One Step Forward..
Progress In Tsabango
This development game is not without its frustrations. Most of the time you feel your role is to put fuel into the tank and offer road maps to the driver without much hope that s/he will take the recommended route. With luck you will land somewhere near the intended destination. Sometimes you spend weeks broken down on the side of the road. Progress in rural Tsabango is the epitome of the development journey.
Our journey for the past year has been the mobilisation of young people towards the resurrection of a failing youth centre project. The building was started in 2002 by the District Assembly. The Chairman of the Assembly mysteriously won the contract and somehow managed to leave the community with a jerry-built shell of building and no money to complete it. There were a handful of young people who talked half-heartedly about developing youth work whilst watching the tumbleweed blow across the centre floor as children tumbled in the abandoned pile of sand at the front.
I had my own problem. Our project was to develop sports with young people out of school as a way of promoting HIV education, especially with girls. CEYCA was not currently doing any of this work. So, this project offered a way to make a start without making them feel that I was trying to take over as the driver of the bus.
Most of you know that a few young people were keen to get their youth centre built, but really had little idea about how to go about it or belief that it was possible. In spite of good intentions, I found that we had just one week to get a costed proposal to EU/Microprojects. EU helpfully offered to do the costings and I got the handwritten proposal to them with minutes to spare. To cut a long story just a little shorter the funding was provided and suddenly there was an oasis to head toward.
Steps along the way.
1. How To Engage The Village Communities
It's all very well having a youth centre, but how do you justify it for a dozen youth? We decided to organise some participatory research, which meant finding funding to train some young people to visit the villages around the area to ask what was important to young people and why the once lively youth network was not working.
UNICEF agreed to fund training and we recruited 30 young people who were keen to train to do the work. Why did they want to take on the work? The answer is one that is generally replicated in most of the development work I have seen. We mine for the development diamonds buried in the strata of self-interest, relief of boredom, altruism and hope for advancement.
Some were there mainly for the small lunch allowances and free Fantas . Some were excited to have found a new project in the endless landscape of featureless life. Many hoped it might lead in some ill-defined way to a job or income opportunity. Others wanted to meet the opposite sex in a culture that discourages it. Some were serious about developing youth work. And then there is the status attached to the work. Probably most were a cocktail of all of the ingredients in varying proportions.
Our standard work patterns were also laid out neatly in this project. I set up the funding and negotiated the strategy with Desmond. He delivered the training and organised the young people to do the work. I started to become like the coach of a sports team. My work took place before the event and possibly at half-time, but once play was in progress I could only sit on the sideline and gesticulate.
So our participatory methods workshop was agreed and then delivered to eager youth behind rows of desks mainly in the form of long lectures. However, Desmond has a strong sense of what these young people can achieve and he created a simple and effective method of focus groups using small teams of young people. The young people ran the groups in the villages and produced some results. Most villages wanted youth groups and supported the building of a centre. They identified lack of leadership skills and ideas as major reasons for the decline in previous clubs.
2. Where Are The Girls?
Whilst the process of building the youth centre took its tortuous path, the youth network met regularly to discuss whatever was the issue of the moment. Numbers were increasing at the meetings, but some of the researchers had become detached from the process. At one meeting there were twenty six people present. Only one of them was a girl. We had to do something.
This time we would send the girls around the villages. But CEYCA has no female field staff. I could not have been more unsuitable for this task. A middle aged man with poor Chichewa. Hardly the perfect role model for girls. Our 20 year old German intern needed little persuasion to spend 10 days with the girls. Once again I became the coach on the sidelines. Desmond was to do the training and then the girls would meet other girls in each village. We set up a training schedule - work from what a village girls life is like through to skills for contact work.
Desmond was not there for the first day's training due to illness. Bettina struggled and the girls were not comfortable discussing how they felt even with each other. By the end of the 3 day training I felt the girls were unsure that they could do what was asked of them. In true Malawian style there had also been a belief that everything could arranged on the day in spite of warnings from the asungos . So the research started with too few bicycles. On the morning it was discovered that two of the 9 girls could not ride a bike and as they set off some of the bikes had no brakes.
