Friendly Water for the World October 2021 newsletter

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Subject: Friendly Water for the World October 2021 newsletter

October 2021 Issue

Hi Friend,

People want to be part of creating a better world. They come together to create non-governmental organizations that work to make life better in villages big and small. Too often, these organizations start programs and projects without being considerate of the community's desires, and they do not survive beyond the donor funding period.

At Friendly Water for the World, we value most the input of the partner community before the onset and implementation of our programs. And this is why the concept of community-led

development is a very important aspect of doing any community work. With this approach, the target community is actively involved in planning, has a voice in decision making, and can

carry out a comprehensive self-evaluation.

We clearly know and understand that communities have resources and assets that can be tapped and put in good utilization. The result is positive implementation and acceptance of the program in the community. This type of approach has the potential to lead to more durable changes because it mobilizes internal strength rather than external capacity.

Community-led development is rooted in the belief that communities have the capacity

to script their own future, and that every member is seen and can see themselves as a leader

able to affect change.

Eric Lijodi

Africa Programs Manager

Community-led development

Community-led development - the process of working together to create and achieve locally owned visions and goals.

In 2019 and 2020, Friendly Water for the World staff had an amazing opportunity to talk frankly about the last 10 years. We wanted to identify what in our program was working well, and what wasn't. Those discussions led to deeper analysis, field evaluations, and a great deal of testing. A number of insights surfaced during this assessment, and we wrote an article about them to share our conclusions with you.

One of our primary findings was that no one understands their own community better than the people who live there. Local people know what works, and what doesn’t, and how long things have been that way. And in the small, interdependent villages that become our partners, people have a good idea of who does what well. This may seem obvious on the surface, but many, perhaps most development organizations don't approach their work with a community-led development mindset. Why is that?

When outsiders lead

This is the Playpump. We have shared the story behind it at a couple of our monthly Chats. It's a water pump powered by children. It only works when children are playing. And it turns out that children would have to play on it 27 hours a day to meet minimum water flow. That's just one of its flaws. After 1,000 seldom used pumps were installed, the program was shut down. The problem wasn't the pump. It was and is water scarcity. Too often, organizations ignore the saying that "in theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not".

The reason that happens has a lot to do with the incentives in the system. Big organizations are often under economic or political pressure to make progress. That impacts how they design programs and what success looks like. All too often, results are driven by short-term demands. In a water program, that may look like expanding the number of people who have access to water. But the program fails to include long-term evaluations, product requirements, societal changes, and a host of other issues that impact overall effectiveness.

As an example, the World Bank and Tanzania launched a $1.42 billion program in 2007 to bring improved water sources to 65% of rural and 90% of urban communities. When the program started, 54% of people were connected to one of these sources. Five years and hundreds of millions of dollars later, that number had actually decreased, to 53%. The program entirely failed to account for population growth, migration, climate change, and declining water quality.

Concealed methods, also called black-box designs, and the wrong incentives aren't the only impacts of ignoring community-led development. There are at least 375,000 hand pumps in Africa. Up to one-half are broken and abandoned. The ones that work are often connected to wells that are polluted. And there is no one there to fix them. We believe that training local people to maintain, continue, and even improve these technologies is more than an obligation, it's a duty. Our process proves that local communities are not being engaged in their own futures.

11 characteristics

Beyond a dictionary definition, exactly what is community-led development and what does it look like in practice? The Movement for Community-led Development is a non-profit that collects and disseminates best practices to empower and mobilize communities to take charge of their own development. They have created an introduction to this practice described through 11 characteristics.

While we utilize all 11, let's talk about six of them to see how Friendly Water for the World turns this approach into action.

Participation and inclusion

The first step in community-led development is to learn about the community. It happens so infrequently that the Assistant Chief of Matsakha said that although other development organizations had previously operated in the community, Friendly Water for the World was the first organization to actually sit down and speak to them. We started learning even earlier through our Community Survey and meetings with other local community-based organizations.

woman signing into community engagement event

We start programs as we mean to go on, so it's critical that initial conversations begin with an open invitation, as they did during our Matsakha Community Engagement. Anyone who is a stakeholder in the community is invited to participate or just be present. We build as many connections as possible to ensure that everyone in that community is at least aware of us if not actually represented in our greetings and our conversations.

Voice

It's important to note here that voice doesn't necessarily indicate speaking. What it really means is ensuring that the participants have the agency and capacity to share (or not) in their own way.

One approach we use to maintain an open, encouraging and reciprocal environment is Appreciative Inquiry. This is a 'positive leadership' approach that follows a discover - dream - design - deploy process and is focused on asking questions and being open to new possibilities. By engaging a community in this way, you build confidence and over time, trust.

