Meserete Kirstos Church Development Commission

 

Meseret Kristos Church Development Commission is the development wing of Meserete Kristos Church, which is affiliated with Mennonite Mission.  Currently, Meseret Kristos church has 352 local churches, 769 church planting centres and a total of about 269 thousand members all over the country.  All these evangelism centres are administered by 19 regional offices and a central office located in Addis Ababa.  The church performs its service under the overall guiding principle of “serving the whole person”. Since its establishment in 1951 as a church, it has been reaching the poor in fulfilling their spiritual, physical, social, intellectual and psychological needs. After long years of interruption during the Derg regime, in 1990 the church was given legal status and openly started its ministry where the Relief and Development Program (RDP) became an integral part. RDP from 1991 to June 1998 focused on church-based development programs where the emphasis was to empower the churches to practically integrate the physical and spiritual services.  Since July 1998, RDA was recognized under the name of the Relief and Development Association (RDA) having its own legal entity while maintaining its ministerial objective of the church which is serving the whole person. On time RDA runs 13 projects assisting thousands of beneficiaries in different localities. One of the 13 projects is the Child Development program which is scattered all over the country and operates in 36 congregations having more than 9000 children and youth as direct beneficiaries. In conformity with the main church objectives, RDA’s Mission is “to promote peace and justice in Ethiopia through addressing the economic, social, cultural and spiritual needs of the poor rural and urban communities in a wholistic manner so that ultimately individuals and communities glorify God Almighty for the positive and sustainable transformation in their lives.” RDA works towards the fulfilment of human rights (as an overarching, integrating concept) by addressing the physical, spiritual and social needs of people (the right approach). The core activity is to bring about respect for human rights through meeting those other needs. RDA believes that fulfilling the spiritual and physical needs of the community in a holistic (integrated) approach including peace, justice human rights, and development is the right of the people. MKC-RDA is committed to planning and implementing participatory transformational development projects jointly with donor agencies, local churches and partner communities.   Although about seven years have elapsed since RDA emerged as an independent organization and planned and executed dozens of projects, it did not have a clearly articulated forward-looking and clear direction of development and strategic thinking for improving organizational services to the beneficiaries. Cognizant of this problem and its effect on the overall development of the organization and its programs, the Board of RDA suggested the need for preparing a strategic plan for the organization which would enable it to improve performance, clarify future direction, solve major organizational problems, improve resource allocation, and meet stakeholders' requirements. During the process of the Strategic Plan preparation (January 2022) it was clearly identified that RDA has an inadequacy of capacity to effectively and efficiently execute, manage and monitor its program, mission and strategies; The previous Meserete Kristos Church Relief and Development Association (MKC-RDA) recently changed to Meserete Kristos Church Development Commission (MKC-DC) as of October 21, 2022, is a local Non-Governmental Organization reorganized itself in 1991 and registered by the Ministry of Justice in 1998 as a local NGO. The organization envisioned a transformed and poverty-free Ethiopian society where economic and social needs are met and sustained for successive generations. MKC-DC is commissioned to address the basic and spiritual needs of people in rural and urban areas in a sustainable manner by tackling the root cause of poverty. MKC-DC was undertaking 108 projects and benefiting more than 100,000 beneficiaries (2025) in different parts of the country. MKC-DC has been implementing development projects in regional administrative states: Oromia, Amhara, Tigray, Gambel, Sidama, SNNP, Afar, Somali as well as in Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa City Councils. The major areas of project interventions include Food Security, Education, Health and HIV/AIDS, Child and Youth Development, Community Mobilization for development programs, and Disaster Risk Reduction. MKC-DC has been committed to working with and empowering local communities to feed the hungry and destitute through famine relief and food or cash for work programs; to improve food security by soil enrichment and conservation through composting, terrace building and tree planting; to improve community health through basic education, protecting water sources, teaching sanitation and the use of latrine and improving nutrition; to reduce the prevalence and spread of HIV/AIDS through education and providing medications and assistance to people living with HIV and AIDS; to provide educational opportunities through the creation or improvement of schools for the children and providing functional adult literacy programs; to enable the poorest children to get primary and secondary education through sponsorship projects. Moreover, the organization also promotes the development of self-help groups among the most vulnerable population groups, especially women and people with disabilities and encourages harmonious living situations within the community through peace-building and conflict resolution training and promoting restorative justice practices. MKC-DC has been partnered with Compassion International Ethiopia (CIE), Vision Care Ethiopia, Bethesda Ministry: One Child Ethiopia, Children Hope Chest, Mennonite Central Committee Ethiopia (MCCE), Tear Fund Ethiopia (UK), and Tear Fund Irelands for the last ten years. MKC-DC is governed by a Board of Trustees in which seven persons are members; selected by the MKC-DC’s General Assembly. The Board members are leaders or experts from public organizations, civil society organizations and private sectors. Moreover, MKC-DC has been implementing emergency relief projects in some parts of the country specifically in the Westen Zone of Oromiya Regional State, North Shoawa’s of Amhara Regional State and Tigray Regional State.  The experience and lessons gained from a long time of project implementation enabled the organization to be effective and efficient. MKC-DC is the development wing of Meserete Kristos Church that works in conformity with the overall guiding principle of serving "the whole person" through community development programs. It envisions a transformed and poverty-free Ethiopian society where economic, social and moral needs are met and continued for successive generations. To realize its vision, the commission makes its utmost effort to address the economic, physical and moral needs of urban and rural poor communities by empowering the community to halt the root causes of poverty and deprivations. As a partial fulfilment of the overall goal and development principles, MKC-DC has developed this annual operational plan for the year 2026. This plan was prepared in a participatory manner at different levels where target communities, projects and head office staff have been engaged actively. The operational plan document contains background/brief history of MKC-DC, major projects/programs of the 2026 FY described in the summary table with their operational locations, methods of planning the projects/programs, goals and objectives, outputs and organizational management. The physical and financial plans summary is attached and will be presented at the end of this session. Accordingly, for the fiscal year under focus, MKC-DC has planned programs in the following thematic areas: ·       Children and Youths Development Program, ·       Livelihood Projects: Boricha livelihood, Meta Wolkite, Bora and Shebbedino livelihood, Wukro rehabilitation and livelihood ·       Maternal and Child Health Improvement: Batu ·       Humanitarian Crisis Response and Rehabilitation Project: Tigray, Oromia and other regions ·       Empowering community leaders for peaceful coexistence among Ethnic Groups Contact:- Shambu Balcha. Meserete Kirstos church Development Commission Executive Director @   shambubalcha2020@gmail.com