After two days Desmond and me went out to see Betina. Things had not gone well. The girls had not spent their lunch allowance on food, preferring to keep it. They became tired in the afternoon. Only two or three were active in the village discussions. Swabbles were taking place.
I persuaded Desmond to stop the visits and put another day's review and training in place quickly. He was even persuaded to let the girls practice mapping (drawing the village to find out what happened there). They felt more positive having talked, learnt and practised.
After this the project went from strength to strength. The girls became a team and grew in confidence. Betina was the perfect chaperone. They loved her, saw her as a sophisticated peer who could help them and enjoyed her bubbly enthusiasm.
At the end of the project I suggested to Betina that they had a meal together to celebrate their success. Betina and the girls had their own ideas. The now nearly complete youth centre became the venue for a party. The girls provided some basic food and Betina bought some soft drinks and, for goodness' sake, a little beer.
The next day I asked Betina how the meal had gone. I blanched even whiter when she described with enthusiasm the party that had had taken place.
" It was great, we had a dance with a radio brought by Alice. We allowed the boys in because they were all looking in through the windows, but Alice threw them out after 10 o'clock and we locked ourselves in the back room. The girls went wild. They put chitenjes across the window and wouldn't stop dancing. They threw their clothes off. Do you want to see the pictures?"
" Er no I don't think its quite the sort of thing I should be doing.
I was imagining what might happen when chiefs and parents got wind of this bacchanalian behaviour in the youth centre.
" Be sure not to go around the villages with these pictures and don't let the stories get out of hand."
This was a real life youth work challenge.
In fact the result of this 'liberation' of downtrodden village girls was a great feeling of solidarity and achievement. Girls formed clubs in several villages and now come in almost equal numbers to meetings about the youth centre. But we still have a challenge to develop this enthusiasm into more solid action by the girls.
3. The Sports Day
Although I am employed to prepare the way for sport-based programmes CEYCA has been neither motivated nor prepared to develop sports. So it was a welcome development to hear Desmond say that we should hold a sports day in Tsabango . The youth group met to plan.
Three days and three meetings later the azungos had agreed a timetable with the young people, sorted out who was responsible for each sport and found a budget of MK5,000 (£25) for the event. This was an opportunity for them to have practical experience of organising a budget. Imagine our surprise when they delivered their budget: Sports - MK 0, Transport - MK 0, Administration - MK 0, Food- MK 5,000.
We challenged them about the food.
" How can you justify spending 5,000 on food - 3k on meat? Are you going to be able to do this again when you hold another day without funding support?"
The debate was heated - the CEYCA Director accused me of trying to starve the young people. Eventually they kept their budget as it was.
The day arrived and, as planned, CEYCA staff plus Sam and Adele arrived at Tsabango at the agreed time of 8.00 a.m. ready for a 9.00 start. Where was the volleyball net? Who was organising the programme? And most importantly where were the young people in charge of activities.
We all pulled together and by 10.30 the first activities were underway. Boys were playing a traditional game played on a pitch drawn in the sand that asks players to get from one end of the volley ball sized court to the other. Two rows of catchers can move only in narrow corridors across the court.
Rounders was organised - not the English game but a cross between dodge ball and baseball. Laughter, taunting and arguments achieved even weight and dust flew as feet scampered and plastic bag (Jambo) balls looped through the air. We played football matches and girls played fishy fishy (skipping).
By lunchtime a crowd of about two hundred youth and children were engaged in games and sports or enjoying the spectacle. By the break self -satisfaction was the dominant feeling as we thronged towards the feeding compound. It was here that saw why the start had been so disjointed. Although this was a sports day, for the women the main event was the food. In spite of our planning the women all spent the morning cooking nsima (maize flour dough), relish and goat.
As we dragged our full stomachs back to the sport ground I wondered if the children would return. I needn't have worried.
