Optimistic Voices
Vital voices in the fields of global health, global child welfare reform and family separation, and those intent on conducting ethical missions in low resource communities and developing nations. Join our hosts as they engage in conversations with diverse guests from across the globe, sharing optimistic views, experiences, and suggestions for better and best practices as they discuss these difficult topics.
Optimistic Voices
Community-Led Change is Possible When We Listen and Trust
What happens when we stop viewing rural communities as problems to be fixed and start recognizing them as powerful agents of their own transformation? The answer unfolds beautifully in this eye-opening conversation with Aminata Kamara and Sheku Mohamed Gassimu Jr. from One Village Partners (OVP), a Sierra Leonean organization revolutionizing how sustainable development happens in remote communities.
"Communities are not like a white paper. They have knowledge of their lives. They have knowledge of what a thriving community looks like," explains Aminata, OVP's Country Director. This profound respect for local wisdom forms the foundation of their approach, which they describe through the powerful metaphor of a "sharpening stone" – not doing the work for communities, but enhancing capabilities that already exist.
Since 2010, OVP has partnered with 70 communities across Sierra Leone, impacting over 75,000 people through three interconnected programs that build local leadership, empower women economically, and enable communities to design and implement their own development solutions. Their methodology stands in stark contrast to traditional aid models, as they intentionally transfer decision-making power to community members at every step – from identifying needs through participatory assessments to collaboratively budgeting for solutions.
The conversation delves into the challenges of this approach, including the struggle to secure flexible funding from donors who often prefer predetermined outcomes over community-defined indicators of success. Yet the transformations they witness – women gaining stronger voices in household decisions, men embracing more equitable gender roles, and communities independently solving complex problems – confirm that true sustainability comes when people lead their own development journey.
Perhaps most impressive is how OVP practices internally what they preach externally, having transitioned to completely Sierra Leonean leadership while distributing power throughout their organization. As Sheku powerfully concludes, "When communities have the space, the platform to actually lead their own development, they are able to surmount the insurmountable."
Ready to rethink how sustainable change happens? Listen now and discover a model that trusts communities to write their own success stories.
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Helpingchildrenworldwide.org
Welcome to the Optimistic Voices podcast. I am your host, yasmin Vaughn. In today's episode, I'm going to be talking to our friends and partners at One Village Partners. This quarter, we are dedicating our focus to the transformative theme of empowerment, as Helping Children Worldwide strives to be an organization that encourages a hand-up, not a hand-out approach. Today, we are going to be talking about community empowerment. It's a concept that many organizations strive for, but achieving it requires a difficult balance of accountability and true local ownership. While the intention to empower is strong, it's a monumental task to create systems that don't foster dependency. So when we decided we wanted to record an episode on organizations and how they do community empowerment well, one Village Partners immediately came to mind. They work with rural communities in Sierra Leone, providing tools and training so that locals can lead the change that they want to see in their own communities. They'll share with you all more about how that works and their approach, and I'm so excited to have them with us today.
Speaker 1:Representing OVP is Aminata Kamara. She is a feminist and a dedicated advocate for gender justice, with an unwavering commitment to supporting girls and young women. She passionately designs and leads initiatives that create safe and empowering spaces for these groups to raise their voices, advocate for their rights and make critical decisions that shape their lives. She believes deeply in the power, autonomy and leadership of girls and women, seeing them as key agents of change within their communities and beyond. As the country director of One Village Partners, she works closely with both her team and the communities that they serve, gaining inclusive leadership and amplifying community voices to drive sustainable development and transformation.
Speaker 1:Also with us is Sheku. Sheku Mohamed Gassamou Jr serves as the partnership and program director at One Village Partners, an organization focused on empowering rural communities in Sierra Leone to drive their own development and improve their well-being. With over eight years of experience, sheku brings extensive expertise in grassroots, community-led development initiatives. He specializes in programs that are designed and implemented by the communities themselves, ensuring that they take ownership of their progress. Sheku's work reflects a deep commitment to fostering sustainable and inclusive development. Sheku is adaptive, friendly, resilient and celebrates cultural diversity. Welcome both of you to Optimistic Voices.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Yasmin Happy to be here, so let's start Sheku.
Speaker 1:can you tell us a little bit about One Village Partners, how it got started, what you all do, what that looks like? Just give an of OVP.
Speaker 3:Thank you, yasmin. We are very delighted to be here to have this conversation with you. So One Village Partners for us. We focus on addressing multidimensional poverty by investing in individuals and communities to solve their own challenges, because we believe that by providing project facilitation and monetary supports to communities, they can lead their own development and connect individuals and leaders with one another across communities to amplify their voices and actions for regional impacts. We are started by a Peace Corps named Jeff Hall in 2010. That's when the organization was actually founded.
Speaker 3:So Jeff Hall happens to be a Peace Corps volunteer that lived in Sierra Leone before the Sierra Leone Civil War and he left. And after the war he returned back to Sierra Leone. Before the Sierra Leone Civil War and he left. And after the war he returned back to Sierra Leone to look out for his friends and realized that they needed more kind of support. By then a lot of them were displaced and they needed kind of more support in order for them to resettle in their homes. So Jeff started the process of mobilizing resources in the United States to support his friends and also people he had lived with before the war in Sierra Leone.
