Baldegg Sisters in Tansania
Photo: Michael Goima
The Baldegg Sisters – more precisely the Sisters of Divine Providence – are based in Baldegg in the valley of Seetal in Switzerland. Since they were founded in 1830, they have mainly been active in Switzerland but they also have built communities in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Papua New Guinea and Bosnia. Since 1921 the Baldegg Sisters have been active in Tanzania, where they founded two sister congregations – the Mahenge Sisters in southeastern Tanzania and the Dada Wadogo Sisters in Dar es Salaam. There are currently two remaining Baldegg sisters in Tanzania and one of them is Sister Denise Mattle, who served as the director of the Montessori teacher training center in Dar es Salaam for many years before moving to her current place of work – the Montessori teacher training center in the city of Mwanza, where she is in charge of the training center, a primary school, a secondary school and several Montessori kindergartens. The Montessori pedagogy is used in the kindergartens as well as in the first four grades of the primary school.