Section outline
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General
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WELCOME
Welcome to the Gender, Religion and Health Grad Conference – 10 years of learning and looking ahead at the new era!
When are we gathering: Between the 30th of September – 4 October 2024 Act Church of Sweden welcome you all to Dar es Salaam for joint Contextual Reflections, Knowledge Production and Continued Change Making.
Who is gathering: We welcome the students and staff from Stellenbosch University (SU) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in South Africa, TUMA University Makumira in Tanzania (TUMA) and the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology (EGST) in Ethiopia.
Why are we gathering: The aim of the Conferenceis to bring stakeholders from the four initial implementation partners together to enable critical praxis reflection and knowledge production to evaluate the long-term impact of theological education as a civil society change making tool and strategy and to look ahead at the next era.
The main objectives are:
Besides collective knowledge production, long term evaluation and impact assessment, the gathering also enables us to look to the future and to collectively explore future interventions and collaborations in Theological Education.
Each of the four partnering institutions were tasked in 2013 to develop a context specific Master's program exploring the intersection of Gender, Religion/Theology and Health to ultimately contribute to knowledge production and educational interventions to address, at the time Millennium Development Goal 4 and 5 (Child and Mother Mortality.)
After the 10-year (2013-2023) implementation period of the Masters Project Gender, Religion and Health in the Africa region it is time to take stock and see what has been learnt and what can come next! We are very much looking forward to do this together.
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Meet THE ACT CHURCH OF SWEDEN TEAM
Charlene Van Der Walt - Global Adviser Theological EducationEmilie Weiderud - Policy Adviser SRHR and main facilitator for the convening
Helena Nyström Method Adviser Gender
Sofia Svarfvar - Program Manager Southern Africa
Debra Talbot - Administrative and travel support
Axsa Gabagambi - Act CoS Consultant in Tanzania
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PREPARING AND LOGISTICS
HighlightedFirst of all, we ask you to come prepared with bringing a curious mindset to engage in this gathering. Be curious of what this event will bring and what you will bring to it.
The gathering starts before the gathering starts.
Here follows important information for travelling to Tanzania and what is good to know.
We convene at Home - Giraffe Beach Hotel (giraffebh.com)
Dates: 30 September - 4 October 2024
Preparing for your travel to Tanzania
Yellow card: Yellow Fever vaccination is mandatory to travellers arriving from yellow fever endemic countries. This condition also applies to travellers subjected to long flight connection (transit) in yellow fever endemic countries for twelve hours. Please check your country's recommendation in advance before your travel!
At the airport - Purpose of entry – When asked, your purpose of entry is to visit Tanzania, staying in Dar es Salaam. The information is already available through your visa application.
Pick-up at airport – The Giraffe hotel airport transfer service will receive you and take you to the hotel.
Money - It is good to have a few dollars with you as security in case of the unforeseen. Major credit cards can be used all over Tanzania subject to network connection. Cash can be withdrawn from ATMs available throughout the city. At some restaurants and supermarkets, you can pay with your card, but Tanzania is still a cash-based society.
Clothes - Respectful and formal dress code is preferable. You will travel to a climate zone which is very hot and humid. Cotton, linen, and functional fabric is good.
Electricity - 220 Volt, with British electrical plugs (three pins). You need adapters. Electricity can be a bit unreliable but should be no problem at the venues you will be staying. Remember to keep your phone charged and bring if you have a power bank.
Mobile and internet - Roaming is possible but very expensive. Remember to keep mobile data off on your mobile devices if you travel from outside of Tanzania. You will have access to Wi-Fi at the hotel and at some restaurants. If in need of local sim-card, Vodacom is recommended service provider and easily accessible.
Staying well and healthy - Bring things for you own health and comfort. Earplugs can be good as well as a small first aid. Bring sunscreen and mosquito net and repellent. Hand sanitiser, water bottle and any prescribed medicine to last in case of extended stay. In terms of additional medication malarone/Malastad can be recommended but please consult vaccine clinic in your own contexts. They will also advise on what you need for travels in terms of typhoid, hepatitis, meningitis, cholera. Tanzania has not had any confirmed cases of the Mpox virus. (see more information here from the Ministry for Health in Tanzania 66c5ffa2c1f87760733674.pdf (moh.go.tz) and here general health recommendations and information from WHO Mpox (who.int)
Food and drink - In terms of good follow general recommendations: eat fruits when peeled, not eating raw eggs, fresh juice if you trust the vendor. Do not drink the tap water but use bottled water. Hand sanitiser can help a long way. Ensure you stay hydrated and increase fibre intake during longer stays.
