“Think like businesspeople”: Official of Catholic Bishops in Tanzania to Nuns Graduating as Social Entrepreneurs

“If you enterprise as a Congregation, you will never suffer financially,” the Tanzanian Catholic Priest said.

He reminded the Sisters that entrepreneurship in ICLSAL is “a new way of thinking that cannot be avoided.”

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“It would be strange to think that you have nothing to do with entrepreneurship if you are in a Congregation that is aiming to help society. You have to be enterprising even if your charism is centered on poverty,” the Secretary General of TEC said.

He recounted his encounter with a Sisters’ Congregation in Tanzania that transformed their community from a “begging” one to a sustainable social enterprise.

“I once advised a community of Sisters here in Tanzania to stop begging. Begging is a sign of laziness, I told them. I told them you have the knowledge to get something from the many resources that surround you,” Fr. Kitima said.

Credit: ACWECA

He continued, “At first the Sisters opposed me saying that part of their charism was to beg. But gradually, they started engaging in farming, rearing chicken and selling hosts. Eventually, they learnt how to request donations to expand their enterprises.” 

Fr. Kitima reminded the SBVP graduates of the “countless” opportunities they have to make money for their respective ICLSAL in the communities where they are established.

The SBVP is a capacity building initiative in developing sustainable social enterprises benefiting some 40 Religious Orders of Catholic Nuns in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia; it is realized in partnership with the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

Credit: ACWECA

The graduation at the Serena Hotel in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania was the second in the series of graduations that ACWECA and the Strathmore Global Institute have organized in the four African countries, where the Catholic Sisters’ Social Entrepreneurship Program is being implemented.

20 Catholic Sisters in Uganda graduated in the program at a ceremony that was held on September 4 at Speke Resort Munyonyo in the outskirts of Uganda’s capital city, Kampala.

The next graduation is to be in Kenya on September 27, and finally in Zambia at a date to be communicated later.

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According to the implementers, the project aims to improve the Catholic Sisters’ capacities, connect them to networks and provide them with information hubs, as well as robust financial services.

This initiative comes after a survey that Hilton Foundation commissioned in early 2021 revealed challenges women Religious face in their ministries such as a lack of funding, inadequate leadership skills, and financial and organizational sustainability. The project aims to address these challenges by providing skills, networking opportunities, and resources for continued opportunities in social enterprises.

In his keynote address, Fr. Kitima urged female ICLSAL in Tanzania to invest in the younger members, who he said are gifted in ways that can benefit their communities.

Fr. Charles Kitima. Credit: ACWECA

“Here, we have more than 100 Sisters' Congregations, all of them with very gifted young Sisters. The problem is that the Congregations have refused to think outside the box,” he said. 

“Congregations of Sisters must shake off their poverty mentality,” the official of TEC said, and added, “There is no way you can evangelize and realize your charisms without money. And there is money everywhere for anyone who has an entrepreneurial mindset.”

Fr. Kitima also urged the Sisters to only select enterprising Sisters to be in charge of their enterprises, saying, “Do not elect people who are only interested in enriching themselves. The money you fundraise should be solely for the Congregation.”

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The Tanzanian Catholic Priest shared with the Sisters the lessons he learnt as the Vice Chancellor (VC) of St. Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT), a position he served for 10 years.

Accepting the role at just 38 years old, “the youngest VC at the time” gathered skills in fundraising, networking and focusing on quality education. These skills, Fr. Kitima said, saw him accomplish everything that the university had set to achieve in a very short time. In just five years of his term, Fr. Kitima achieved what the university was supposed to achieve in 20 years.

At his election as VC at the university that TEC established in 1998, Fr. Kitima knew that he did not have time to waste. He said, “We were in competition with the biggest universities in the region. I visited top universities in the world to learn about sustainability.”

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“I also took time to learn the Jesuits' model of investing in quality teaching staff, relevant programs for the society as well as the centralization of Catholic education,” he said, adding that the most critical thinkers such as the late Prof. George Magoha of Kenya were his best friends from whom he learnt how to succeed in the education sector.

Credit: ACWECA

Fr. Kitima’s innovativeness transformed SAUT into one of the best in the region, attracting staff from outside Tanzania, who made the Catholic-sponsored institution of higher learning even more attractive to parents in the East African country.