Speaker 3:So today we have what we call One Village Partners in Sierra Leone that has grown so much as of 2024,. We have partnered with 70 communities and over 75,000 people's lives impacted across Sierra Leone. So in Sierra Leone, our partner communities typically have a population of 50 to 2,000 people who have limited access to major highways and struggle to meet basic infrastructural needs such as healthcare facilities, schools, sanitation and hygiene. We work alongside these communities to help them identify their vision for prosperity and the challenges to meeting those visions, together to improve their collective well-being as communities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that was a great overview, thank you. Can you give a little bit more detail as to the programs that you all offer in OVP?
Speaker 3:the programs that you all offer in OVP At One Village Partners. We work with communities and working with communities we currently implement three projects and these projects are actually very interwoven, working together to collectively improve the well-being of communities. So one of the projects that we implement with communities is actually the Community Action Program. The Community Action Program here women and men design and implement development projects that meet immediate and long-term needs of communities. These women and women become local champions and designing solutions. Another program that we implement with communities is our Women's Empowerment Program that we call the Nurturing Opportunities for Women. Here women learn financial literacy, business and speaking skills using a picture-based curriculum. These women over time learned to develop their skills in terms of managing their household finances, in terms of establishing their own businesses and also in terms of embarking on an agribusiness farming. This farming is actually used by these women to increase their food securities and collective earnings as a group. So these women become more productive in leading their communities. Why this is important? Because we believe that by improving the skills and earnings of women, they become more productive in the development of the household as well as the development of their community more broadly.
Speaker 3:Another program that we are implementing with communities is our leadership development program. Here communities are trained in terms of proposal writing and they submit a project proposal to one village partners for funding. So we worked with local volunteers and their leaders in actually making decisions as to which proposals should receive funding us should receive funding. So this is not a decision that we make just by sitting at our tables to make a decision, but we make this decision to working along with local representatives, because they know the problems that are actually in these communities. So together we make decision with regards for proposals to receive funding. Why this is very important? We believe that when communities are given the opportunities and the platform to actually use their expertise in identifying their problems and also leading in the implementation of the challenges that they want to address, this is very helpful because as NGOs, we are never going to be in these communities forever. So, providing this platform, it helps the communities to leverage their own expertise, but also to work with their local representatives more collectively in solving problems. Thank, you?
Speaker 1:No, thank you. That was a really great overview. You talked a little bit about the different programs that you have and your stance on empowerment. What does empowerment mean to you all? What does it look like to do? Empowerment work mean to you all?
Speaker 2:What does it look like to do empowerment work?
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, yasmin, and thank you to Sheku for sharing the overview on OVP.
Speaker 2:So, for us, empowerment is when communities have the skills, have the knowledge, have the resources they need to transform their lives and to take on leadership, regardless of their status or their context.
Speaker 2:It looks like, for example, when we get into communities, we ensure that we work with them, support their leadership. We recognize at OVP that communities already have knowledge and expertise. It is how we're sharpening that expertise with the current trend and the development in terms of science, in terms of the world and how the world is moving, and the trend is to really update that leadership. So for us, empowerment is when communities really have those updated tools, the skills, the knowledge and the resources they need to transform their lives and to take control of their lives and their outcomes. It is when, regardless of development partners, they can look within their communities, see what they need for a sustained lifestyle, for a healthy living and for a liberated lifestyle so they can take on their lives and they can take on their community well-being, regardless of aid. So that is empowerment for us. We will. It's always when communities are in control of their lives and their well-being and their well-being.
Speaker 1:Thank you, aminata. I love the way you put that. It's about lives being transformed, but through providing updated tools and knowledge. Exposure to other communities, other resources, other information around the world. Information around the world Would you say that you think knowledge is the biggest obstacle to?
Speaker 2:community empowerment. I'll say it's a contributing factor. I wouldn't say it's the biggest obstacle, because from our experience, we understand and celebrate that there's already knowledge in communities. Communities, for example, have been doing life-sustaining activities like agriculture, so there's already knowledge around that. There's knowledge around leadership. There's knowledge around health. They know what they need. That is knowledge around health. They know what they need. That is knowledge in itself.
Speaker 2:But sometimes the continuity of that knowledge how can they go about transforming what they think they need and know they need into reality is where the challenge comes in. Sometimes the improved ideas and skills and information is not there, but the basic knowledge is there. So that is something we always celebrate and build on, because we know communities are not coming blank. They're not like a white paper. They have already something they're offering. They have knowledge of their lives. They have knowledge of what a thriving community looks like. They have knowledge of what a healthy community looks like. But it is the improved and advanced knowledge of how to really get there.
Speaker 2:That is sometimes the challenge and the resources they need. Sometimes we have raw materials in the community that they have been using, but sometimes certain resources they need to really get to that dream. Healthy, thriving community is not in that community, it's not readily available and they are marginalized. Like Sheku described the type of communities we work in, they're very rural, far away from the capital city, where all the infrastructure good roads are concentrated and all where the service provision that is done by the national government is concentrated. So these people are isolated from the resources they really need to bring that reality of a thriving community that they want to see to life. So that is where the disconnect comes in sometimes. But there is knowledge in communities knowledge in communities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love the way that you put that. It's not a matter of providing knowledge, but adding on to the knowledge that they have and bringing resources so they can bridge that knowledge into action.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think. Thank you, Amiladza, for saying that. I think what we are doing is building on what is already there, present in these communities. So a lot of the time, it's actually our role is to enhance those capacities that are already present, because knowledge, as Aminata said, is already present in this community. So we are not going there to try to reinvent the wheel. We are going there to actually build on what they already knew and continue to grow as a community together. That's why we are trying, as much as possible, to be very intentional about how do we engage them and how do we make sure that we are also, as much as possible, to be very intentional about how do we engage them and how do we make sure that we are also learning from them, just the same way that they are learning from also our relationship. It's not exploitative. It is built on a mutual understanding that is actually a very powerful. It's a kind of a partnership kind of relationship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you spoke about intentionality. How do you go about creating that culture of intentionality, listening and humility, both within your organization, but also in that connection to communities?
