Church

Diakonia is a global network of people, organisations and churches working towards more people living a life in dignity. Diakonia has nearly 40 years experience of development work. Diakonia was established in 1966 under the name Free Church Aid. In 1984 the name was changed to Diakonia. The word "diakonia" is Greek and menas care and service.

Diakonia´s goal is a fair and sustainable development in which living standards for the most vulnerable people are iomproved, and democracy, human rights and ewuality are respected across the world. The starting point for this is the gospel eith Jesus as the role model.

Diakonia does not carry out any projects of its own, but support local partners. As they are already present, the aid becomes effective.

Vision

Everywhere on earth where poverty, injustice and violence occur you will find people who are inspired to make a change. Diakonia´s vision is that all people can live a satisfactory life and have the opportunity to exercise their civil and political rights, which means secured livelihood, a peaceful living environment and knowlede to influence ones situation.

Our Swedish Base

Diakonia is an organisation with six of Sweden´s churches as denominations; Interact, The Methodist Church in Sweden, The Swedish Alliance Mission, The Swedish Baptist Commonity, The Swedish Salvation Army and The Mission Covenant Church of Sweden. People in their congregations form Diakonia´s Swedish support base. Diakonia work with, and for, these people with popular education, mobilisation, campaigning and fundraising. The support base also includes local and regional Diakonia representatives and many individuals. These are very important in spreading information and carrying out campaigns for Diakonia and our work.

We are an ecclesiastic organization of various parishes and groups.

Tasks and Goals:

• to raise the awareness of church communities and groups concerning developmental issues
• to support small scale projects in Tanzania aimed at sustainable development
• to establish and monitor development aid partnerships
• to carry out lobbying campaigns (e.g. concerning debt relief)
• to assist in the placement of qualified personnel
• to cooperate with relief organizations as well as with ecclesiastical and non-ecclesiastical NGOs

Areas of Activities:

• we maintain a partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, Pare Diocese
• we monitor and carry out projects in cooperation with our partner organizations (providing water tanks, drilling for water, building corn mills, setting up solar – powered lamps, carrying out fishing projects, funding tuition costs, equipping kindergartens and infirmaries, building sanitary facilities for schools, providing bicycles for employees, musical instruments, etc.)
• we organize group visits to Tanzania
• we arrange visits of Tanzanian groups to Germany
• we place interns in Tanzania
• we carry out information events with speakers from Tanzania
• we organize educational events on development policy issues

• Lending of materials
• Project advice
• Teacher training and further education