Everything We Set Out to Do Can Be Possible
In a village in the south east of Tanzania, Reuben, a member of ATD Fourth World, is a living example of development based on the knowledge of the inhabitants and their capacity to join forces.
By: Jean Venard (Tanzania)
Part of Reuben’s strong will to fight poverty no doubt comes from his own personal experience. He remembers when he was young, all those people coming back from Dar es Salaam, the big coastal city, some twelve hours away from his village, who used to say that everything there was fantastic. He left for that big city too one day, and ended up working in very hard jobs as a labourer on building sites, earning three hundred Tanzania shillings a day, barely enough to pay for his evening meal.
He made up his mind to move on. He went without food every third day, so as to be able to purchase a lottery ticket. Would he be the winner of the million shilling main prize? Or maybe the second prize of half a million? Or even if it was only the third prize of two hundred and fifty thousand shillings….
Unfortunately, his three tickets were never winners! He was left in despair and kept wondering why he was never the lucky one. He watched that damn lottery machine which did not want him to be a winner. He kept his eyes on it so much that he ended up designing it in his head, making it real for himself. After some time, he took the design in his mind and built the actual machine — and it worked!
A policeman who found out about this was flabbergasted to find Reuben to be so clever, and decided to give him some money instead of giving him a penalty for organising illegal gambling activities! Reuben made some money with his lottery. But at the end of the day, he was not the happier for it. “I just didn’t feel good to be making money on the backs of other people.”
He had learnt one thing through his experience: he believed that for all those young people to come out of poverty, they needed one thing — some kind of training or skill. In his family they were all blacksmiths, so he decided to go back to that trade. He promoted a small association set up by his brother, the Kisangani Smith Group, and set up a place where the young people could be trained. They learned a trade there, making agricultural tools needed by the neighbouring farmers.
One of them, Damian, says: “I wanted to study and I asked Reuben if I could manage to do so. He encouraged me. I managed to go to school while working as a blacksmith to be able to pay for my studies. Knowledge is a mind-opener to other realities.”
Reuben and his group have, since 1998, initiated a reforestation project with the aim of constituting their own supply of wood. The members of the Kisangani Smith Group work from experience acquired by observing others at work. That also helped them to look after a small stream that they managed to divert to create the natural irrigation system for a local nursery. In addition, without waiting for government help, which is always a very lengthy process, the members of the group decided to take matters into their own hands and set up a hydroelectric system.
This development project for the community started from a blacksmiths shop intended for the training of the young people. For Reuben, it was obvious that every person in the village was involved in this project and that each and every person would benefit from it. There are two important factors for such a success: the capacity to create something technically and to make use of a local knowledge, on the one hand; and at the same time, the capacity to join forces around the said project.
With Reuben being so aware of the importance of joining forces, he concludes: “With ATD Fourth World, I found the motivation and encouragement I needed. I came to understand that, thanks to solidarity and unity, everything we set out to do can be possible.”
