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Building Our Future - The Hanga Abbey Capital Campaign -
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While our golden anniversary allows us the opportunity to reflect on our past, it also calls us to look towards the future. As we look towards the future and furthering our missionary cause in East Africa, our community is striving to lay a foundation in which we can begin to successfully generate sufficient funds as to re-invest in our numerous projects and decrease our dependence on outside funding. And while it is difficult to predict what our future will hold, we strongly believe that with the completion of our St. Pirmin Guesthouse we will have laid this solid foundation for our future and taken a significant step towards our goal of becoming a self-reliant community. |
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St. Pirmin Guesthouse
Located within the quiet confines of St. Maurus’ Abbey in Hanga, the St. Pirmin Guesthouse will be a reflection of our Benedictine values through the hospitality and service it will offer its guests. With its 100 self contained rooms, business center, and conference rooms, the St. Pirmin Guesthouse looks to fill the ever increasing need for suitable housing and retreat facilities in Southwest Tanzania.
The St. Pirmin Guesthouse will not only provide a comfortable residence for the many guests of Hanga Abbey to relax and reflect, but it will also serve other, larger, audiences by acting as a business center, spiritual retreat center, and the central hub for our developing cultural tourism venture. And while we recognize that each of these audiences are uniquely different, they all share in the common need for suitable and safe lodging in southern Tanzania. We believe that we will be able to sufficiently reach out to each of these groups and provide for their unique needs with our new St. Pirmin Guesthouse. Below you can find out more about the projected uses of our new Guest house.
Cultural Tourism:
With its scheduled 100 rooms, dining hall, and multiple conference rooms, the St. Pirmin Guesthouse will undoubtedly make Hanga a central location for anyone traveling within the southern part of Tanzania; a part of Tanzania that is greatly overlooked due to the famous attractions in the North.
Currently, we are working closely with a travel agency in Italy to develop various cultural tourism itineraries that will bring visitors to places like: Mikumi National Park, Mbamba Bay on Lake Nyasa, Selous Game Reserve, and provide an opportunity to spend time in Hanga Village learning what the daily life and culture of the local Tanzanian people. We are strongly committed to the success of this tourism opportunity and have recently bought a plot of land along the shores of Lake Nyasa in Mbamba Bay. As the expansion of our tourism program grows we will begin development of a private house for our guests to relax in and enjoy the beauty of Lake Nyasa.
We are very excited about the opportunities that this tourism program can bring to our Monastery. Not only will this be a way for our monastery to gain a source of financial independence, but it will also connect individuals from cultures all over the world. By opening southern Tanzania to more tourism we hope to be able to share the beauty of our people and our country with those that are unfamiliar with the Tanzanian lifestyle. Meeting and working with people from different cultures is an incredible learning experience, not only for those who travel to visit us, but for those who live here as well.
Business Center:
Recently, we have been approached by various regional and national government officials about founding a business center at Hanga. Currently, the Tanzanian government is looking to implement various expansion projects throughout Southwest Tanzania, including the paving of roads and expansion of various businesses. However, until now they are experiencing difficulties in the fact that there are no sufficient places for meeting and lodging in this part of the country. Our new Guesthouse hopes to fill this void by not only providing 100 quality rooms, but also 4 conference rooms, which will have the ability to hold 25 people each.
Currently the government is working hard to begin massive road paving projects from Songea to Mbamba Bay and from Hanga to Dar es Salaam. Once the Guesthouse is completed we will be able to offer the amenities needed by the business and government officials in charge of these projects to progress at a faster pace. These projects will benefit Hanga in two significant ways. First, it will provide more efficient travel for our guests coming from Dar es Salaam and for our guests who choose to visit Mbamba bay. Second, it will make Hanga the central hub for anyone coming from Dar es Salaam to Songea. This will greatly increase the number of visitors that pass through our community.
Spiritual Retreat Center:
Over the past decade we have become known as prominent retreat center for various religious institutions throughout Tanzania and East Africa. We are humbled by the numerous guest that turn to us to reaffirm their faith, and through our Benedictine value of hospitality we gladly welcome them to our community. Unfortunately, with our current facilities we are not able to meet the constant demand for our religious institution. With the large number of rooms and conference rooms in our new Guesthouse we will provide comfortable living quarters as well as space for seminars and religious discussions. We look forward to the opportunity to expand our missionary work with the building of our new Guesthouse.
From the business that is generated by these three uses of the St. Pirmin Guesthouse, our community will not only be able to better extend our hospitality and service to our guests, but will benefit greatly from the financial part of this venture and continue to move towards our goal of becoming a financially self-sufficient monastery. |
