Community

Engarre supports and empowers communities it works with by helping them cope with the issues they deal with. In order to do this, some education and training is often needed. But we don't want to change these people into modern "western" society. Rather we want to listen and learn from their ancient knowledge, find balance between the native and new together. In all our activities we respect and value the culture of people we work with and their traditional way of life.

It is often only a matter of good advice which Engarre can offer to the community. Let's give an example. People from the village know what to do in order to save their drying lake, how to find and hire professionals to do the work. However, they can't make a proper tender, look for references for the supplier thei found - they are happy to have found the first one. They don't know how to get enough money for the project. They have no idea if the proposed price is adequate or if a better price could be negotiated. They have no experience in taking out a bank loan. They may not realize what is a key part of a lake dam construction project (proper type of structure, building an outlet...) to make the new dam last 150 instead of 15 years. This is where the knowledge, expertise and experience of Engarre can be useful.

We believe that living with and getting to know the people we want to support or whom we want to "help" is very important. Engarre understands that help from the outside is not a solution. Much of our mission is represented in saying that we want to teach the people we work with how to "catch fish" instead of just "serving them fish soup". Not surprisingly, sometimes it is us who learn new effective ways of "fishing" in this process from them...

Engarre is working in a beautiful community in the mainland of Tanzania now. Most of the time we are in touch with Masai people, a world known African tribe with colorful traditions that earned a place in the world heritage of UNESCO. They still succeed in maintaining their culture, traditions, livelihood, way of dressing and appearance, despite influences of the modern world. So even though there are people of many tribes in the community we stay in - there are altogether about 120 ethnical groups in Tanzania - for us only the Maasai are easily identifiable.

We encourage Masai and people of further tribes to pass on the centuries of wisdom and skills they possess. We support their innate and yet unmarked relationship with nature and its laws and also their use of natural resources in the field of healing and maintaining health.

All projects of Engarre support the community they address as a whole or through targeted groups, families or individuals. We are ready to help with education and training in new skills. We focus on women, their role and importance in the community. We are happy to support them in their creativity which can be a source of income for them. With women from the community it is possible to establish small family farms and vegetable gardens and support food self-sufficiency. Educating women can help eliminate illiteracy amoung adults.

In all our projects we cooperate with local people, hire men and women from the area and evaluate their work with fair wage. The mission of Engarre is to improve the quality of life of local residents without interfering with their traditions.