The afternoon was feast of volley ball , fly (dodge ball), netball and athletics.
The boys race started with over thirty eager participants ready for the twelve lap race. At the gun they raced off like greyhounds after the hare. In true Malawian fashion the only thought was to overtake everyone else. By half way only half the field was racing and only six completed the course.
The girls had been forgotten, but we managed to persuade the 'organisers' to run a race. Girls from eight to eighteen squeezed onto the line. They were so excited that the race had to be started five times. Eventually the motley crew, some with plastic shoes in hand ran the lap to the delighted shouts of the crowd.
As the afternoon wore on my visiting son, Sam, started to attract a crowd of children around him as he began to perform the disappearing hanky trick. Soon the whole ground watched with slack jaws as the hanky, at first real and visible, disappeared only to magically appear again to wild squeals and applause. He had to perform the trick at least five times and eventually escaped by racing across the field with the entire child population spread behind him like a comet tail.
As the light faded fast, certificates were presented, posts were dismantled, tiny children carried chairs on their heads, and the young people basked in what had been a hugely enjoyable day. No matter that the aim of attracting new villages to join the network had not really materialised - that was for next time.
4. The Centre Gets Finished
One of the dilemmas of this type of project is that village people are asked to achieve professional results with limited experience and exposure. Village life is largely practical, pragmatic and instant. Many of the activities we are asking them to do require planning, commitment, creative thought and organisation. So it is no surprise that the real successes come quickly when activities are on a village scale.
Communities come together quickly when bricks are to be moulded. Mud is packed into wooden moulds, dried in the sun and then built into kilns, which are fired to bake the bricks from inside. The young men had gathered in numbers to dig sand from the river, excavate 4 metres deep into the baked earth and to build a brick and wood shelter for the library.
A similar activity was the final cleaning of the hall. Forty five boys and girls came with buckets, twig brushes, cloths and enthusiasm to spend the whole day sweeping dust into the air, washing floors, cleaning windows and clearing the outside. The sense of achievement was tangible and the pride was guilded onto each and every face as they left in chattering groups.
5. Leader Training.
I knew that the bright new building would have a short history unless we could support the young people quickly and strongly to develop programmes and skills. They had little experience or vision of what was possible and a limited sense of what roles and tasks were needed.
I ran a two day proposal writing workshop with the more educated members that led to a bid to UNICEF for leadership training in a residential centre. We arranged for them to meet with UNICEF and to negotiate their proposal. Patrick Chakholoma from UNICEF was challenging without being discouraging and eventually the young people had the excitement of receiving their first funding for activity.
One of the problems enshrined in the proposal writing process is the requirement that they be written in English in spite of the fact that most donor staff are Malawian. There is then puzzlement that funds do not seem to get down to village level. On this occasion, although the workshop helped them to identify problems, solutions, causes etc. I had to turn their sound ideas expressed in poor English into proposal-speak.
If the funding was the first success it was also the first hurdle. We discussed with them the need to have clear criteria for the selection of people to attend. The purpose was to create a group of people who would work hard for the building and village clubs.
Desmond called a meeting to discuss the coming training, which was to take place almost immediately . We arrived to find nearly eighty youth gathered in the Youth Centre. We also discovered why. Apart from the anticipation of ten days away from the village, word had also got around that there was an allowance of mk500 (£2.50) per day. To their credit, and with a great deal of skill on Desmond's part the young people handled the debates with a good deal of tolerance and listened to all of the points expressed. It was made clear that funding was for meals etc and not for payment of allowances. School attenders could not attend as it was term time. The Executive Committee was to choose 30 people based on geography and commitment to training.
The training turned out to be a limited success. The thirty young people attending felt engaged and enthusiastic. They left full of enthusiasm and messages about honesty, transparency and self-reliance. But did we create a group capable of running the Youth club and village network?
