If you have been following along here at all, you realize that I went to Nicaragua trying to help a Rotary "initiative". They call it an "initiative" to distinguish it from a "project". And you say, "Who cares what you call it. They are just trying to help out."
Well, yes, but in a very different fashion from the normal "development project". But we have a small problem here. The vision of this in the heads of the participants, on both sides of the coin, is probably ultimately a PROJECT. Both my Rotarian friends, as well as the communities here, want to know when the REAL WORK starts. When do WE or YOU build something, deliver something, make something? And the only answer we can give right now - I dunno - maybe never.
NO PROJECTS
IMHO, I do not think that any flavor of "project" is our goal here. What we are about is building capable communities that are self sustaining, and are able to undertake projects, if they so choose. If there are projects, they are theirs, they own them, they complete them, they fund them, they find the resources to make them work - and they say, at the end, "we did it ourselves". We want to help, but not take the ownership away from them. With that result, we have truly sustainable development - empowered, capable human beings who are full partners in this enterprise we call life.
Why can't they do that without any help? I am sure they would eventually come to that, but it might take a long time. Their history, their climate, the influence of centuries of other ways of thinking, has disabled them, removed some of their sense of power and ability. They have the ability - they just don't see it at the moment. That's another way of saying, "their culture does not support development well". See my prior notes on culture.
Or, they have a "cultural disability". A new phrase! Jude always tells me that I should not say bad things about a people's culture. I always reply, I am just criticizing little parts of it. If I say "differently abled" or "cultural disability" - does that work better? I marvel at the culture of Rome. They conquered the known world, built roads, aqueducts, etc. But their concept of mathematics really sucks! Who would choose that over Arabic numerals? I also like the British concept of government much more than the Roman one. And I like the Enlightenment much more than Feudal society. Who can argue with that? And the dominant U.S. culture is that we are in charge of the world - for good or ill. We can fix anything - even an entire country.
Sustainable Development
Rotary started down this path looking to emulate the UN project to end poverty through "sustainable development" - from Jeffrey Sach's book, The End of Poverty. He is on to something. The wealthier countries have literally poured billions of dollars into developing economies to help them move forward, with very little to show for it. What's the problem? Sachs is of the mind that it is primarily a resource shortage that locks people into a cycle of poverty. He is persuaded that once you help them above the edge of that scarcity cycle, they can develop on their own. Rotary started off in Nicaragua looking for a way to take part in truly "sustainable development".
The UN projects have many millions of dollars behind them, and a 5 year time frame. The first trials are nearing their completion. I would say the UN results so far are pretty mixed. The efforts to date look a lot like projects to me, but they do have sustainable parts to them. There are some decent commentaries on the WWW. The Wikipedia entry on this is pretty good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_development.
Look especially at the portions that talk abut "sustainability" and "capacity building". For criticisms, see: Criticism Basis and Criticism Results.
I am persuaded that there is a better way - that is to build communities, not buildings, not cooperatives. The goal is to empower the people, build their capacity to run their own lives It is a lot harder to accomplish, but the results are much more permanent and long lasting. And, the people know that the product is theirs.
Concrete Examples
Instead of trying to describe the differences between "projects" and "sustainable development" or "community building initiatives" abstractly, this article presents a list of examples of the two types of undertakings. I am telling stories. People love stories - it is what we did for thousands of years around camp fires.
Bean Production in Nicaragua
This is from the newspaper of mid November, El Nuevo Diario. If you want to read it in the original, it is here: Bean Production Nicaragua. ( If your Spanish isn't that good, Google will translate it for you, or I can send you a Word document with both versions in it.)
This article describes a coordinated effort between a group of different funding and education and technical resources to increase agricultural production. The results were:
- 100% increased bean production for a small group of farmers.
- The start of an enterprise to assist another 200 farmers in this area to do the same thing.
- CRS - seems to have had the lead role, since it says that AID was working under their coordination.
- US AID - AID provided the funding and some sense of oversight.
- TehcnoServe - an organization focused on economic development through business methods. They have a web site, and a small collection of success stories in Nicaragua. See: http://www.technoserve.org/. They seem to be the glue, and the facilitators of this whole thing.
- Escuelas de Campo de Agricultores, ECA. There are lots of publications on the web that cite this group or method and their stories. The methodology is a way of teaching farmers how to use local technology to increase yields. They seem to do it in a very communitarian manner. The school is the field, there is no teacher but rather a facilitator, the goal is to achieve consensus in the community about how to proceed, etc. They use words like: "This philosophy is carried out according to the following principles: utility, reality, ownership, equity, respectful solidarity, and environmental sustainability."
