A big part of Peace Corps is to work towards sustainable change. I had recently met with my APCD (Assistant Peace Corps Country Director) and he suggested that my projects were too large and that I needed to make sure that if I had to leave unexpectedly they wouldn't collapse.
My community counterpart, Jerry, approached me a few weeks back with the idea of forming a Community Development Forum. The Forum would be in charge of identifying community issues, formulating a plan to address them, and implementing the solution. I was astounded by the brilliance of the idea.
The Forum will consist of representatives from all major stakeholders in the community: Mukhanyo Community Development Center, a development organization that does a large amount of HIV/AIDS and OVC work; the 6 schools in the village; South African Police Service (SAPS); Ward Council; Community Development Worker, the municipality's employee in charge of community development initiatives; Tribal Council, the traditional chief's council. Each stakeholder will be responsible for choosing their representatives however they choose. Every person in the community should be represented by at least one of those representatives.
Being represented in development plans and taking initiatives to address their own development needs are two foreign concepts to the people of my village. Initially, people will be skeptical and since they haven't seen the government doing the things that they promised, may have been burned by the government before, and insist on waiting for change to come. The goals of the Forum are to unite the people to work towards a cause they believe in and make change come to them.
The CDW and Jerry are very dedicated to this cause and are working on gaining the support of the other stakeholders. The beauty of this project is that the idea was generated by Jerry, he and the CDW are taking the initiative to form it, and I only have an advisory role in it.
Once the Forum members have been selected I would like to form a Non-Profit Organization(NPO) whose main goal is to serve the communities interests whether it be infrastructure development, educational seminars, or cultural events. As an NPO, the Forum will be able to lobby for change for the community and apply for government grants and funding from private companies and organizations. The International Development Co-operative(IDC) in the South Africa Treasury operates the Development Co-operative Information System(DCIS) in order to distribute the Official Development Assistance(ODA) funds. In order to be eligible for ODA funds from the IDC listed in the DCIS our NPO must be tied to the South African government; our CDW represents the municipality therefore satisfying that requirement. South Africa really likes their acronyms.
After the Forum has been established I plan to engage it on any unfinished projects that I'm still working on. I would like to transfer the management of all of the projects over to the Forum and have all new initiatives to come from it. This will give me(and my APCD) a sense of security in knowing that my projects have a reasonable chance of being completed even if I do need to leave.
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