1 Faith Formation Programme

 “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” MST’s foundational value in Africa is by sharing the Gospel to the whole creation here in this region. MST, rooted in the ecclesial (spiritual, liturgical, theological and canonical) and cultural heritage of the SMC, envisions living the values of Jesus and sharing the same with people of all faiths and cultures, anywhere in the world, in line with mission ad gentes, for establishing a more harmonious society. Realizing the missionary responsibilities of MST in the Universal Church, we are carrying out different pastoral and missionary duties here in Tanzania since 1993. MSTns are imbibing the values of Jesus by individual and societal ways of communion with Him. Drawing inspiration from the apostolic experience of St Thomas ‘My Lord and My God’ to the people here. MST is concentrated in sharing the Gospel values in view of transforming individuals and the society. We are reaching out to people of all faiths and communities, in a spirit of friendly relations and collaborations. MST Fathers are serving in the faithful communities and involving in various humanitarian services, to make human lives more dignified and meaningful along with our pastoral responsibilities on them.

2 Village Development Programme

The rural Chengena Mission consists of 15 villages mostly inhabited by people belonging to Wandendule tribe.  Ever since the MST has taken up this Mission, the missionaries here have been concentrating their time and efforts for the integral development of these villages. It is a matter of joy and satisfaction to see the sad and pathetic living situations of the people are changing. Now most of the children attend school, the youth are competent to get government or private jobs. In order to work with us the OSF, Missionary Sisters are working with us. We aim at the holistic development of the people here in Chengena Mission by providing all the possible assistance for the social upliftment in this mission territory. We take care of the education, and healthcare of these poor people. We do attend to their better education by finding financial support and scholarships for the poor children, facilitating their admission into schools and hostels, and organizing evening tuitions in the villages for the weaker students, facilitating the purchase of study materials like text books, note books and so on. Though we want to impart quality education to all the poor villages, and provide basic health care facilities, on account of the financial constraints, we are not able to attend to all their needs.  We need to depend on donor agencies for financial assistance to materialize supporting projects for the villagers. But still MST missionaries are doing the best possible services to them.

People in these villages find their livelihood through farming.  The people in Chengena Mission live in the un-developed region of the country where electricity is not facilitated in the villages, also still they need to depend on the unorganized muddy roads here. They find their livelihood through cultivating Maize, Soya Bean and Sunflower depending only on the seasonal rain from Jan – April. This is the only time they can cultivate but at the same time they use the traditional means of cultivation here, resulting less yield in the harvest. So, every half a year they are in extreme scarcity for food. Thereby, MST is trying to reach out to all these 15 villages to assist them in their needy times. We are organizing Self Help women Groups in these villages to stabilize them. We have active youth groups in those villages where we are giving them training in agriculture and raring live-stocks. They are organized to have the different micro financing programmes like raring Bees, fish farming, piggeries and poultry etc. in their villages. We are taking up the challenges of reaching out to them occasionally though the means of reaching to those villages are hectic with the tough roads.

3 Healthcare Ministry

We also attend to healthcare of these villagers. Heeding to the need of the people, we attend to the healthcare of these villagers in Chengena as one of our prime concerns since begun in 1960. This dispensary is adequate to cater to the primary needs of the people here around. Because the nearest health center is 20 kms away from Chengena which is in the district headquarters at Namtumbo. Thereby, people depend this dispensary for their immediate medical needs. Here, typhoid and malaria are very common along with other common diseases, including HIV/AIDS etc. For all the diseases the people approach the Chengena dispensary. It is the only means of medical assistance to a large number of poor people in the villages in and around Chengena.

We facilitate all possible medical care to the under privileged poor villagers. We provide preliminary medical care to the villagers and take all the possible steps to eradicate Malaria and Typhoid in the villages. One of the threats in the interior villages are the infant mortality. We have around 3324 adults and 478 infants particularly located in this Chengena village and they all depend on this Dispensary for their all-primary medical needs like delivery cases, malaria diagnosing, other treatments, for vaccines etc.. We try to provide all the possible assistance to the pregnant ladies with weekly check-ups of all those 142 registered pregnant ladies and try to implement the possible measures to cease the infant mortality in the village. This dispensary is playing the key role in eradicating contagious diseases in the villages and promoting the health care here. Also, we are providing all the preliminary medical care to all the medical emergencies here. Whenever its possible, we are giving the health education and awareness programs and also implementing Immunization in the houses. We are reaching out to all the 15 villages with the different medical services through medical camps, house visits and distributing the medicines.