About

Our Family

Andre and Alexandra met in university and graduated with a Bachelor of Natural Resource Management and a Bachelor of Tourism Management, respectively. Andre continued his studies towards a Master of Divinity, through which God shaped them for a calling in missions. In 2008 they headed to Malawi with their three girls and called Zomba home for two years. They worked with Emmanuel International to improve the livelihoods of subsistence farmers primarily through agriculture development but their projects ranged in scope from small-scale irrigation and drought tolerant crops to orphan care and school support projects to shallow wells and bicycle ambulances. Their girls attended an international school and made friends from all over the world.

Malawi was a great experience for the VanWoerden family. Known as the "warm heart of Africa," God used Malawi to capture their hearts for Africa. Returning to Canada in 2010, they expected God to lead them back to Africa again soon but three years passed before they were ready and the right opportunity surfaced. Finally, it looks like they may be headed for Tanzania in 2015 with their four daughters for four years.


Malawi

Working with Emmanuel International Malawi, the VanWoerdens helped address issues of poverty through community development work in the Zomba and Machinga Districts of Malawi. Andre served as assistant program manager in agriculture, working alongside national staff to help improve the livelihoods of subsistence farmers. Their main project was the DFID funded Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) project, helping farming families increase their resilience against major setbacks such as drought through crop diversification, small-scale irrigation, and afforestation. Other interventions included the use of fuel efficient stoves to reduce their need for firewood and village savings and loans (VSL) groups to diversify their livelihood opportunities. Andre also helped oversee a number of smaller projects, such as the Zomba Action Project (ZAP), Hazelbank projects, and Rotary projects, which provided a diverse and practical set of means to assist the people of Malawi. Although operating on a small scale, these projects were practical, direct, and effective because they addressed real needs in the communities.


Some of the projects that we got to be a part of included:

  • small scale irrigation: using treadle pumps or gravity fed systems to help farmers produce 2-3 crops per year and grow a variety of marketable crops
  • drought tolerant crops: such as cassava and sweet potato, which provide excellent alternatives to the highly rain dependent staple of maize
  • afforestation: planting trees to prevent erosion, improve crop yields, and produce nutritious fruits
  • shallow wells: providing clean drinking water using high a level of community involvement compared to expensive boreholes
  • community based orphan care support: coming alongside communities who are trying to address the need of caring for the high number of orphans and their caregivers
  • school renovations and construction: improving learning environments for students at public school and attracting more teachers
  • school latrines: help increase the number of girls that are able to attend school
  • bicycle ambulances: a community managed ambulance to transport their sick to distant hospitals
  • fuel efficient stoves: reduce firewood usage, reduce smoke exposure, marketable household appliance
  • village savings and loans: a community bank, pooling resources and giving loans to start small businesses
  • mosquito net distributions: protecting families from malaria
  • dike construction: protecting a vulnerable community from recurring flooding
  • bridge construction: providing a community with continuous access to markets, schools, and health centers, even during the rainy season 


Emmanuel International

Emmanuel International is an international, interdenominational, evangelical agency which assists local churches worldwide to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the poor. As a global Christian ministry, Emmanuel International exists to encourage, strengthen, and assist churches worldwide to meet the needs of the poor in accordance with God's Word, sharing God's love and truth, transforming lives for Eternity.

Core Values


CHURCH-BASED


EICanada partners with and works through the agency of local churches within needy communities throughout the world in order to assist them in meeting the specific needs of their communities.

HOLISTIC


EICanada attends to the needs of the whole person: social, physical, emotional and spiritual.

IMPARTIAL


EICanada meets the needs of people regardless of their race, gender, age, colour or religion.

PEOPLE-CENTRED


EICanada’s staff works along side the people of the communities in which they work, bringing aid and personal care into towns, villages and homes.

BUILDING SELF RELIANCE


EICanada’s programs aim to build the self-reliance and dignity of those involved.

GRASS ROOTS


EICanada’s programs meet basic needs at the community level, using simple technology that is easy to replicate and maintain.



Tanzania

Tanzania, a land of spectacular beauty, and one of the largest countries in Africa, is a union (formed in 1964) between the mainland (Tanganyika), and the Zanzibar Isles consisting of Unguja (also known as Zanzibar) and Pemba. It lies on the east coast of Africa, between latitudes 1° and 12° south of the Equator. It is bordered to the north by Kenya and Uganda; to the west by DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Zambia; and to the south by Malawi and Mozambique. Tanzania covers an area of 945,000 sq. km, roughly the equivalent to the province of British Columbia in Canada.


Tanzania is an emerging economy with high potential. But it remains one of the world's poorest countries in terms of per capita income despite impressive growth in its gross domestic product (GDP) over the past decade.  Most people living in rural areas remain extremely poor. The economy of Tanzania largely depends on agriculture, composed of a majority of smallholder farmers, which accounts for about one quarter of GDP, provides 85% of exports and employs about 80% of the workforce in a population estimated at 50 million. Agriculture remains highly sensitive to extreme weather patterns, such as recent droughts, which have severely affected crop and livestock production as well as power generation.

Approximately 90 per cent of Tanzania's poor people live in rural areas. The incidence of poverty varies greatly across the country but is highest among rural families who live in arid and semi-arid regions and depend exclusively on livestock and food crop production. No region is significantly better off than others, and all are very poor by any international standard.

On the Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Programme, the United Republic of Tanzania ranked 163rd of 170 countries in 2000, and 152nd of 187 countries in 2013. It is estimated that one third of Tanzanians live below the basic needs poverty line, and well below the international poverty line, even though the proportion of people living below those lines has fallen. Poverty reduction has been slow and unevenly shared. If current trends continue, the target of halving 1990 poverty levels by 2015 will not be met.

comparison of British Columbia and Tanzania (stats from Wikipedia)