December 16, 2008
Village Care Program Effectiveness in Donor Affected Communities
By David Glenwinkel
Village Care was launched roughly two years ago and has rapidly expanded into 180 communities and is currently positively affecting thousands of families. We work to guide the community through four stages of village development. “What can you do today with the resources you have on hand” has become a key phrase as we present a program called Outcomes, Practices, and Open Space, that promotes a self awareness of the capacity God has given each of us to solve our own problems in an interactive relationship within our own communities. Village Care has discouraged direct donor contributions to individuals or communities initiating the Village Care OPOS as an element of our program. We have found that those communities that are less impacted by traditional programs of grants, building assistance, commodity donations, and basic food and clothing donations are more likely to succeed in our initial (Stage One) program.
Overview of the four Stages:
The Four Stages of Village Development
Stage One: Initiation. Development of a Volunteer Leadership Group and Implementation of Practices in Family and Community Projects: During stage one, Village Care Development coordinators will make contact with "new" villages and churches and orphanages in search of opportunities to initiate the Village Care process. If this potential partner is interested, Village Care Village Care Development coordinators will follow up this preparation work with a multi-day training session where we teach about Outcomes and Practices and convene an Open Space planning session for local people to begin working on issues that matter to them. Each new village or church or orphanage will then work independently to implement the full set of practices to achieve the full set of outcomes among the people they serve. If requested, our Village Care Development coordinators will provide periodic technical assistance and follow-up as this partner moves forward; each partner is free to decide whether or not to participate in additional work with Village Care or to simply work on the outcomes and practices on their own. We may also ask a stage one partner to help us initiate relationships with additional partners if they are willing to help us expand. During stage one, there is no promise from Village Care regarding outside funding or a partnership with a US church -- we may discuss outside funding and partnerships as elements of later stages of development, but this would require considerable commitment and demonstration of effort on the part of the stage one partner. We may also send a Discovery Team from the US to visit a stage one partner so that the US team members can learn from the African village or church or orphanage about the difficult issues confronting Africa.
Stage Two: Organization and implementation of a registered group of at risk children. If a village or church or orphanage wishes to move forward with Village Care, we will ask them to identify a specific group of at-risk children and/or adults that the partner will focus on for more intensive support and services -- typically between 25 and 50 of the most vulnerable people in the community. We will ask the partner to create a Village Care Committee of 10 leaders selected for their commitment, integrity and ability to advance the practices to achieve the desired outcomes. Our Village Care Development coordinators will work with the Committee to develop an organizational decision-making structure and help them recruit and train additional volunteers to work with the people targeted for intensive assistance. We may also bring a Discovery Team from the US to visit the village or orphanage to learn what is happening there, and to consider a development partnership with them in the future -- again, at stage two there is no promise from Village Care regarding outside funding or partnership. We also may ask the Committee to mentor another newer partner that is in the Initiation stage of Village Care.
Stage Three: Partnerships. If a Village Care Committee demonstrates its commitment to the Village Care process and decides to pursue a long-term partnership with a US or African church (or another organization), our Village Care Development coordinators will help the Committee find an appropriate partner, establish a "contract" with the outside partner, and develop a budget and accountability system to keep track of any funds provided through this partnership; it must be understood by the stage three partner that it might take a long time before an appropriate outside partner can be found. Village Care Village Care Development coordinators will manage the Committee's funds until the Committee establishes and demonstrates the ability to effectively manage their partnership funding on their own. Our Village Care Development coordinators will continue to provide technical assistance to the partnership as long as they remain committed to the Village Care process, and we may ask them to help us work with other partners that are considering the transition to the Partnerships stage of Village Care. Once an outside partner is found, Village Care will provide special training and supervision to the outside partner to help them form and maintain Village Care Teams that are willing to work closely with the stage three partner leadership according to the Code of Conduct and guidelines for our Village Care Teams.
Stage Four: The VC Village becomes a self sustaining and sending village. Our ultimate goal is to help our partners become self-sufficient and self-sustained in doing all the practices to achieve and sustain all the outcomes in their village or church or orphanage. As the partnership matures, we will help them develop relationships with other organizations capable of sustaining their development and success; Village Care Village Care Development coordinators will gradually withdraw from the partnership and hand off our responsibilities to the independent partnership. We will maintain communication and personal ties to the independent partnership but we will shift our resources to newer and emerging partners, thus freeing up our own resources and Village Care Development coordinators. By the time a partnership reaches independence from Village Care, we will expect to see clear evidence of transformation in that community as measured by very strong practices and sustained positive outcomes among the people they serve. We may call upon an independent former partner to mentor younger Village Care partners as they seek to achieve transformation and independence on their own.
