a student lost a pen in his class and decided to make a search find it another they almost fight I had to intervene. The accused denied the allegations put against him, when I ask him to appologize he refused then I had to report the incidence to teacher on duty and he was punished for stealing a pen,”explained Felician.

As a girl in a society where a boy is much more respected and valued than girl what kind of challenges does she face from boys?

“One morning I was checking school environment to see if there is any student hiding around, then I saw a boy I ordered him to go to assembly, but he resisted because I was a girl, I decided to inform teacher on duty for further actions,” said Felician.

This head prefect is leading students’ council consisting of 15 prefects that lead different department such as academic, health, environment and discipline. In the past we used to have a boy as a head boy and his assistant was a head girl. This was very common in almost all schools; primary and secondary.

In the interview with Town primary school’s students’ council leaders out of 15 only one had an ambition to become a politician. We know that leadership started at primary school, why are they not interesting in politics while the chances of become head of state or minister one has to participate in politics.

Saidi Hamisi academic prefect said he doesn’t want to be a politician because politics is associated with corruption and being liar to people who voted for you. “Most of the time politicians look at their own interest and that of their families after being voted he will just be spending all his time in the cities and town you will not find him here until another election,” He added.

A student at Town Primary School in Shinyanga vote for new leaders for their council

 For a first time primary school students from districts of Shinyanga region have elected their leaders in a more democratic way than it was before.

Negezi Women Did It

By Hidaya Haongo

It is a dry and dusty land where people, particularly women, depend on agriculture and domestic livestock keeping, as well as being entrepreneurs. However, they have had difficulties accessing good markets.

“If I want to sell my vegetables there are only two options, either to walk from house to house or go to a next village, that’s four kilometres from here, not only for sellers, as well as buyers, this was a problem that we needed to address,” explains Fredina Said.

Fredina is a residence of Negezi village, she and many other women are eager to do business, but are pulled back by the set up of the market structure within their village. When one decides to do any kind of business he or she has to walk eight kilometres to and from the next market centre. That was a challenge that her and other women as well as men faced.

She is one among many other farmer animators in Kishapu district, Shinyanga Region. Farmer animator is one of Oxfam’s Chukua Hatua pilots which aims to create active citizenship; empowering citizens to know their rights and demand for quality services and good management of public resources from their leaders and officials.

The pilot aimed at empowering farmers to search for information and be agents of change in their community. They were trained on how to ask and where to find information as well as being able to influence other farmers to do the same.

Through animation skills she organised other women in her village using her home group called Jitolee Group with ten women members. They wrote a letter to the village government asking for a market place. They used one of their group members Mary Makwaya, who is also a member of the village council, to make sure the letter is put as an agenda during the council meetings.

“Village Government saw the potentiality of having the market place in our village; they discussed and replied our letter that they have agreed to grant us a place for market. This have been our great achievement, we are waiting for it to start officially,” narrates Fredina.

In addition, one of assignment that animators were given was to visit their respective district council offices and ask for income and expenditure information from the District Executive Director; there they observed that Mwadui Mining Company Ltd does not contribute anything to the district budget.

This was shocking news to the animators,. Fredina and other animators from other villages of Kishapu district took the issue seriously and are planning to take to all village councils so it can be taken to the next level.

Responding to a question on how they will make sure it reaches decision makers since they don’t have mandatory like leaders; MP or councillor.

“We will have to work with our councillor as a starting point, so far we are trying to lobby our ward councillor so that he can work with others from neighbouring wards so ones the agenda is tabled, and they can join their voices,” replying Fredina Said.

Women at Negezi village are now aware of their rights and are becoming active, as the village leaders have granted them mar-ket area after sending a request to be allocated the same, explained Josephine Malima.

Josephine says that if market is built it will be of great help to women and villagers at Negezi village.

She adds that, market will help them to get income for them to provide necessary needs to their children at home and in school as well as their families. And will help them to be independent.



Ferdina Said from Negezi village in Kishapu district in Shinyanga region.

Where else would we go?

By Kisuma Mapunda

It is among the few places that men and wild animals have been living together, sharing the same eco-system for centuries. The world has marked it as the eighth wonder.

The place attracts millions of people from all over the world to visit and see how men have been living together with wild animals. They pay millions of dollars.  Recently there have been arrangements to shift these men to another area, the methods used for doing so have been harsh to these people living in the crater of Ngorongoro. They are called Maasai.

Over 300 homes were burnt down, 1,800 people were made homeless and over 100,000 livestock were left without water and pasture. This happened between July–December 2009. Kooya Timani, a member of a pastoral women’s group was not happy with the whole situation.

This kind of parcelling out of land among local and foreign investors and interests is common, and the village councils face a daunting task trying to reclaim lands, or negotiating user rights on behalf of local herders and farmers.

The Maasai spiritual leaders the Laibon are almost entirely excluded from any engagement on behalf of their communities. And the women, needless to say, are voiceless in these matters.

“I was there as soon as I heard about the incident, that some boma (huts) were burnt and one child was lost. As a Maasai woman and a mother it really  touched me to see those women crying for their loss. Some women had miscarriages since they were running for their lives,” narrates Kooya.

For a while she was thinking what else she could do to get people especially women to stand up so that their voices could be heard all over the country. Therefore, she decided to do something about it.

“The first thing I did was to talk to Ndangari Nchanwee. I met her at the scene  we were there together. I told her that if we kept quite the women will be the victims, because our husbands  are usually out there searching for pasture sites for herds of cattle. We are the one staying home with the kids. If this continues where else would we go,” explain Kooya.

In Maasai culture women are the ones staying at home watching over children and the general domestic welfares of their families.

That was the starting point for her, she then organised other women around Loliondo to speak up for themselves. This included Noriteti who lost her daughter during the evections as people were running all over the place to rescue their lives. They don’t know where she is to date not sure if she is dead or alive.

They formed a group of eight (8) people; three (3) women and five (5) men and went to Loliondo to meet with NGONET (NGO Network)  one of the major partners of Oxfam in Loliondo.

“Because we had no means of organizing ourselves, I communicated with an Oxfam partner called Ngonet in Loliondo. They facilitated us with bus fare and other expenses to Arusha. We went there to sue the District Commissioner over the matter, because he was the one approving the operation” says Kooya.

Not only they do that, but they went to president’s office and handed him a letter concerning their problem, but still nothing was done.

Kooya has been organizing women meetings in the villages of Ololosokwani and Saistambu. The main agenda is education for women, land rights and drought effects. So far about 500 women are aware of their problems.

“We need major campaigns to hold our government accountable, we have been marginalized by the whole community. Together we can and for sure we will continue to create more awareness to all women so that our voice can heard at all levels,” explain the mother of six Kooya Timan.

Kooya Timam from Ololosokwani village in Ngorongoro