The first two days were perfunctorily performed, but the real agenda was the payment of allowances. The dancing at the end of the first evening stopped as a debate went on for two hours. Eventually Desmond capitulated. The young people would be paid their breakfast and dinner money and find their own food rather than eat at the centre. This is equivalent to paying them allowances as they eat very cheaply and pocket the balance. Desmond's policy of no allowances was in tatters and the new second hand clothes purchased by all would be second hand red rags to the bulls left at home. One boy proudly wore his glittery tee-shirt with its proud boast 'Power Mom' worn without irony.
I had tried to negotiate a programme with Desmond. The programme should focus upon the skills and organisation required to run their new youth centre. It should be practical and full of practice sessions. To facilitate this I had put funding for two trainers into the budget.
Desmond resisted the recruitment of a second trainer and, as a token gesture, brought friends in for a couple of sessions. It also became obvious that the training was concentrating upon 'what is a good leader' with lots of theory and little practical activity.
At the end of day 6 Desmond diffidently broke the news that he would cut the training short by two days.
" Why is that Desmond?"
" The Executive Director wants me to represent him at a workshop in Mangochi." (a five star venue by the lake). The E.D. had far more important (and lucrative) things to do but wanted CEYCA to show that it was able to send someone.
" Desmond this training is the culmination of a year's work. You cannot go at the point you should be pulling this into a plan for the future . It is totally unprofessional ."
Desmond shifted uncomfortably and quietly put off the decision. I knew that he would go.
Sure enough on day eight the programme finished at lunchtime to allow Desmond to catch his bus. He assured me that his Community Development friend would run the next two days.
I collected the youth together at 8.30. on the next day. By 10.00 it was obvious that we were trainerless . I ran the day by remote control with two educated young people taking the responsibility of turning my instructions into Chichewa.
On the next day the 'friend' showed up.
" Oh I had to do some work for GTZ. I'll do the session today. I phoned Desmond to tell him I couldn't come."
" Sorry Patrick we did your session yesterday. We were not told anything."
So we finished the training with lots of learning about committees, some theory about gender and democracy, how to avoid pissing-off your colleagues and how much it costs to buy clothes etc. At this very moment we are trying to find time to gather people together to address issues like ' what can you do with a building?' 'What are the priorities for programmes?' ' How do you actually run an activity?' ' How do you run the finances and generate enough income to run the building and programmes?' 'How can you equip the village clubs with a simple set of activities to keep them functioning?'
None of this was covered on the expensive residential training and we have never spent time at CEYCA evaluating the work. Now we must find other ways to cover the training needs and re-motivate the disconsolate young people.
Leader Training 2 - visits to youth clubs
We had built into the training the opportunity for 15 key members to visit other youth centres to gain from their experience and build a vision of what was possible in a building.
The trip was like a Primary School outing. The young people some in their late twenties shouted and showed off from the moment they entered the bus to the time they got home. They danced in the bus aisles to the radio, shouted comments to passing strangers, and sang at the top of their voices. Many had never been to Zomba or Blantyre, most had never seen an elephant or a zebra, and almost all had never been to the lake. Those who had been south pompously pointed out things they vaguely knew about.
We visited an inspirational group that funded themselves and their clubs from their agricultural efforts, and a tree nursery run by a youth group. We also went to two projects larger than CEYCA with this small, beginner youth group. We never made time to talk about the lessons learned and how to apply them. In Malawi it is usually enough just to complete the programme and send a report to the donor so that they can send a report to their donor.
6. The Opening Day
I had spent some time on the last day of the training helping the young people to plan and organise groups to prepare for the opening of the youth centre. This was to be their first activity and a chance to feel good about what had been achieved and show off to the grown ups . They set up task groups, wrote down the things they had to do and then went home and forgot about it. A similar process ran in parallel at CEYCA.
By one week before the opening day, there was no funding other than a small amount I had creatively saved from the leader training. The young people had been told very clearly that they had nine days to pull it together or look stupid in front of an invited audience. Neither the young people nor CEYCA staff had done anything they had promised to do. Surely it would happen on the day, why start so early?
I approached the Executive Director.
