Poland in Tanzania

The inauguration ceremony of the Kondiki dairy cooperative in the Mwika district gathered about 200 people including Regional Commissioner of the Kilimanjaro region, Anna Mghira. The event was an opportunity to present new cooperative buildings, which will enable it to trade in feed and drugs for cows and providing free advice to breeders. The project also includes building a cooperative milk, buttermilk and yogurt production potential, as well as building a milk purchase and distribution system for dairy products in the Kilimanjaro region. Breeding cows and selling milk is an opportunity for farms in this region, which lost their main source of income after passing the plague of coffee shrubs and currently earn mainly from selling bananas. Crop diversification is often the only chance for local communities in Africa, which are very fragile to global fluctuations in the price of unprocessed products. The Polish aid project “Support of development of productivity, competitiveness, scale of operation of local dairy co-ops in Kilimanajro region” run by the Poland-East Africa Economic Foundation also aims to provide a stable source of income for several hundred young people with distributing and selling milk using mobile sales outlets (from a motorcycle).

The Kiabakari project involved co-financing the purchase of a bus for an elementary school. During the ceremony, KG and seventh grade graduates were awarded diplomas and a sports tournament for schools took place. The final of the regional soccer championship gathered around 2,500 guests, mainly children and youth from Kiabakari. Thanks to the Polish Aid project, children from the villages located further away were given the opportunity to study at a school in Kiabakari, one of the best educational institutions in Tanzania (172nd position out of over 7,200 listed schools). Over the past 12 years, Polish support for Kiabakari has allowed, among others, for the construction and equipment of this school, as well as the launch of the best health center in the region, where Polish doctors carry out surgical operations, cataract surgery and rescue training. In 2019, Kiabakari Foundation implemented two projects funded by the Polish Aid: “Improving the accessibility of educational services in Kiabakari” and “Volunteers on duty - stationary and mobile first medical aid for residents of the Kukirango community in Tanzania”.