Speaker 2:Okay. So, like we described, our approach mostly is really getting into these communities and being very deliberate with our actions. We build on the expertise of the communities, we co-design with communities what does development look like on their own terms, what they will want to see in their communities, what would they consider as a thriving community. And that is what we build on and that is why we say we have and being a culture of intentionality. The steps we follow are not by mistake. They're thought of, they're cross-checked with communities and we use the skill of intentional listening, where, when we have conversations with community, we don't just tick a box, we're constantly listening for what they are saying, because we have seen where development partners go into rural communities and they bring assumptions of what development looks like and that is what they impose on communities. And we have seen where communities have done the flip, where, instead of utilizing the resources, the skills, the knowledge that these development partners bring, they decide to sway away because it wasn't built on an intentional model.
Speaker 2:Our model is rooted in partnership, like Sheku described.
Speaker 2:We heavily rely on our community partners that they know what they need, they know what they want to have a thriving community and we work with them towards that goal. And we do that by constantly listening, by learning, adapting our approach as we go on, because we know communities have vast knowledge and we do it with humility. We know at the end of the day, the goal we want to see is a thriving human community. We know when rural communities thrive, sierra Leone thrives and the world thrives, and even when we talk about all the development indicators globally, we will not be able to achieve it if rural communities are far away from what the world have described as development. So we go in there with humility to say we're part of you, we're partners. We do not bring any extraordinary skills. That is not already here. It's just how we bring all knowledge and expertise together for better approach. So we're constantly grounding ourselves and rooting ourselves in that idea that we're part of the solution and the communities are also contributors to that solution that we all see.
Speaker 1:Thank you, aminata. That was really well put. Working with communities, coming alongside them, as you said, and building that relationship. You mentioned intentionality. What are the intentional steps that you take to build community trust when you first engage with a community, so they understand your intentions as well?
Speaker 3:And then how do you go about maintaining that trust? Yeah, thank you very much for that question. I think, in the first place, when we partner with a community, part of us is actually how we introduce ourselves to this community, and that is actually very much embedded in our story, which we call the Sharpling Stone story. So it's a kind of a process that actually gets communities into the mindset of what is possible working with us in partnership, of what is possible working with us in partnership. So the story is, like you know, it's cereal unions a majority of cereal unions and rural communities are farmers and they do their daily activities in the farm and also this farm is actually the place where they are able to get their food. They are able to also actually use part of those farming products for sales and get earnings. So this is a story that actually resonates with people in terms of how they work with us.
Speaker 3:So a farmer that wants to actually cultivate a large plot of land so you know, normally this tax is being performed by farmers using cutlasses. If they want to cultivate a large plot of land, they use cutlasses to actually do the brushing. So this farmer wants to do a large plot of land because he wants to increase his food security and also his earning for the household. So he decided to bring friends to actually support him to do the farming. But the issue they had is actually they used dog cutlasses. They are cutlasses, we are not well shopping. So they went to the farm. They spent the whole day brushing, brushing and brushing farm. They spent the whole day brushing, brushing and brushing. While they were able to do the work. It was very difficult for them because their cutlasses were not sharp enough. They were very dull. So this farmer actually realized that they were unable to do a better job and decided to use the sharpening stone to actually sharpen his cutlass and also ask colleagues, his friends, to also do the same. They all went together and sharpened their cutlasses and they went to the farm the next day to do their brushing. While they were there they were able to do the work more effectively and more quickly.
Speaker 3:So one village partner is the sharpening stone in this story. So for us, the sharpening stone is not doing the work for the community. It is the community that is using the sharpening stone to do their work. So we bring this story to the communities to make sure that they really know what they needed to know, because they know already that they are very hardworking. They know already that they have the knowledge. They know already that they are doing day-to-day activities to sustain their living. So what they needed is someone to actually someone to just trigger them into action and trigger that. Trigger them to into action to become more kind of like, more intentional about taking action on their own to do their their own work. So this is why we actually introduce ourselves. So this actually it's something that is actually and connected to what is already happening in these communities. So it really brings the farmer directly to connect with our work. So we let them understand that this is your work and we are here to actually just support you in order for you to be able to do your own work in a more effective way.
Speaker 3:So, beyond just thinking, beyond what you normally used to do, so, once we are there and we have connected with the communities, we conduct demographic surveys on social lives. Why this is very important? Because understanding the multidimensional poverty levels and social life of community members is very, very important in actually helping us to connect with the community and helping the community to also know what they needed to know and how they need the steps that they needed to take in actually ensuring their collective well-being. So once we have done that, we go into action with the communities. So that's actually very important and it actually leads the foundation of building trust and working with the community together, because the community have a clear understanding of the partnership that they are going into and they are consenting into this relationship, not by being enforced but by understanding clearly that this is what we need to do. These are the expectations for us as a community. These are what we expect from One Village Partners in this relationship.
