By Sylvester Kumwenda

Dowa, April 1, Mana: Eagles Relief and Development Program International has embarked on a project, dubbed Dowa Child Centred Church and Community Mobilization Process (CCMP), aimed at empowering churches on how they can contribute to community development.

The pilot project, which is to be implemented in Traditional Authority Msakambewa, focuses on promoting mindset change in development and contribute towards improved living standards and holistic transformation of communities in the area, through improved church involvement and participation in social development.

In an interview after presenting the project to the District Executive Committee on Thursday, Church Mobilization Manager for Eagles, Cuthbert Gondwe, said the project aims to mobilize local churches and communities to work together and deal with issues the communities are facing.

“The main aim is getting the church and the community involved in their own development.

“As we talk of development coming from the people, we should also build the capacity of churches and communities to be able to come together, identify their issues, identify opportunities, identify local stakeholders, and then find solutions to those problems that they have,” he said.

Some of the project key deliverables include mobilization of 20 churches, 60 pastors and church leaders trained in CCMP, and 1,000 church members to be trained and transformed to transform others.

Also, 10,000 community members are set to be mobilized and empowered to be self-reliant and be able to take responsibility of their own development to reach out to 800 children and youth.

He said the project, whose implementing partners are Eagle, Compassion International, and Tearfund, will empower churches and communities to also work with government local structures and complement government's development agendas.

“For example, if government has plans to promote girl child education, we would like the church to understand what that is and how the church can come and realize and utilize the power it has in promoting girl child education,” he said.

He said the project is using the church due to its well-established structures on the ground and proximity to the people.

Maxwell Kadutsa, chairperson for Civil Society Network in the district, urged the organization to observe reporting to the committee on its project implementation.

“We need to understand what is going on with your project at all times, so we urge you to keep coming back to this committee to provide updates,” he said.