Ifakara Town Council
HISTORY
Ifakara Town Council is one of the nine Local Government authorities in MorogoroRegion.It was established with effect from 25th September, 2015 through GN number 220. On 4th December, 2015 It got its certificate of establishment and became fully operational effective from January 2016.
Historically Ifakara Town Council is formed from earlier name of the headquarter of Kilombero District Council known as Ifakara/Kilombero before it came an independent Local Authority.Ifakara has been a potential entry point linking interior areas south of Morogoro and much of the Southern west and east to other areas as Ulanga District in the south East and Mufindi and Njombe to the southwest.
Ifakara Town Council bordersKilombero District Council to the North, south and south west, Ulanga District to the south east (along Kilombero River) and Kilolo District in North West.
The area of Ifakara town Council lies along the Kilombero Valley and part of it in the Rufiji Basin and Selous Game Reserve which extends to the Udzungwa Mountains National Park, covered by Miombo woodlands which is about 1,700 meters above sea level. The nature of catchment necessitates most water from Udzungwa Mountain to pass in Ifakara through Lumemo River.
The Council lies within one main agro-ecological zone called “Central zone” that suit the cultivation of such crops as Paddy, maize, cassava and vegetable. The soil types are loamy, clay, sandy, and sandy – loamy.
Historically, Ifakara has passed through different administrative districts. While from 1899 to 1917 it was part of Mahenge militarbezirk, between 1917 and 1936 it was under Mahenge District (Larson 1976). From 1936 to independence (1961), Ifakara became part of Ulanga District. Today (2008), Ifakara is part of Kilombero District, Morogoro Region. It is both the division and district headquarters. The population is heterogeneous. The indigenous people are largely the Ndamba, Mbunga and Pogolo tribes and the population today constitutes also the descendants of Lipangalala, Ndwangira and Mfalikuivahaa, who as leaders from Zululand and Southern Africa arriving in Ifakara and the region as of the late 1860s (Larson 1976:14). Other ethnic groups include Hehe, Sukuma, Bena, Gogo, Ruguru, Kyurya, Pare, and Chagga. In terms of religion, Christians outnumber Moslems and pagans because of early settlements of missionaries in the area.
A year after the British mandate was pronounced by the League of Nations in 1920s, the Capuchin Mission started work in Ifakara. The Swiss missionary work emerged in a context of acute social and political change. The missionary range of services offered was not only spiritual and pedagogical, but also medical. Christian missions had a reputation as conveyors of European medical science. Sr. Arnolda Kury, from the Franciscan Baldegg congregation of the “Schwestern von der Göttlichen Vorsehung” Baldegger_Schwestern [de] built a small dispensary in 1927. This facility developed over the years and grew considerably when the St. Annaheim maternity hospital was added in 1944. In 1953, Dr. Karl Schöpf designed and built a modern and new hospital, now called St. Francis Hospital, with support from Sr. Arnolda, the powerful parish priest and not least the Capuchin Bishop of the Archdiocese of Dar es Salaam. Today the mission hospitals have become ‘health projects’ executing ‘health programmes’ which are sold on the secular and spiritual, as well as private and public, market created by donors in Switzerland and elsewhere
Ifakara is home to six major institutions of the Tanzanian health and water sectors:
the Ifakara Health Institute, formerly Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre, recognized internationally for its research on malaria, other tropical diseases and health systems and services
the St.Francis University College of Health and Allied Sciences(SFUCHAS), a constituent college of St. Augustine University of Tanzania, a higher learning institution established in 2010 offering Doctor of Medicine degree and other Allied health programs.
the St. Francis Designated Referral Hospital
Maji Safi Kwa Afya Bora Ifakara (MSABI) is an NGO implementing cost effective, community based water, sanitation, and hygiene projects in Tanzania.
The Ifakara School of Nursing former Edgar Maranta Nursing school.