Speaker 3:So when we get into action, we're doing participatory land use mapping and planning. We are doing that because we want to understand the community land boundaries, overall community land, the land ownership, the land tenure system, the agricultural use, but also the customary land rights in this community of climate change. We are providing education to the community so that they can use this education in a more productive way to actually work together as a community. So do their own work to identify their needs, also be able to design their projects and also be able to implement local solutions in addressing local problems. So we do participatory needs assessments along with the community that includes everyone and collective decision-making through voting, communities have the opportunity to actually work together to identify their needs, but also to vote for their needs. So we are not making decisions on behalf of the community, they are making making decisions on behalf of the community. They are making decisions. So this is also a process of building trust, working with the community. Why this is very important when everyone votes, the world wins, because we understand that community needs are different from individual needs. So we want to partner with community with the understanding of actually valuing everyone and making sure that everyone feels that they are valued. So that's because we believe that creates ownership and sustainability over programs that they are implementing as a community.
Speaker 3:So we are also doing a lot of collaborative budgeting and designing of an intervention. Communities are involved in budgeting for their projects and they are involved in designing their interventions because we value the local expertise and helping them actually know what they know, because we already know that this community they have a lot of knowledge. Why are we doing this? We believe so much that by designing local solutions to local problems, we are ensuring that everyone provides feedback and everyone's feedback is also counted, because we believe that that makes a very big difference in our engagement because we believe that communities are the experts on their own problems. So this is what the community use in implementing the solutions. Communities build interventions that are more sustainable because they have participation and we provide these external materials for them so that they can use those external materials to work together to better do their work. Why this is very important? Because we believe that strengthening local expertise to lead the change that they want to see it leads to sustainable improvements in the quality of life because communities themselves are involved in this process. So this is very important for us when we are implementing our Community Action Program curriculum.
Speaker 3:Actually providing financial literacy for the marginalized and gender equity education for families helps households to learn financial management skills, to learn business skills, to learn agricultural skills, to improve their food security and income.
Speaker 3:Why this is very important for us?
Speaker 3:We believe this is very important because creating well-being and open communication in the household will lead to enhance the voices of women in the household and in the community at large.
Speaker 3:We so much believe that working with the communities in every step of the way is building trust and we want to ensure that we are sustaining this trust because by spreading learning across the board, by letting them have clarity in terms of how we are engaging them, by letting them understand the steps that they should take in our absence to also achieve some of their goals as a community. In our leadership development program, what we do also is empowering community members to more independently implement solutions to their community problems and advocate directly for these solutions, because we believe that providing this platform for community members and their local governments to more engage independently it's laying the foundation for sustainable well-being in these communities, because for us as NGOs, we are never going to be in these communities forever, so it is very important that we provide this platform for them to co-create ideas together so that they themselves understand these ideas and they themselves can more independently use these ideas to sustain their well-being as a community. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, sheku Amirata. Is there anything you want to add in?
Speaker 2:Sheku has spoken extensively. Anything you want to add in? Sheku has spoken extensively. I just want to add that our work is really rooted in friendship and love. Sheku has described how our founder founded OVP looking for his friends, and what happened post the war. So we go into communities and our building trust really comes from that. With communities, we go in there as partners, as friends, as people who care about them and also people who are very curious about what they think can contribute to shifting their realities and also really working towards their own development. We also are Sierra Leonean led so we do not go in there, as you know us, against them. It has never been the case. Even when we have colleagues from the US come, they always come from that place of friendship and love and mutual respect and we really value that and hold onto that quite tight. So even as Sierra Leoneans, when we go into these communities we go as partners, as collaborators, and that has helped us build more trust and really collaborate with these communities.
Speaker 1:It sounds like you all have very strong values with regards to how you engage with communities and what's to be expected of your team when they visit communities. Part of the voting process is to ensure that the communities really value the needs of all of its members, not just looking out for individuals, but communities that are looking out for one another Are there other values that you are trying to encourage or look for in communities.
Speaker 3:Yeah, most effectively, along with voting, it's actually about knowledge sharing and grounded local participation in every aspect of the programs that we implement with communities, from the designing of their and the identification of their challenges, the designing of local solutions, the implementation of those local solutions. So we, in every aspect, we need community members to be very involved in this process. So that's an aspect of what we actually value so much their participation and together, but also and also grounded in how they also know that along the way, just from our own perspective, is how we all are very intentional about learning and unlearning, because we try to encourage a deeper sense of community, not only learning from routine, but also learning from nearby communities, because sometimes we are into different communities so that they can actually more interact together to share some different perspective regarding what are the successes there, what are the challenges there, how were they able to navigate those challenges. So that is an aspect of encouraging and learning in itself. We also encourage a lot of feedback. Getting feedback intentionally like getting feedback from the communities in terms of how the programs are actually impacting them in different ways. So one critical example that I would love to share.
Speaker 3:It happens to grow with one of our communities, kibai. Kibai is actually found in the Pegawas and Chivion and Kailan District where we implemented a latrine project. It was really about from our angle. It was really about looking at how can we be more, provide 100% access to sanitation and hygiene in this community and the communities that really implemented this project, because we wanted all households to have um an access to electricity.