The VCI program was established with some basic assumptions that run contrary to the traditional view of African donor relations. First we believe that the solution to African community problems must be an African solution. Second we believe that Africans are capable of dynamic executive leadership and must have over sight of any long term effective program. We believe that local communities throughout Africa have the resources they need to initiate change and lift themselves out of poverty, but lack information delivered in a way that they can integrate ideas into their thinking and initiate programs on their own. Ownership occurs when a person or community conceives, initiates, innovates, maintains, and sustains their own programs. In the three day VCI symposium no ideas are brought from outside the African community and no funding is provided to start programs. As of this date well over 2000 projects have been initiated and are generating funding that the initiators are using to care for their own families and contributing to a pool of funds in the village that is used to assist the local orphan population.
Some communities lag behind others or fail to get off the ground. Two principle reasons for failure have emerged.
Leadership; in the majority of communities leaders emerge in the Village Care process. We work with the local Pastors and some community leaders when VC is introduced into the community and invite everyone interested to attend the three day symposium (OPOS), we especially encourage the poorest and most disaffected members of the village to attend. Generally leaders of small programs self organized in the “Open Space” meetings held on the last day of the program emerge from within the community and provide the motivating force to sustain the program participants. In a few cases where strong leaders have not emerged the program has not taken hold.
The Donor Affected Community; this is a more complex problem. We have found that areas most affected by traditional programs are least likely to succeed. Program donations in some form are the standard in the third world. When one measures change in the immediate context these programs often look successful. Also many individual lives are dynamically rescued by donor contributions and stories abound of individual testimonies of lives changed by the kindness of people who have assisted in the lives of the poor. However, when one measures the gross economic impact of all programs in the aggregate, it quickly becomes apparent and is factually true by any measure that poverty in the most concentrated areas of giving is on the rise, and has been for several generations. Village Care focused the design of its program around defeating generational poverty. It is the stated goal of virtually all compassion groups to eliminate poverty, and yet these groups may well be the reason for deepening levels of economic and subsequent spiritual decline.
There are several reasons for this “Poverty Trap”. The immediate focus of the donor and lack of true long term measurable (or measured) indicators and results over long periods is nearly completely lacking. The programs themselves are not accountable to a multigenerational standard of measure and no program we have become aware of has any internal mechanism for changing strategies. The inertial process of fund raising in the billions of dollars each year makes such change nearly impossible. Africa itself has geographical, infrastructure, and political barriers to the alleviation of poverty that are unique to the continent. There is little cross organizational coordination of programs initiated within targeted communities and competition between organizations, while tacit, is a very real barrier to success. Finally, nearly all organizations working in Africa define themselves according to the most recent funding models as “capacity building” developing “sustainable practices” and as initiating “empowerment” programs, while in reality no change has occurred at the field level in these programs. The logic of true empowerment relies on a contrarian view that plays against traditional thinking. To believe that the community has the capacity to solve their own problems is antithetical to compassion and humanitarian work.
This all creates two systemic challenges to truly empowering a community. One is the barrier created within the community by donor influence. Community members in some very affected communities have, from time to time, refused to move forward with VCI simply because we provided no funding. Some of these communities were very straightforward in holding out and using offers of funding from other organizations as a kind of negotiating tool; “so and so brought us this… what will you bring” is not an uncommon question. Additionally heavy donor activity creates a welfare mentality that defeats the spirit of the human heart to overcome challenges and seemingly impossible barriers to achievement.
The second challenge is the donor community itself. We have learned that there are five basic home and community practices that must be implemented as a single program approach. The development of our sanitation, nutrition, health care, education, and economic security concept has succeeded dynamically when all five practices are implemented at the same time in very small ways, and expanded incrementally. In some cases the donor community refuses to collaborate, and some recipients feel the threat of the loss of support from other programs if they participate in the VCI program. A much more difficult barrier is the kindness of the donor population. In the first stage of development outside giving is virtually always the point of failure. Donor funding in the early stage seems to instantly reduce the recipients back into a cycle of dependence. Every significant point of failure for village care has been with the introduction of funding or commodities.
The Necessity of Giving; while initiating our program is often defeated by donor interference, it is also true that the African communities need an infusion of capital in some way and at some point to cross the poverty line and become sustainable. Our challenge is to develop a truly cooperative process with the wisdom to know when capital is needed and for what.
We have several options under consideration, including the gradual introduction of microfinance and business development models, matching funds for community built projects in limited circumstances, and the development of more training materials that will further deepen the understanding in the community to further empower their own work.
