This was the forth day in a row of site visits to agencies. We’ve been to a hotline for the abused, a child welfare agency, an emergency shelter for abuse women and children and today we saw first had what an effective community development program can do.
We traveled into the hills of a very rural community whose name I don’t remember where there were small cement block homes. This was a rural area where the homes were spread across the side of a hill/mountain. It was a treacherous dirt road for our 12 passenger and 19 passenger vehicles. We made it up and learned about the community.
This is an area that just got electricity two years ago. The government provides six kilowatts of electricity for free. After that, there is a prepaid card device installed in each home. They also now have water, although it is not running water. There is a 25 liter barrel near the house that fills overnight, very slowly. When that is gone, there will be no more until the following morning. This allotment applies regardless of how many people are in a home. The also now have outhouses; cement block structures outside their home. This is their form of progress - they received these “amenities” in 2006.
With agency goes into communities such as this and works with the Zulu leadership to understand their needs and to try to create relationships where they can work together to meet these needs. In the community where we visited, they provided adult literacy training. Along with this, they also provided training on various life skills where the community can begin to provide for itself. In the case of the Granny that we met, she had developed a relationship with a local church to which she could sell her beaded works. In additional, she makes candles for use in her home and the homes of others in the community. Also, they have begun to plant home gardens. The families can use the produce for their own use or for battering with those in the community. They are doing an amazing work, training up peer trainers (their version of train-the-trainer).
The process of building the relationships to even go into a community can take over 6-8 months. it is all about relationship. In addition to the community services mentions, they also try to provide training for family members who are caring for the orphaned children in the community, enrolling them in the foster care grant programs. It is a comprehensive approach to a desperate situation full of poverty. We heard a story of the Granny we met who was so proud that after the literacy training, she could go to the bank and she would be able to sign her own name.
All this can be done with between $25-$40K. Amazing.
Posts
