[vc_section full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1542443848911{padding-top: 200px !important;padding-bottom: 120px !important;background-image: url(http://zakeo.ndanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/our-story.jpg?id=15882) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_row top_padding=”50″ bottom_padding=”50″][vc_column width=”1/1″][minti_headline font=”font-special” size=”fontsize-xxxxl” color=”#ffffff” weight=”fontweight-900″]Our Story[/minti_headline][/vc_column][/vc_row][/vc_section][vc_section css=”.vc_custom_1539598822006{padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;background-color: #f0ebe8 !important;background-position: 0 0 !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;}”][vc_row text_color=”custom” custom_text_color=”#000000″ top_padding=”0″ bottom_padding=”0″ class=”content-section”][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]This is actually a tribute to the founder of Zakeo. The Centre’s story goes as back as to the year 1998. The then superior Abbot Siegfried got a wonderful idea of starting a “quite a place” which would enable people to deepen their Christian life through prayer, courses, seminars and the like. In in order to this, however, he needed a person who could embody this vision.
He approached Fr. Severin Pieper, a Benedictine Missionary from Germany and asked him if he could take over this new responsibility. Fr. Severin was at that time a parish priest in Malolo Parish in the diocese of Lindi. Wholeheartedly, Fr. Severin accepted this new task and in the same year 1998 Zakeo activities started in an old building which belonged to the diocese of Mtwara. So, “Nyumba ya Kiroho Zakeo” – Zakeo Spiritual Centre was born.
In 20106 however, the community decided to set up more modern buildings in a quitter place. So the current Zakeo Spiritual Centre was constructed and the current buildings inaugurated in 2010. Working hand in hand with the workshops of our community, Fr. Severin was firmly behind the implementation of the project and he continued to work as the Centre’s director until 2014 when he retired after a fruitful work of sixteen years.
In September 2015 Fr. Severin passed on in Germany where he was undergoing medical treatment. In January of the same year however, the leadership of the Center was entrusted to a younger confrere Fr. Christian Temu OSB.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][/vc_section]