Community assets

Communities have immense capacity to fix their own problems. They are frequently only missing the knowledge, start-up capital, or partnership to build something better. In fact, villages are pretty effective at managing their challenges. We know that because, despite hardships and challenges, the village is still there. These small communities are filled with people who are resilient, determined, and creative.

At our Matsakha Community Engagement event, we captured not just the strengths and talents of those who attended, but how those abilities could be applied toward scalable community programs. And what an impressive list it is. Our work is to help the community identify, mobilize and celebrate their potential.

Transformative capacity

Acceptance is usually achieved through many small things. Perhaps nothing can build community belief in the potential to transform their circumstances more than building one success after another. We recently experienced that first hand. Just a month ago we broke ground on a program to build 50 new rainwater catchment tanks (most of them at Matsakha schools) that provide over 1,000,000 liters of water capacity in Kakamega County, Kenya. Five of those tanks are already built and curing.

The process to build most of these tanks starts with an introduction at a local school followed by a site survey. Using local connections, the first few surveys were easily collected. But other schools were hesitant, not because they were disinterested, but because they weren't convinced this work would actually happen. Five finished tanks later and we are building a catalog of photos, testimonials, and successes that are encouraging new schools to believe.

Adaptability

Learn and adjust. That phrase lies at the heart of adaptability and the center of S.C.A.L.E, the final step in our Community Investment process. S.C.A.L.E: is a whole-village approach to start, communicate, assess, learn, and encourage our programs. Even though it is last, it is really the first step on the path to sustainable change.

At this point, the village is accountable for the program. We hold frequent meetings with the community and stakeholders to learn about what is working and what isn't, assess program reports, and suggest adjustments based on both this information and the operations and results of other programs. It's how we continue to show our commitment to the program and the people building it. We even make new discoveries like the creation of a table banking program, an effort started by the Matsakha Development Group to save and invest some of the wages they earn from selling soap.

Collaboration

The people of Matsakha decided that to protect children at their schools and help tackle the spread of Covid-19, they would start a Good Hygiene program. That program has seen the production of almost 7,000 liters of 'Meta' soap, achieved national certification and the acclaim of local government, and helped improve the lives of both the MDG members and the local community.

The team worked with the county Ministry of Trade, Industrialization, and Tourism to achieve certification, which was facilitated through the connections of our local team. As part of this process, The Deputy Minister made suggestions on how to improve the soap for sales and marketing. That included better squeezy bottles and significant upgrades to the labels. This kind of collaboration not only helps the team sell more soap, it extends the network of people who want the program to succeed.

These characteristics are a framework for how we seek to understand and approach our work. They reveal that investment works in many ways. We invest in villages, people, and programs. The community invests the energy and effort it takes to achieve its vision.

Munamoomba

Breaking news: our new community-led development has started in Munamoomba, Zambia.

Munamoomba is a village of Tonga people, the same Bantu ethnic group of southern Zambia that the newly elected Zambian president, Hakainde Hichilema is from. The Build is being run out of our Monze Build Center and facilitated by our partner, Zambia Women and Girls Foundation. It is one of three communities in the area, along with Hamadunga and Hamooya, that have invited us to their community.

Last week, we talked with members from Munamoomba at a mobilization meeting to make final plans for our event this week. Yesterday, eighty-seven members of the village joined us to hear Mr. Commander Muunda officially open our Community Engagement event.

On the first day, part of the program was to ask the community members present to share a peak experience in their life. They said things like:

Planting most of our crops
Being educated
Farming
Being chosen as an area councilor
Being born in Munamoomba village

Growing, learning, being proud of your roots - things we can all probably relate to.

We are excited for the next few days as we learn more about the people of Munamoomba and their vision for the community, their families, and themselves.

In Brief

>> We need you - 9 more reviews and we earn 2021 top-rated status! If you appreciate our work, please let us know at https://greatnonprofits.org/.

>> Register for the October Chat about our partners.

>> If you would prefer watching or listening to reading, then our Chat about community-led development is for you. As a bonus, you'll get to hear directly from George Michaels

Mbakahya Ph.D., the Kakamega County Head of Industrialization.

>> This month we finished building three new rainwater catchment tanks in Kakamega County as part of our Matsakha Water Security program.

>> Save the date - November 30th is #GivingTuesday. We'll have more to share about that and our Fall fundraising campaign shortly.

>> Our next board meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 19th at 4:30. Register here.

>> Have a question or suggestion? Send an email to will@friendlywater.org.

Please share our work and invite others to join our mission.

FRIENDLY WATER FOR THE WORLD

We are on a mission to transform the villages of the world.

https://friendlywater.org

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Subject: Friendly Water for the World October 2021 newsletter