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The Britain Tanzania Society is inviting you to the above Workshop to be held on the 23rd June 2018 between 1100am to 0600pm (time TBC) in Room LR10 London Road Building at London South Bank University.

The main objective of this event is to present the strategic measures that the businesses must implement to ensure compliance with the importation standards/regulations of the EU, Codex alimentarius and the World Trade Organization. These measures include the traceability system from field to fork, phytosanitary requirement, food fraud, compliance at Border of Inspection Post among other initiatives. We are targeting participation from Diaspora engaged in farming and trade, companies that import fresh produce in the UK and if possible those importing from Tanzania, regulators, supermarket chains, freight forwarders, DEFRA and other relevant stakeholders directly involved with fresh produce importation and selling in the UK Market.

This event will be complementing our last event on “Tanzania making Progress in Agriculture”, which received overwhelming response and great feedback from audience. The event was organised in collaboration with All Party Parliamentary Group led by the Honourable Member of Parliament, Mr Jeremy Lefroy.

Tanzania agricultural sector has recently increased boosting the economy tremendously however there is a need to expand market and understanding of international regulatory requirements   and barriers faced to market the products in developed world like EU. Yet the importance and potential of the sector is often played down. This event will look at traceability requirements which needs to be complied with in order to trade in European Market.

Here below are the presenters for the event.

1. Nahum Kidan – DEFRA

 He is a Higher Scientific Officer in the Food Science team at the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) where his role entails commissioning and managing food science, innovation and sustainability research projects to support policy making.  He also contributes to European working groups on food systems, food security and food authenticity.  Prior to joining Defra, he spent 4 years in academia as a lecturer on undergraduate and postgraduate environmental health programmes and 8 years in local government as an environmental health practitioner specialising in food safety and standards.

2. Stephen J Cooper CEnvH, FCIEH

During a 42 year career in Local Government Stephen worked in the environmental health departments of three Northern Ireland local authorities completing his service as Assistant Director of Environmental Health with Newry and Mourne District Council holding responsibility for Food Safety, Tobacco Control and Training.  His particular interest in his last post was working with the Northern Ireland Fishing and Aquaculture industry helping to guide the businesses through the EU Approval process.

Stephen is a trustee of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and a Director of the International Federation of Environmental Health.  It is in this latter position that he has developed mutually beneficial relationships with fellow environmental health practitioners in Tanzania both at University and practitioner level.

3. Dr Joseph Senyah B.Sc(Hons), 3 M.Scs, Ph.D, MIFST, MCIEH, CEnvH Microbiology Society

4. Michele Wilson -Farm Africa

10 years of experience in overseas humanitarian and development programmes at senior management level based in fragile states (N Uganda, DRC, Sierra Leone, Chad, Sudan and South Sudan). She has experience across a wide range of sectors (education, health, livelihoods, WASH and most recently Climate Change as well as extensive experience with many institutional donors including but not restricted to DFID, EU, USAID and UNICEF.  Her keen interest is focused in programmes that are focused on reducing inequality, particularly women and girls, as well as a passion for quality in programme design and implementation. Michele is MSc graduate in Conflict, Violence and Development and has a first degree in French and Business from St Andrews University.

5. Josh Meek -Farm Africa

Josh is a Technical Manager for Market Engagement.Have experience working in international development focusing on enterprise development and agricultural market systems in East Africa. He has worked with teams on the ground across Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania to partner with smallholder farmers and businesses to build resilient and sustainable economies and increase farmer incomes.

6. Mayank Vashisht- Imports Operations at Freight Services

International Market Demand on Food Safety Compliance and Import Regulations

Mayank has been working in freight industries for last 15 year with various companies dealing with a lots of imports and export of perishable and general cargo. s to and from UK.. Currently is a Director of Export and Import Company assisting businesses dealing with import and exports to obtain relevant documents as required by port health and EU regulations,

7. Petronila Mlowe MCIEH FRSPH

Petronila is a Vice chair for Britain Tanzania Society and Senior Food Safety Officer in a UK Local Government, Trainer, Project Officer and Trustee of Tanzania Development Trust.  She conducts various food safety courses in UK and runs workshops in Tanzania. She has worked with farmers in Tanzania and advises businesses in order to comply with EU Food Safety Regulations. Awarded an accolade with Tanzanian current government on her active role in helping Tanzanian farmers.

Join us for presentations from Ben Taylor, Deus Kibamba and Martin Rainsford, followed by informal questions and discussions organised by BTS education group.

Ben Taylor (@mtega) is a governance and development analyst with a particular interest in Tanzania. He works as a consultant for Twaweza, a citizen-centred initiative in East Africa working on education and open government. He edits the journal Tanzanian Affairs and blogs at http://mtega.com .

Deus Kibamba is a Research Fellow at The Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House. He was formerly the executive director of a small dynamic information research organization – the Tanzania Citizens’ Information Bureau. Deus is a frequent commentator on topical issues in the Tanzanian and international media, and he has also authored and co-authored journal articles and training manuals

Martin Rainsforth from PIXL will be talking about his work on school improvement with Headteachers particularly in Rukwa.

For registration, please click on the following link; https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/education-in-tanzania-current-successes-challenges-and-opportunities-tickets-44708136239

Pete Kent from Railway Children will talk about their work with vulnerable children in Tanzania.

Railway Children is a leading children’s charity fighting for vulnerable children who live alone at risk on the streets, where they suffer abuse and exploitation. In the UK, society often denies their existence, and in other countries the problem is so prevalent that it has become ‘normal’.