Speaker 3:So in the feedback, in our when we went back to collect feedback using the most significant change and story and some of the one of the story, some of the stories we collected from the community was really that, yeah, we love the project, you're providing 100% access, but again, for us, we think that there are some challenges by you providing 100% access to the community, because we had constructed latrines in so many locations, which will impact how we also want to do other projects in the future. So that actually helped us to really look at what do we mean about being and providing 100% access to community. So that was really very good in redesigning our program and moving to other communities, because we are very intentional about getting their feedback. So that's very important. So talk about not only the positive aspect of our project, but also the negative aspect of how these projects are impacting lives in their community, because it helps us so much to be more adaptive in terms of how we engage communities.
Speaker 1:I'm really struck by how you expressed that the very deliberate goal of everything that OVP does is community empowerment. You mentioned this latrine project and I think a lot of people would say you know, I came to this community they didn't have running water, they didn't have adequate sanitation. The goal is to get a latrine into their community. The goal is to get a new well into the community. But for you all, the goal is community empowerment, and latrines or wells or whatever projects you all do are just the method by which you're able to do that.
Speaker 2:You're right, Yasmin. That's a perfect summary of our work.
Speaker 3:You're right, yasmin, that's a perfect summary of our work. So the goal is ensuring that community has the power in their hands to more effectively make decisions that they want to make about the progress that they want to see in their community.
Speaker 1:So you were telling us a little bit about a specific project that a community did to put a latrine into their community. How do you go about the development of projects like that?
Speaker 3:How do you co-develop those ideas with communities? Thank you, communities are guided by engaging at an individual level, engaging at a collective level and engaging at a community level. So within the community, the intention is actually one to provide training and coaching of community members, to provide training and coaching of community groups, but also to enhance organizing and mobilizing community members and community groups into action. First of all, within our programs. When we talk about the Community Action Program here, we talk about women and men having trainings so that they can identify their community needs, they can co-design with their communities local solutions and they can together implement with their communities these local solutions in addressing those local challenges that they have identified as a community. So there is a series of trainings of identifying the volunteers in this community, getting the volunteers endorsed by the communities and our team providing the trainings for these communities' volunteers so that these volunteers will in turn lead their communities in identifying their needs. Start with doing demographic surveys on social life so that we understand from the beginning what are the social capital present in these communities and what are the gaps in these communities. At this level we are heightening the sense of the community in terms of their understanding of what they have and what they don't have. So that's part of the co-creation of the projects that we actually lead in these communities. So once we have a clear understanding of what the multidimensional poverty level is and the social life is, we are able to conduct a kind of needs assessment, working along with the community, so it's engaged, and these are tools that we use with the local volunteers to actually assess their needs, actually assess their needs, including everyone and making decisions and getting everyone to vote on which of the challenge that they may want to prioritize. So communities have to rank. Once they have their challenges, they have to rank those challenges in order that they really want to pay attention to these challenges. So because we just believe that this provides a sense of an awareness and valuing their own expertise and how they feel about their communities, and also this creates ownership and sustainability over what they are able to do, so we get them also into involving in design workshops, these design workshops that tell us to actually help the community in understanding a particular challenge.
Speaker 3:But what are causing this challenge in their community? For example, sanitation and hygiene, the lack of it in this community. Why are we suffering from this? How can we be able, as a community, to respond to this particular challenge, using local expertise and asking the communities to collaboratively budget for the solutions that they are coming together with Once the community. We believe that this is an aspect of involving the local expertise, because we value that expertise, but also to ensure that everyone's kind of provide and feedback, because we believe that because they are all providing feedback, it makes a lot of difference and because the community experts are involved in this, they are able to more collaboratively solve the problem of sanitation and hygiene in their community.
Speaker 3:Once they have a particular prototype as a community, they are moving into implementation, because that's the process Identifying the needs, designing a solution to address this need and moving into action to implement the solutions that they have designed. And it's more grounded in their own kind of environment. So each community develops solutions based on what is possible in their own community. Sometimes they are also learning from nearby communities what other communities were able to do, how they successfully undertake a particular project similar to what they are doing Developing these solutions. They are setting indicators on how they are doing Developing these solutions. They are setting indicators on how they are going to monitor what success will look like for their community. Many of the projects look like the participation of each and everyone, the inclusion of both men and women in the implementation and also in the use of these solutions that they are designing as a community. So part of it is actually looking at the different communities having different design and looking at what is possible in their communities.
Speaker 3:When it comes to the women's empowerment program, the women's Empowerment Program the Women's Empowerment Program is more grounded in financial and literacy skills and business skills and agriculture. This is very important because we are providing women learning how to manage their finances. Women are learning how to establish their business. Women are learning how to communicate their business ideas. Women are learning how to embark on agricultural activities that can increase their food security and also increase their collective earning. This is more valuable because it actually increases the participation of women in the household and it also increases their participation at community level once they have these kids, because they become more empowered and more energetic and to use their voice in communities. So, along the different projects, we are seeing different types of outcomes In the leadership development program that we are co-creating with communities.
Speaker 3:Communities learn proposal writing skills and they learn these skills and they are able to develop proposals on their own and to submit their proposals for funding.
Speaker 3:To submit their proposals for funding and, more broadly, it is very important because they are able to more independently implement their proposals in their communities. Once they get the funding, they are able to implement their project without relying on us or relying on external agencies. Because now, at this point, on external agencies, because now at this point, they have the freedom to use their own knowledge more independently, because they know their problem and they are able to really independently implement solutions to address those problems. So we are seeing this program resulting to increase in leadership kind of in community, enhancing more leaders in the community. We are seeing gender equity kind of improving in this community. We are seeing more resilience in this community in terms of responding to economic shock, in terms of responding to shock beyond what we actually can see. We are also seeing communities improving their health. So there are different levels of outcome as a result of co-creating solutions or our projects with communities.