" I think we need to delay the opening day. No-one has done their jobs and many of the important invitees cannot come on that day. Lets do it properly.
" No we cannot change the day we will make it happen."
A meeting at CEYCA was led by the E.D. Staff were berated, jobs were given and he promised to cover the cost.
We did what we could and agreed with the young people to meet at 7.00 at the youth centre ready for a 9.00 start. I had made ESCOM's Regional Manager's life miserable until he agreed to break the rules to get the electricity connected by 8 p.m. on opening eve. Guest tents were up hour an hour later.
By 10.00 on the day very few young people had arrived for their big day and most of the invited guests had not rolled up. Eventually the programme started at 10.30 with late guests already muttering about having to leave soon and hoping that the speeches would not take long.
The speeches did take long. Everyone who owned a suit and shiny shoes had to have their say, some in English and Chichewa. It was wonderful to hear how committed so many people were to the project which had neither seen them prior to nor since the opening day.
They had a tour of the photo displays, looked at the treadle pumps, still not assembled, walked past the electrical items that had not been plugged in and saw the computer that had actually been set up. The idea was that the day would be interactive. All of the equipment would be used by young and old. Ministry officials would be invited to pump water by standing on the treadle skis and moving them up and down in a cycling-on-the spot motion. Messages were to be left on the computer, Vox pops would be played on the TV.
By lunch time the centre had been opened.
" Where are the Media people?"
" They haven't come. Malawi T.V. has run out of tapes."
By lunch time the guests had left and everyone relaxed and began to enjoy themselves.
The girls came into their own. The visiting KAGIFO club girls drummed (men usually drum) and fifty or more girls danced and sung for half an hour in the middle of a huge circle of enthusiastic spectators. A drama group performed and a singing group sang songs accompanied by an oil can guitar.
At last the centre was used - for a disco using a just loud enough ghetto blaster.
By the dusk everyone had enjoyed the day. The young people felt relieved and proud of what they had done. Just like the sports day, the fact that we did not achieve all of our goals did not seem to matter.
CEYCA followed it ethos - 'once its over move on without looking back '. My appeals for an evaluation fell on ears tuned to other frequencies. I was feeling that bloody-minded decision-making had wasted a once-only opportunity to bring the spotlight to the community, make everyone feel valued, publicise CEYCA and bind in the support of funding and decision makers. But in development work 50% achievement is enough.
7. And Now ?
For three weeks after the opening young people were left to start operating the youth centre following a meeting that gave everyone important titles like 'Centre Manager ', 'Financial Controller' etc. Fourteen programme areas had been identified . When I visited I found six people sitting in the office. A young man had successfully set up the library and books had been moving around. But a rot had already set in. I had set up computer training, arranged for two more treddle pumps for the right project, funded a small micro-credit scheme and chased the outstanding donor funding. I asked them to make decisions about these issues.
The discussions exposed the jealousies and tensions that had grown in cultures of opportunity and responsibility. The President was removed from the computer training list by resentful colleagues. The girls shrunk in horror at the thought of attending computer training because they felt ashamed of their lack of education. There was a general sense of demoralisation.
Luckily we have two experienced, delightful and new youthful Peace Corps workers in the village. Today we held a meeting with the now shrinking group of twenty two young people. Desmond led the discussion, but there was little coming back. I asked if they needed more help at this stage to move things along. They said they did.
Now we have set up some work groups to work with Peace Corps and CEYCA staff. Loren will work with the girls to set up a programme of health and education. They have already decided to meet twice a week. Dave, her husband will help them to manage the centre and equipment. Desmond and me will help them to start income generating activities using the building, a telephone service for the village, an oil press for ground nut cooking oil, agricultural projects, recreational activities and perhaps a small shop for items not available in the village. Our brand new sports worker will help them to develop area sports.
It is good to challenge young people to achieve things they do not think possible but they need support and a long lead-in period. Like tired children at bedtime they sometimes also need a parent to make a decision to move the process along.
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