Introducing Graham and Lisa Stevenson, Tanzania

Graham and Lisa Stevenson live in Arusha in northern Tanzania, where they moved in early 1997. Since that time they have mostly been involved in working with the Maasai people in rural areas along the Rift Valley. This involves a considerable amount of travelling but allows them the privilege of working with people who are still relatively untouched by urban influence.

Their work initially was almost exclusively with churches and their communities near the market town of Mtowambu, about 100km west of Arusha. Over the past year the projects they run have opened up opportunities in the more rural communities further afield. The Cow Project, which supports vulnerable women, is in its third year and still ongoing. It has proved to be an excellent way of providing unconditional help to women who would normally be at ‘the bottom of the pile’. Forty-one women have received a heifer to date, which gives them a steady supply of milk as well as a measure of status.

Five years of drought, which was particularly severe this year, have also opened up many new contacts as Graham and Lisa have responded to the need for food in the more inaccessible communities. Graham has also now begun to teach Foundations for Farming in these areas – a low cost, no tillage, conservation farming method ideally suited to arid, rural environments. This gives him an opportunity to work and chat on demonstration plots out in the bush with Maasai who have settled and already tried to cultivate maize.

Lisa is also involved in counselling through a donor-funded project in town, and both she and Graham continue with marriage counselling and teaching – a work they are deeply committed to.

Vist Graham and Lisa’s blog here.