Speaker 1:The thing that I'm getting the most out of this is the passion that both of you really have for the work that you do, and it is so apparent in how you share your answers. It sounds like there's a lot of intentional work that you all have invested in building this project not just conducting research on your own, but getting community volunteers to conduct research on why problems exist so they can develop solutions, and develop solutions that are in alignment with the resources that that particular community has. You're very intentional about getting people to write their own proposals and grants for future support, so building capacity in that way so that they have the skills to do this in the future and, like you said, so that your NGO doesn't have to be there forever. Along the way, I assume you all have faced a number of different challenges, and I wonder if you'd be willing to share some of those challenges with us.
Speaker 2:One of the challenges I have observed is access to flexible resources to support this work in the ways that community hope for and look forward to. So most of the resources we've been able to access in forms of grant are specifically tied to the project, are specifically tied to the project and there are a lot of administrative costs that comes with actually reaching these communities, working with the team, the people who really lead this work, to collaborate with communities. But most of the time the funding we've been able to access are project-based instead of flexible or core grants core supports so it's hard to really maintain and support the team that supports the work. So that is one challenge, like just navigating project-based and core support to be able to fully fund this work holistically instead of just the immediate programs and immediate outputs and outcomes. Because, like you mentioned, we view this quite holistically.
Speaker 2:We don't just look at the project, we're looking at an entire transformation, like working with the communities, ensuring that they have the skills to replicate this in the future. So we don't have to be there, but we're really constrained by the type of funding we receive and even when we receive like money, it's it's, yes, very important, but also like very small compared to how much work we're doing, and there are over 16 districts in Sierra Leone. We're hoping. One of our strategic goals is to expand to other districts in Sierra Leone and we cannot do that if we don't have the resources we need to really work with communities. So that is a huge challenge that we have seen over the course of the years, but I'll hand over to Sheku to walk us through any other challenge. Hand over to Sheku to walk us through any other challenge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you very much, Aminata, for mentioning how the international humanitarian space is actually. We have been constrained by that in terms of funding, but also, for us, it's really about what we do. A lot is we try to reflect a lot on the work that we do. One of the things is who are we accountable to? Are we really accountable to the community or are we accountable to the donors that are actually funding some of the projects that we implement? Because a lot of the time is that, you know, in this space, donors have their own kind of what they are looking out for and, yeah, which is fine, because at the end of the day, they are the ones that are funding projects. So, but for us, it's actually listening to the communities and hearing the communities out and providing them the opportunity to set their indicators. So sometimes it can be a challenge. That's really a challenge navigating, but we've tried so much to be more kind of intentional about listening to the communities. So a lot of the time we ask the questions who is actually making decision? Are we the one making decisions for the communities in terms of when do we meet or do we provide a space to the community to decide that? Yeah, this is the time we want to meet Constantly, keep ourselves on our toes to actually ensure that we are very much listening but very much open, and be realistic in allowing the communities to actually decide how we engage, when training should happen and how long do they want trainings to happen. So we keep. That's the challenge that we actually keep on trying to navigate because we constantly want to be holding ourselves accountable to the community kind of space.
Speaker 3:Also, another challenge that we continue to navigate, for example, in our women's empowerment program we have new kinds. Changing the mindset of people actually takes some time in terms of really trying to understand that this is what we need for development to move forward. We need to empower our women Sometimes men. When we initially started implementing the women's empowerment program, men sometimes find it a bit challenging at the initial stage to just allow their women to participate, which is also a fair kind of consideration, because they needed to really see the need and they need to see the change that this will bring to their households and to their communities before really getting by into this program. So that's the challenge at the initial stage and what we have constantly continued to challenge ourselves and to really challenge, um, these husbands, the husbands that are very much not open to allowing their wives to and participate. And very recently we had, um, we had our graduation ceremonies in Kano and some of the men we are really sharing, ah, initially I find it very difficult to allow my wife to participate, but now I believe that my wife actually needs to participate more in this training because now I am seeing changes in the household in terms of her management skills, financial management skills at home, but also in terms of her decision-making skills, but also in terms of how she is coordinating with me as a husband in the home to take care of the house collectively. So these are the kind of challenges, but also challenges in terms of changing the mindset and leadership type.
Speaker 3:Working in a traditional leadership kind of behavior means that men should take decision, all the decision alone, not including women, not including the children. For us, we invest so much because we care so much about our communities and we really want everyone to actually participate and everyone to make decision. So breaking that gap takes time. So we always engage. It has to do with intentional engagement of these traditional leaders to understand why they needed to share power, why they needed to collectively put power in the hands of everyone so that no one in the union is making or calling the shots at the end of the day. So these are the kind of challenges and when it comes to programming also, how can we hold ourselves accountable to timing in the community, going to the community with respect for the time of the community members, so we are not just once they set the time and we agree on the time we are there on time so that they can. So these road networks are very challenging.
Speaker 3:In the areas where we worked, most of the communities are, as I said earlier. These are communities that are far away from major towns and we are engaging them. So we need to also be there on time, so we need to have respect for their time. So we constantly keep reminding ourselves why we do this work, getting feedback from communities. Are we really realistic in terms we do this work, getting feedback from communities? Are we really realistic in terms of getting this feedback? Are we not just hearing them out and not actually implementing this, some of the feedback that they are providing? So another challenge could be like when we are implementing a corner, using local facilitators to actually facilitate our program.