Local transport - Uber and Bolt is available, cheap, easy and safe to use. Offical taxis are also recommended, not Bajaj or Bodaboda
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PROGRAM OF THE CONFERENCE
The aim of the convening is three-fold, joint knowledge production, long term evaluation and impact assessment of the Masters project and its implementation, as well as the creation of a platform to explore future collaboration and interventions.
After 10 years of doing this work –and going through many different eras in all our different contexts- it is time to map out what has been learnt and what knowledge has been produced, what difference it has made and the impact we can see. And lastly we will look at the future and see what the future era holds in terms of collaboration.
The flow of the program for the week will bring us through all these elements and the days are designed to build upon each other.
Framing the conversation/What is the Era’s Tour Exercise? Drawing on the data collected in the pre-convening phase and looking back at 2013-2023 we will identify main program eras – who were the role players, what where the themes, what were the collaborations, the outputs, the highlights, the challenges and the outcomes. This work is started by staff to start on Monday and Graduates to join on Wednesday morning. Together we will produce a visual grid/timeline.
For Joint knowledge production we will listen to expert panels and theme specific working groups for graduates as well as 3 key thematic discussions. The Concrete outcome here is set towards a book publication.
For Outcoming harvesting- we will map out our different Era’s and have tour through them, we will have interviews by the Outcome Harvesting team. We will also engage in Open space technology discussions as well as smaller stakeholder specific engagements. The Concrete outcome is to map out these Eras, present them to each other and the basis of the Outcome Harvesting will at a later stage provide a final analysis report.
For Future collaborations and looking to the establishment of Graduate Network. Here grad network will create ownership and make concrete plans.
We are looking forward to doing this together!
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THEMATIC STREAMS
Track 1: Theology, Development and Peacebuilding.
Track 2: Health, Healing and Wellbeing
Track 3: Men, Masculinities and Affirming Theologies
Track 4: African Women’s Theology engaging Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights
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INSPIRATIONAL PANELS
Panel 1: Creating Change Together- Reflections on collaborative engagement by civil society, academia, and faith actors.
Facilitator: Sofia Svarfvar Act Church of Sweden
Panel 2: Teaching for Change – Thinking through methods, approaches and learning from teaching at the intersection of gender, religion, and health.
Facilitator: Helena Nystrom Act Church of Sweden
Panel 3: Creating space for difficult conversations – methods and approaches.
Facilitator: Emilie Weiderud Act Church of Sweden
Panel 4: Reading the Bible in the context of gender, religion, and health.
Facilitator: Charlene Van Der Walt, Act Church of Sweden
Panel 5: Thinking forward – what is the future work we need to see.
Facilitator: Emilie Weiderud and Charlene Van Der Walt Act Church of Sweden
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OUTCOME HARVESTING
Learnings and reflections are an important part of the conference objectives. The conference will have an outcome harvesting media team with the task to capture the impact of the Theological education initiative in photo, video, social media content and short media write-ups.
The theory of change conceptualized by the Masters Program Gender, Theology/Religion and Health posits that capacitated faith leaders empowered to engage with embodied contextual realities situated at the intersection of gender, religion, and health function as change-agents in local contextual (faith) communities.
The media produced will feed into the outcome harvesting process as part of Act CoS’s Strategy for Theological Education in a Global Context and the work done though that, together with partners. It will further contribute to Act CoS’ current comprehensive Theological Education evaluation - and important aspect in ensuring that our work together is relevant, effective, has impact and is sustainable. This evaluation is conducted as part of the Strategy for Theological Education in a Global Context with specific focus on gender, SRHR and its integration with religion, theology, and health.
By gathering outcomes, we want to find out how results and sustainability can be ensured, and unsuccessful or harmful methods and activities can be avoided.
Evaluation questions -
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EVALUATION
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RESOURCES
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Certificate
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