Children and young people run away or are forced to leave home where they suffer poverty, violence, abuse and neglect. They find themselves living on the streets because there is nowhere else to go and no one left to turn to. The problems they face on the streets are often even worse than those they endured at home. Every day we fight to change their story.

Railway Children races to reach children as soon as they arrive on the streets and intervene before an abuser can. Our pioneering work in the UK, India and East Africa enables us to get to street children before the streets get to them.

‘Pete Kent is East Africa Regional Director at Railway Children. Railway Children is a leading UK development agency focused on supporting children living on the streets. Pete spent two years as volunteer teacher living in a small town in Tanzania in 1999-2001. He has been at Railway Children since 2004 and was responsible for establishing Railway Children’s first partnership there in 2006. Since then Railway Children has registered as an independent agency in Tanzania and now supports projects working with children on the streets in six of the major cities with funding from USAID and DFID amongst others. Our work with children focuses on street based interventions, youth based peer support work, and on family reintegration. In addition we work with communities to challenge their perceptions about children on the streets and we work closely with government to create the legislative framework required to protect children on the streets and to help government create the systems that can effectively support children in future years without relying on support from the NGO community.’

To find out more about Railway Children at http://www.railwaychildren.org.uk/

Twitter: www.twitter.com/railwaychildren

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/153591452011568/, www.facebook.com/railwaychildren

YouTube: www.youtube.com/railwaychildren

For more information, please do contact Janet Chapman on j.chapman@tanzdevtrust.org

Tanzania: Making Progress in Agriculture.

Over 60 per cent of Tanzania’s population earn their living from agriculture, and while this percentage is reducing slowly the absolute numbers involved are increasing.
Yet the importance and potential of the sector is often played down.
This event looked at some of the recent successes in the sector, and the ways in which it is likely to develop in future.
Speakers  included Antony Ellman, whose field experience of agriculture in Tanzania goes back to the 1960s, Jeremy Lefroy MP whose family is involved with farming in Northern Tanzania, Mukesh Lakhani whose company MD Import Export Ltd imports tropical agricultural products from Tanzania, and Andrew Coulson who continues to write about small scale agriculture in Tanzania. The short presentations were followed by discussion and debate.

The event was held in Houses of Parliament in   Committee Room 6. Please click here to see the report of the meeting, click  here to see Andrew’s presentation and click here to see Anthony’s Presentation. Please click here for listening to an audio recording of the event.

There are also presentations of a previous general APPG on Agriculture here which may be of interest.

The next BTS event is at SOAS on street children, details are here

The main speaker for this seminar will be Kate McAlpine, who has lived in Tanzania for 23 years. When she arrived, she was struck by the plight of street children, and subsequently set up an organisation Mkombozi to help them. She will talk about the world views of Tanzanians who take action to protect children – as a lens on how large scale behavioural change to end violence may occur. Her websites are http://www.doingtherightthing.co and http://www.ccr-tz.org.  Twitter@katemcalpine. For more information contact Janet Chapman on j.chapman@tanzdevtrust.org

A Pathbreaking AGM for BTS

Our AGM ended with the biggest committee ever – 24 – including 13 Tanzanians living and working in this country.

The venue was stunning: St.Mary-at-Hill, one of the churches redesigned and rebuilt by Christopher Wren after the Fire of London in 1666. It hosts the Lutheran congregation which meets there for worship in English every week and in Kiswahili every month.

Willie Fulton stood down as Vice-Chair and was replaced by Petronilla Mlowe.  Gabriel Mgambwa is our new Treasurer.  Elizabeth Taylor stood down as Secretary but is staying on the committee, and was replaced by Tessa Most. John Wood has agreed to maintain our database of members. Drs Hamza Mohamed and Gideon Mlawa have joined us to facilitate liaison with TUHEDA, the new organisation promoting medical work in Tanzania. Ida Hadjivianis will link us with the Swahili Department at SOAS – she specialises in translation, and among much else has translated Alice in Wonderland into Kiswahili. We were more than pleased when, after these changes had been approved, 5 people stood up and offered their services to the committee. We hope that this will give us a much improved administration, enable us to promote our events and other activities much more, but above all link us with a wide range of activities involving the diaspora in the UK.

BBC Swahili: “A Flagship for the Swahili Language”

Our speaker was Zawadi Machibwa, an experienced journalist who has worked for the BBC Swahili Service for many years.

BBC Swahili prides itself on its accuracy. In a world where “fake news” and unconfirmed gossip is often reported, the BBC tries to get a controversial story cross-checked from three separate sources before it uses it. The result is that listeners trust it, and believe what it says. BBC Swahili is keen to employ women and to discuss matters that are important for women. 17% of those working in the media in East Africa are now women, and the numbers are rising. Zawadi offered the hope that her talk would be the start of a long and productive relationship between BBC Swahili and the BTS.

The AGM at 2.00pm on Saturday 28 October, will be at a new venue for us – St Mary-at-Hill Church, Lovat Lane, London EC3R 8EE.  This is where the Swahili-speaking congregation meet once a month – near Bank and Monument Stations.

Speaker:  Salim Kikeke, BBC Swahili Service presenter, who has over 1 million people on his Facebook account! The Dira ya Dunia programme which he presents often gets audiences of 7 million, and perhaps even more tune into his programmes on football.  He will talk about how the Swahili Service works, and what it offers to Tanzania.

If you would like a table to sell items for good causes in the run up to Christmas, or to promote an NGO relating to work in Tanzania, please contact Elizabeth Taylor on etaylorsjut@gmail.com