Speaker 3:So this year. We are challenged in terms of finances, so we are unable to really hire people in Kanoa who can facilitate in Kono the women's empowerment program. So we have to move our staff from Kenema to Kono. They were able to do that. Also, we are very conscious that we needed to hire directly and facilitate us who are very fluent to speak the Kano language. So we have been challenged financially to do that. We work hard against because we currently have just a single kind of vehicle too and we are currently in different locations. We are in Kenema in this street, we are in Kailang this street. We are in Kano in this street, and very soon we will be in the Bombalema in this street. We are in Kailang district. We are in Kona in this street, and very soon we'll be in the Bombay in this street. So logistically we are also very challenged in terms of how we can move our stuff.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of the challenges that you're sharing are challenges that a lot of NGOs are facing right now issues with funding and support. I'm particularly struck by what you said about how mindset change takes time and how you have to work very intentionally with communities to help them identify their needs, really see the needs that exist in their own community and then see the ability for that to change.
Speaker 3:That's why we trust so much constantly to be in communities for a long time. So that's because we believe that behavior change in itself takes time, especially when it comes to like changing gender norms in these communities. One critical example I will share with you is someone who was very reluctant in terms of changing his mindset about gender roles but because of the family sessions that we have, we are men and women are brought in together to really learn and see the need for how collaboratively they can support one another in the household. And this chief has been inspired by this session and moved towards changing his position in that community, move towards changing his position in that community. So he started kind of supporting his wife in terms of taking care of their children, where the wife attends classes or training sessions, but also cleaning their household dishes just to support the wife in the home. So this is an aspect of behavioral change that it takes time, but gradually we are seeing that happening across some of the communities. Also, handwashing this is also something that we are very impressed by.
Speaker 1:I'm impressed by the changes you all are seeing in things like handwashing and gender norms and things like that. When we were discussing challenges that your organizations have faced, both of you mentioned donor support being a huge challenge that you're facing. You're constrained by the projects that you're funding based on what donors are willing to fund, and you're questioning whether or not you're being accountable really to the communities. I'm curious if you all would share what meaningful, respectful support from donors and development partners looks like in your work.
Speaker 2:Just like our model in really listening and collaborating and partnering with communities.
Speaker 2:I think it will be very useful if our donors and our partners can also use the same mechanism to work with us, because we can only be able to be flexible with communities and to really center what they will describe as change, as impact, as shift, if we have the flexibility as well with our donors.
Speaker 2:I've had experience with donors who fund flexibly and who really allows the communities to shape what change looks like and what are the impacts they're working towards, and that is a model that has been able to generate change and impact in beautiful ways, that really is adaptive and that responds to the needs of people who are on the front line of the work that they do. And if donors are able to shift their mindset, instead of coming with preconditions and really bringing tight indicators and impact, to really participate in processes of listening to partners who are on the front line, who are interacting with the work up front, it will really shift the ways that we will work towards impact and change. And that is the most sustainable ways to fund this work, because donors have been funding other types of work and it won't last if they're not really listening to communities and their priorities. So it's really just revising what mechanism they are also following as people who are making investments in this work to center the lived realities and experiences of people on the front line.
Speaker 3:So for me, I think, for us, we believe that development interventions are more sustainable when they are grounded in the life experiences of those that are directly being impacted by these challenges that we are working to address.
Speaker 3:What I do say to donors is that do not allow perfection to be the enemy of good.
Speaker 3:To more broadly open up the space, the dialogue for communities to make the decision, set up their indicators for success, invest in this type of development, because these are sustainable and development approaches. There has to be flexibility in terms of donor expectation and in terms of actually providing space for organizations that are engaging in the community, so actually engaging communities on the terms of the communities. Donors setting all the indicators of success for communities that they have little engagement with and, at the end of the day, those interventions are not really sustainable in itself because communities are actually isolated in terms of making decisions. A donor like the Mortensen Family Foundation it's really a donor agency that is actually doing this type of kind of approach, really providing a space for communities, and I think I humbly encourage other donors to really see the need to invest in community-led projects that provide space for communities to amplify their intervention impacts, because they are the ones that are directly implementing and they are the ones that are directly seeing the change that they are setting for themselves.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Yeah, I completely agree. I hope any donors that are out there listening to us today take away this idea that if you want organizations to be able to bring resources to communities, then you have to be flexible with responding and with listening to what communities actually need and have this understanding of what you all were saying earlier that mindset change takes time, so there are not always results that can be seen very quickly.
Speaker 1:There are things that are intangible, they're more difficult to measure but are equally as important and just may take more time than the term period of a grant or the term period of a donation trust that organizations are doing what they say that they are doing, that what's being reported to you is accurate and, in the same way, building those relationships, in the same way that you build relationships with communities, building relationships with donors, so that that trust is there For organizations that are listening to this podcast and thinking you know, this sounds like an amazing program, it sounds like amazing work that we should do. What advice would you give them for testing this model of community-led approach in the work that they're doing?
Speaker 3:This is very significant.
