Mazima College Newsletter - Transformational Development Chronicles

Transformational Development Chronicles

As the world woke up to the news of the latest variant of the coronavirus on 24th November, we made our way down to Lubumba Community Church in Lukaya, Kalungu district (formerly part of greater Masaka) for the one-day Transformational Development (TD) pre-workshop. The pre-workshop is designed to envision participants from various churches on what TD is (a biblical approach to development that starts with what people have, however little, and not what they lack; an asset-based and not a needs-based approach) and to help them decide if it's worthwhile for them to set aside 5 days for the full 5-day workshop.

Participants in the second session.

In attendance were 57 participants from 25 churches. We thank God for making this happen and for our friends at Lubumba Community Church (LCC) who mobilised other churches, hosted us, and organised for the day - especially given the fact that the original date for the pre-workshop was moved due to lockdown. Pastor Allan Kisakye and his wife, Harriet, are particularly worth mentioning. We thank God for them and their continued partnership over the years.

Participants in group discussions.

In the afternoon, we held a follow-up meeting which was attended by a mixed group of about 20 people (some were new to TD and were eager to hear testimonies from those who had received TD training in 2016 and 2018 for TD week 1 and TD week 2 respectively, and were now practitioners). TD practitioners from LCC shared their experiences - successes and challenges alike. It was wonderful and encouraging to hear the journeys that they had been on and continue to walk. We look forward to sharing with you some of these success stories in the near future once we've transcribed the audio recordings of their testimonies.

The times we live in are rather uncertain and it makes planning and execution of training quite tricky. The current stance by the Ugandan government, for example, is that all schools will resume in January 2022 after a two-year hiatus - which means that there will potentially be a busy Christmas to early January period as parents, teachers, and schools prepare to resume. This, among other things, informed the discussion at the end of the pre-workshop to set dates for the future 5-day workshop. The group eventually decided that it would be prudent to strike while the iron is hot and gather again as soon as possible and picked 13th to 17th December 2021 for the workshop.

Please pray with us that:

The TD workshop (13th-17th December) will be fruitful.
Our registration certificate will be ready in February 2022 as promised by the NGO Bureau.
The new Omicron variant will be suppressed so that the nation opens fully as planned .
Our partners will have financial resources to enable them take students back to school.