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Tearfund: Transforming Lives and Communities Through the Church

4th December 20244th December 2024 Becky Wybrow 326 Views 1 Comment Karen Gibson MBE, local churches, Local Communities, Pastor Primitive, Rwanda, Tearfund

Following her appointment as Tearfund ambassador, Karen Gibson MBE visited Rwanda. She reflects on the charity’s work and its impact on local communities

Earlier this year, I was invited to become a Tearfund Ambassador. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was clear about Tearfund’s reputation as an organisation that is carrying the mandate of our faith far and wide: showing us what it is to love our neighbour, confront injustice, and attend to the needs of the poor and vulnerable on a global scale.

I accepted the invite and my journey and education in the field of charitable work began – and what better way to begin than to see the work up close and personal by visiting one of the countries in which Tearfund has helped oversee great development: Rwanda.

Rwanda is a landlocked country in East Africa; Tearfund currently works in the Southern and Eastern provinces and in Kigali, through a network of local churches. I had previously travelled to Rwanda in 2011 and learned about the devastation caused by the 1994 genocide, and so was interested to revisit the country to understand how Tearfund’s work was impacting the communities there.

The Rwanda I had visited 13 years ago was quite different to the one I encountered this time around. Kigali’s bustling energy, with its gleaming new office buildings and modern highways, was evidence of the impressive work of economic restoration that had taken place. Although much of this had started long before 2011, the cloud of the genocide, along with all its repercussions, still seemed to hang in the air, unspoken, but very much a part of the national identity – one they were keen to escape. By contrast, it feels that the tragedy of the genocide is now much more of a distant memory and that today’s Rwanda has forged ahead. It is peaceful, safe and clean (once a week in Kigali all the residents descend on the city for a massive community clean-up!).

Despite this, almost 40 per cent of Rwanda’s population are still living in poverty, with little access to basic amenities. Travelling out from Kigali’s centre, it is not too long before the neatly tree-lined residential streets give way to sandy pot-filled roads, along which lie small communities of hut-houses. It is in this context that the work of Tearfund, in partnership with churches, becomes important – not only in the work of development, but in the empowerment of local communities to produce local solutions to poverty.

Tearfund practises a holistic approach to the work of development, namely, Transforming Communities. This model is built on the three pillars of social, economic and spiritual growth. The work is facilitated by the church where Transforming Communities facilitators are trained and equipped with resources. The role of the church is crucial in Tearfund’s work because the church best understands the needs of their localities and how best to respond to them.

One such local community lay in the Ndera sector in Kigali city. The partner church was Shekinah Church and, through the Transforming Communities work, five self-help groups had been started involving church and non-church members.

We were invited to listen to the testimonies of transformation from some of the self-help group members and we heard from Claire, an orphan whose feelings of loneliness and isolation led her to believe that only ‘worthy’ people could join the church. However, since joining the self-help group where she’s being trained in sack making, she has found fellowship, feels cared for, and experiences love and community.

Gras told us that prior to joining his self-help group, he was struggling to pay rent. Through his self-help savings and loan group, he was able to invest in tomato growing. Now, he has been able to buy land and build his own house. He and his three children have a healthy diet and he can afford health insurance.

These are a few of the economic empowerment stories, but the impact of the self-help groups has also led to an increase in church membership. Shekinah Church has grown from 230 members to 436. In fact, all the churches in the Ndera sector that had put the Transforming Communities model into practice were growing in number.

Congregations have also become more open to supporting and visiting one another, celebrating each other’s life events, and partaking in community outreach. This was very different to the mindset of ‘every man for themselves’ that was the norm before then. As one member said: “Before, we used to only stand on the spiritual pillar.” They now see the church’s mission as providing holistic support for the community.

Tearfund, through Transforming Communities, works to eradicate poverty and to support the disenfranchised, but within the local churches there are also important efforts being made in other areas too. I was privileged to see safe spaces being provided for young women who had been at risk of sexual and gender-based violence (GBV).

I was awed by the work of the amazing Pastor Primitive, who worked with young, single women to provide trauma and healing support in the aftermath of GBV, as well as practical workshops where they could learn skills that would bring income to their families. Training in hairdressing and parenting skills was available, but we were invited to join them for the soap-making workshop being put on that afternoon. Sitting outside the church in a circle under the sunny sky, their whispered chatter and in-joking, as well as their easy rapport with Pastor Primitive, told me this was a safe space for them – one where they could openly share their stories, and where they had found an ally in a church leader who embraced them as they were.

In yet another local church, those with disabilities who were often unseen and unheard were encouraged to become part of a loving community where they were accepted and where their voices could be heard.

We visited many localities, and there were many more stories told of resilience and hope as well as spiritual, economic and social growth. What was an unexpected gift was learning about the impact of music – particularly gospel music – in the country. The opportunity to work with a couple of local church choirs arose, both of which were housed in Tearfund partner churches. I was excited because I knew that Rwanda has a thriving music scene. What was incredible to learn, however, is that Rwanda’s gospel music scene is even more popular than mainstream music! In all my years of music experience and in all my travels around the world I had never heard of this before – and it makes me wonder…

Could there be a connection between this and the church choir – a symbol of community, identity and belonging – thriving in communities where once the ravages of violence had brought pain and desolation? Could the raising of praise in the aftermath of unspeakable horror have brought about an undetected, yet steady revival through good news music? Could the spaces made available in the churches for growth and development have unwittingly brought about the flourishing of spiritual music-making and performance? It’s hard to say.

However, what is apparent is compelling evidence of the transformation brought about through the work of Tearfund via their partnerships in the churches. The amazing news is that we can all play a part in ensuring that worldwide spiritual, economic and social growth continues – through our giving to Tearfund (and other charities like them). The work is far-reaching: In Rwanda alone, more than 1,000 churches are engaged with Tearfund’s Transforming Communities work and, to date, more than 26,000 self-help group members have been equipped to start their own businesses. As impressive as this is, there is more to be done. The fields are white and the time is now, more than ever.

What will you do?