- The Farmers. In this case, 38 farmers worked with the school on their production, and with the help of TechnoServe, they plan to build a processing plant, and sell their services on how to do this to the other 200 farmers in town.
There are some holes in this narrative - just how did this get started? Who engaged the farmers, and got them working together and interested in this kind of thing? Who found the funding, got the trainers there, coordinated the technical assistance, the business vision, etc.?
Is this sustainable? What happens when these agencies go elsewhere?
Cocoa Production Cooperative
This is another TechnoServe project with coffee and cocoa production: TechnoServe cocoa in Nicaragua. This one seems to already have a cooperating group of farmers in place - a collective or cooperative of some kind. But that very work is the genius of this whole thing. It does not describe how they actually got started, but what do you think? Is this sustainable? One of the interesting things here is that these farmers were part of the "contras" during the civil war.
Here is a video describing the work of Technoserve: TehnoServe on YouTube. They listen first, help explore opportunities, etc. They are clearly leaving things behind that will thrive. It may not be perfect, but I like it. What do you think?
Medical Clinic in Nicaragua
Here is a video describing the construction and staffing of a medical clinic in Nicaragua.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y0AvDmLCH0.
The background and history of this is here: http://www.soltranslators.com/lacd.html. They include a long list of accomplishments:
- Water tank for clean drinking water in Potrilleros
- Computer classes for teachers
- Refurbished computers to schools
- Swing set for school
- Electricity for school
- Books/encyclopedias
- Medical visits & dental visits
- Roofs on homes in Calishuate
- School supplies for students and teachers
- Medical clinic built in Calishuate
- Medical equipment to 2 hospitals and three clinics
- Sewing/embroidery machines and supplies to begin co-op
- Nursing school for Nicaraguan coordinator
- Iron bars around windows and locks on doors for school security
Goals
- To supply tin roofs to families with inadequate shelter
- To assist the committee in Latin America with their most pressing needs whether it be building medical clinics and cultural centers, supplying school supplies and books, teacher training, fertilizer for crops, sports equipment, computers and software, or assistance in developing sewing co-ops or pottery/art groups.
Programs
- Sewing co-ops in Calishuate and Potrilleros Nicaragua
- Cultural groups (teaching art and dance)
- Mentoring program
- Sports clubs in various towns
- Scholarships for students interested in community development
- Team trips to build unity and learn from each other
This appears to be a fine result, lots of fine results.. We have a fine, permanent building, a medical clinic which is clearly needed here. It is staffed by volunteer medical professionals from the North, who bring or send supplies on a regular basis. We have new roofs, water, sewing machines, etc. There appears to be a mechanism for continuing contributions from outside to sustain all of this.
Is it sustainable? Is there any word on how the community participated in this, or what they think about it, or their part in it? Does the community think this is the result of their efforts in any way? What is your guess as to the answer to those things?
Could it have been done in a different manner? What would that result look like? My ultimate test - what happens when the givers get tired, and the organizers move on to something else. How much of this will continue to operate? Who thinks they own the result?
El Ojoche, Chinendega, Nicaragua
There is a lot of litter in the developing world. I've seen it in Nicaragua and in Africa. Heck, there is a lot of litter in Rome! They sweep the streets every day because they have to! When you first arrive in El Ojoche, the first thing you notice is that there is NO LITTER. There is not a scrap of paper, not a piece of trash, not a plastic bag anywhere. And this is not the result of any commercial recycling - this is the result of an empowered community. This community has been accompanied by the AKF organization for over 10 years. They started as a church sister parish relationship, and now the formal accompaniment is down to a women's ceramic cooperative. The rest of the town decided they don't need help any more!
The clean streets program started when two members of the community contracted a strange illness and died. It was leptospirosis, a bacterial disease spread through animal urine that contaminates the water supply. The AKF team had been training them on health and wellness issues, and the community one day decided that the trash had to go - and it went. A clean town has other incidental effects. There is something called the "clean windows syndrome". Or the "broken windows syndrome". If you keep the environment looking good, people tend to respond to that. They do the same things in their yards, and in their homes. They take more pride in what they own, and in who they are. The mayor of New York understood that when he set out to eliminate litter in New York City, and to clean up the subways. Others get the message - people here care about this place, and we don't want you messing it up either.
When I first arrived in the community, there was a team of men and boys repairing the road. They were digging in it, positioning rocks for a solid foundation, and bringing in wheelbarrows of dirt and fill. They plan to extend the usable road all the way through town. Some of the roads in Nicaragua are really in bad shape - but I have yet to see a crew of neighbors working on it! That also comes from an empowered community.
