FROM MOJA (ME) TO PAMOJA (WE): SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT FOR GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY

Abstract

In partnership with the Canadian Government, the University of Saskatchewan, Nelson Mandela Institute of Science and Technology, and the local Tanzanian non-governmental organization Green Hope, the Mama Kwanza Socio-economic Health Initiative (MKSHI) provides health care and social services to people throughout the Arusha region of Tanzania. This doctoral work draws on the experiences of one critical group served by the Mama Kwanza initiative -- adolescent girls no longer engaged in formal education. Viewed as “critical agents for change” (United Nations Development Program, 2014), the girls, their capacities and competencies within informal networks, are pivotal for their development and growth. Skills and competencies needed within informal sectors, such as communication, negotiation, cooperation, and critical thinking, rely on the development of social skills and spheres. Sachs (2015a) argues that social development and solidarity is both the root and solution to the problem of equity and sustainability. As a pillar within the current global approach to development, the social dimensions of development required to support the girls at this critical stage of adolescence is crucial, with intergenerational implications. This work examines the Mama Kwanza project as a development partnership from a collectivist epistemological approach. The key argument of this work is that social development, as a pathway for transformative change toward a global culture of equity and sustainability, must be directed by collectivist and relational traditions. Using participatory and ethnographic research methods, a gender-based analysis using Anderson and Woodrow’s (1998) Capacity and Vulnerability Analysis (CVA) framework is conducted to assess the vulnerabilities and capacities of the girls engaged in the Mama Kwanza program. Given the strengths and capabilities of the girls, this work discusses the indicators of social development put forward by the World Bank (2018) and concludes that relational approaches to research, practice, and partnership supports the mutual interest, benefit, responsibility, and respect in the effort to support sustainable development, address global fragilities, and ‘leave no one behind’ (United Nations, 2018a).