Sustainability

There is a widespread view that giving financial help is counter-productive as it can lead to a culture of dependence or to failure when the donors pull out. This is indeed the case in instances when the NGOs involved seek to tell the recipients what they ought to do and how to do it. Apart from being an insult to the intelligence of those at the receiving end, these projects rarely take into account the culture and the political, environmental and economic realities, not to mention the vast indigenous knowledge of rural people.

At least our projects are led by the community. All projects are decided by the villagers and from the moment they start, they become owned by them. Indeed, they even group together to help with the financing. So in many ways they have to work hard to make things happen in order not to lose out on their own investment of time and money. Only ownership can lead to sustainability.

Sustainability is also ensuring that no section of the community becomes alienated and although our focus is on women, the whole community is invited to participate and take ownership. Therefore it is not surprising that more and more men are joining the groups on an equal basis and that issues that affect children and young people are equally opened to both sexes.

The Kanga Project and the RWDA may provide the information or technical or financial help the communities ask for, but, ultimately all projects are led from the grassroots, for the grassroots. There are no middle man, no costly consultancy and definitely no white elephant projects.