The women's ceramic cooperative in this town recently raised money to construct their own kiln. They sell goods through Esperanza in Accion, out of Managua. That group helped them raise the quality of their goods, and taught them how to value the effort they put into their products. See this piece on this group, complete with pictures of their work: Women's Pottery Coop.
This community also administers a small loan program, with AKF as the banking agent. It has been very successful, and they charge 1.5% annual interest on the loans. It is much less than any other source of funds, and it will help ensure that the fund will continue.
There is also a water project in town, funded by the Rotary club of Leon, and the Albina Rotary club, in cooperation with Nuevas Esperanzas and Food for the Hungry. It started with a single storage tank, and has expanded to large tanks to hold rainwater for use during the dry season. They have a local water committee which is responsible for the water system and are very involved in just how this system was installed and is operated. You can read more about it here: http://www.nuevasesperanzas.org/ElOjochespring.html, and here: http://www.matchinggrants.org/pdf/info1414.pdf. Interesting - this last site is a Rotary effort to publicize their matching grants program: http://www.matchinggrants.org/.
So, ten years to get a clean environment, a road repair project, a small loan program managed by the community, a potter's kiln for goods sent to market, and a water storage system - not too bad. Is it sustainable? What do you think? If AKF and the other contributors were to go away tomorrow, what would happen to this community? Who thinks they own these results? Are there more things they can do - I would hope so. I expect that this is only the beginning.
Nueva Esperanza Projects
The El Ojoche water storage is a Nueva Esperanza project. And they have many others on their web site that look very interesting. http://www.nuevasesperanzas.org/index.html This one is a roadworks project undertaken by the communities involved: http://www.nuevasesperanzas.org/Roadworks.html. There is not enough background on these to really understand how they are accomplishing this - but it appears to be a community based effort for the most part. It would be amazing to introduce the people of El Corozo to the people from San Jacinto and El Ojochal del Listón. El Corozo sorely needs a better road.
Sustainable?
Teustepe Worm Fertilizer Project
Teustepe is a little unusual in that the community there is really a small community within a larger urban setting. This group of individuals and families has had a sister relationship with a church from Minnesota for over 25 years. The relationship started with projects. The Northerners sent down funds to buy a herd of cows to provide mik for the children. They sent funds to put a roof on the baseball stadium. You know of course, that baseball is the national sport! They collected used typewriters and sent them down so they could start a commercial school to teach people to type - that was before computers!
The Northerners visited them, and they came to visit up North. Over the years, this relationship moved from projects to accompaniment. Now the two communities are family to each other, and they support each other. AKF became a partner and facilitator in all of this about 15 years ago. They provide community based education to the community - about leadership, organization, women's rights, etc. They also facilitate the community's discussions and decisions A few years ago, AKF pushed his relationship to set off on a new course. From that point on, Teustepe is expected to contribute to each gathering, to each delegation, to each enterprise. They pay some portion of the cost, they provide some portion of the food, etc. They are responsible partners in this enterprise.
The town has always had a water problem. Some of the leaders of this group became participants in a town wide effort to persuade the mayor and the legislature that they should have a new water facility. Thanks to their hard work, it became a reality. It is currently suffering some problems, but they are working on that.
They also set about a year long project to create a dream - what do they really need and want to do. They decided that they need a community center. They have been meeting for years in the old church, but access to it is not guaranteed, and it does not really have any facilities - kitchen or otherwise. Just deciding to develop a center brought a lot of other decisions to the fore - such as forming a legal entity which could own land and construct a building. That whole discussion has caused them to grow and mature. They also started their own fund raising to raise funds for the building. They are slowly gathering funds from their own members.
A year or so ago, one of the Northerners, a Rotarian, pitched the idea of a worm fertilizer project to the community that would be funded by Rotary. He also contacted a local government agency, AMUB, which is funded by the area municipalities to foster development. AMUB put together a plan, which basically had these features:
- Construction of a new building to produce fertilizer from waste products with worms.
- Staffing of this facility with volunteer workers from the community.
- Sale of the product of this facility, with some portion of the proceeds to go to the community.
- Management and oversight of the whole thing by AMUB for a fee.
- A backyard worm fertilizer program in the yard of any community member who wants to take part.
- Training in this type of production by the AKF Farm School.
- Use of recycled materials to construct the facilities.
- The sale of the fertilizer by the families that produce it, with a small portion going to the Community Fund.
- No involvement by the local government entity.
Sustainable? We should see some organizc farming enhancement, some additional wealth created, and we have a community who understands that this is THEIR program, done their way. I honestly thought this would never get to this point, but it did!
Teustepe Small Loan Program
This same community has a small loan program, with a 93% repayment rate - a phenomenal success in this type of finance. Most of these programs have to charge from 25% to 100% interest to just cover their losses. Why does this one succeed? Here are the characteristics:
- You must be a participating member of the community to apply for a loan.
- Membership requires a 9 month novitiate program.
- Membership requires attendance at 70% of the regular meetings of the community - they meet several times each month.
- An underwriting committee review all of the loan applications.
- They create a recommended list for the review of the entire community.
- The community reviews the list in a meeting, and the committee adjusts the loans according to the input of the larger community.
- The list is represented to the community, and forwarded to the "bank".
- The loans are given out in November at a meeting of the community.
- Each loan recipient signs a loan agreement, specifying the terms of the loan.
- Each recipient gets a payment schedule or receipt.
- Payments are collected and tallied at each monthly meeting, and a receipt is signed by the underwriting board.
- The payments are delivered to the "bank".
- There is no interest charged, but there are penalties if payments are late.
This works because this is a responsible community, and they have created the mechanism and the structure to enable this program to succeed. They own this financing agency that they have created.
Sustainable?
El Carmen Matiguas Water Project
See this reference: El Carmen Matiguas Water Project. This outfit does this kind of project all the time. This one provided a water system from mountain streams to a town of 612 people. Their only prior water source before this were some extremely polluted streams.
A major part of the project is the capacity building in the community before any work is started. There has to be a community organization, which is committed to doing the work, and maintaining the system. The municipality has to support the project. The labor contribution of the community amounted to $25,000 or so of the total $100,000 cost. Other funding sources were used, and the city also made a small contribution. Annual maintenance costs are estimated at $800, which the community has committed to do.
The Word document on the page is in Spanish, but it describes the organization of the community, and the fact that they became a legal entity that is responsible for this project and its continued maintenance. The responsible agency here - PWX - seems to understand how to do this. If we have a water project at any point, they would be a good contact.
Sustainable?
Cristo Rey - New Life Nicaragua
This work is by a mission family from the US who first came to Nicaragua to help the people living in the dump of Managua. And they do amazing things. On their home page there is a 10 minute video about their work There is an orphanage, feeding program, housing program, etc.
http://www.newlifenicaragua.org/
There are three other videos on their work here.
http://vimeo.com/newlifenicaragua
Watch the first one about the orphanage and the re-nutrition center. Talk about saving babies in the stream! These people have clearly done it.
If you have watched these videos, you will understand why I do not want to say anything bad about this work. These kids would likely not survive, and would certainly not grow to be healthy, capable adults. The new homes are replacing pieces of wood and plastic - which is a fairly common home in somany me parts of Managua. It is hard to watch this and not want to help.
There is very little information on how they do this, other than these videos. Based on the films, like the one where they are doing a census in Tipitapa, it looks like an external effort, funded by donations from the US, which gives food and homes to poor Nicaraguans. They are running a farm, and they use the food for the children. They have a medical clinic, staffed by a US doctor. They talk about using the facility to train local people in the technology.
There is also a blog, which has some additional information: http://www.newlifenicaragua.org/blog/tag/adoption. They feed 175 kids a day, and have built 43 homes. Kids that are not adopted are in foster care - mostly with US missionary families. They host medical missions which provide the care in the clinic. They have had some personal health problems etc. It is worth reading the blog to get a bit of perspective on how this all works.
Is it sustainable? What happens when the funding stops? Clearly there are some long term benefits - some capable, healthy people will grow to be mature adults. Those adults, however, may be laboring under the impression that all that is good and rich comes from the North, and not from themselves. That's the only negative comment I can manage.
Water Wells
Water wells are a classic type of project. Let's face it, getting water is one of the basic essentials of life. And isntalling a well should be a nobrainer. Once it is in, it works and provides water, right? Well, what about parts and repairs? Even if the parts are available, the knowledge to repair it is essential; and even if that is present, there is the small matter of the cost. In my few trips to Africa, there are many abandoned water works all over the place. It is very hard for a really poor community to maintain a water well. The truly sustainable approach also makes sure that repair and replacement is in place. See this reference for more details on that.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/to-maintain-water-pumps-it-takes-more-than-a-village/
Conclusion
This is way too long already. But do you notice any common thread? Are the sustainable efforts any less beneficial? Do they take longer? Is there some way the other ones could be transformed into sustainable ones at this point? Why might that be difficult? And . . . just how are you going to help here?
It is snowing as I write this - good old Minnesota. It is good to be home!
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