Speaker 3:Communities are at the forefront in all the work that we do. By this I mean not actually sitting down and making decisions on behalf of communities, designing projects on behalf of communities, but going to the communities, trying to understand the communities, learn from them and co-design, identify their challenges with them, identify the solutions to these challenges with them and allowing them to lead the implementation process, creating ownership and sustainability of developer interventions. To approach this work with humility, in the sense that we are willing to hear communities out, no matter the feedback that communities are providing. So we are just willing to hear uncomfortable kind of feedback, because our intention in the community should be focusing on learning and unlearning so that we grow along with the communities that we work with. When we are in these communities, we should understand that we are not there to build their capacity. We are there to enhance their capacity, because this also goes with humility, because we should really try to avoid and to be very careful with the languages that we use Languages that empower communities, not languages that take away powers from the communities.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, those are accurate. You're the expert here.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you both, and Aminata, I'm so struck by the way that you defer in your leadership to Sheku, saying he is the expert on the ground, even though you are in leadership over him If we say we're community-led and we're Sierra Leonean-headquartered, sierra Leonean-based organization.
Speaker 2:What does that mean for our team and for our leadership? So this has been a conversation going on and really like the team taking quite the intentional step to transition the leadership of the organization to Sierra Leone and based acknowledging and recognizing that there's expertise in Sierra Leone, enough expertise to lead this work, to manage this work, to deal with the daily, both logistics and strategic leadership, and to take it on and really work towards that. So my equipment, for example, came as a result of that approach and that thoughtful reflection, transitioning and also supporting the leadership right now where all Sierra Leonean-based, all the directors, all the managers in fact the entire team is Sierra Leonean-based, all the managers, in fact the entire team is Sierra Leonean based. We have our colleagues based in the US but mostly do the fundraising.
Speaker 2:As you know, sierra Leone is quite isolated from most of the resources. We need to really support this work. So, yes, on the ground, we lead and do the relationship building fundraising here from Sierra Leone, but our colleagues also based in the US support with fundraising. But all the team based here are all Sierra Leoneans leading this because we believe that we can't give what you don't have. We can't preach community-led model and approach without reflecting that on our leadership and on our team. So it's really leaving our values quite boldly and really embracing that. I don't know if Sheku has any additional perspective to share.
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe what I would share is into that. What I would are we. After that. It will be like keeping dialogue front and center and and how we engage as leaders, but also how um weengage with the entire staff. So in the summer of 2020, our white colleagues began monthly calls in the US. They discussed power relations each month and I think that is really something that I have that, over time, has been internalized across the organization. So we have different levels of engagement, Like we have, as an organization, senior executive leadership, we have senior leadership leadership, we have senior leadership, so it's different level. And also on how different individuals and staff are also involved in discussion.
Speaker 3:So we are living what we expect communities to do and this is really an aspect that we are also bringing into our programs, like engaging community leaders, engaging volunteers, engaging the entire communities, making sure that everyone all decisions, people in a community contribute to that decision as an organization. All the decisions, every level of an individual in the organization contributes to decision making. We are not just taking decisions at the top level, but we are ensuring that the staff at the top level, but we are ensuring that the staff the I-25 staff, the program staff everyone is actually contributing to the decision before they are being taken. So it's a more intentional way of working with being community-led. We are also like there is also a level of external and internal communication. We recognize that there is need to change. There is a need for us to change how we communicate before this time, because we need to be more authentic about how we capture content directly from serial. So, like, who is actually engaged in this conversation? Like you can see, Aminata and I are involved in this conversation.
Speaker 3:So it's not the white colleagues that in the US are involved in this. So we are. They are a part of the story that we are amplifying off in this. So we are. They are a part of the story that we are amplifying. So this is also an aspect of living and what we do with communities.
Speaker 3:When we also go to communities, we ask for consent before we take pictures. We are taking pictures that actually empower communities. So all of this has to be from the vision in how leadership is making, prioritizing or bringing these discussions to life and engaging everyone into this conversation so that together we are spreading this across the organization and collectively. So we also value each individual expertise that they are bringing on the table for us to have in discussions. So it's being more intentional and being more reflective and being more inward kind of and thoughtful and learning from within and bringing that outside. So it has to be. There has to be a way of how you can be very thoughtful and always reflecting on who owns the power and how can you spread the power across so that everyone feels that they have power in their hands in terms of making decisions.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, that is just amazing. If you guys have an agenda for those monthly power relations calls, I sure would love to see that. That sounds like an amazing effort that's being done to bridge the gap. That sounds like an amazing effort that's being done to bridge the gap, bringing together people that are, as you say, from the US and from other places, along with Sierra Leone leaders and each group having their own lane of what their level of support is and what their role is supposed to be, and being very intentional about the leadership piece being in Sierra Leone and the support piece being outside of Sierra Leone. That's just incredible.
Speaker 3:At every level. We have been very intentional about how power can spread across, but also how decisions are made, and that actually impacts the work that we are doing in the field here.
Speaker 1:Amazing, yeah. So intentionality, intentionality, intentionality. At the end of the day, that's the most important thing is being intentional and recognizing what the goal really is and making sure everything you do aligns with that. Well, I have just one more question for all of you, which is the question that we ask all of our guests which is what keeps you optimistic about your work?
Speaker 2:So when I really look at OVP and the vision that we have for communities and that we design with communities and that we design with communities, what keeps me optimistic is when I got into one of the implementing communities and seeing how women take on leadership role without being asked is something that really gives me hope for the future and for the work that we do and for these communities.
Speaker 2:And when I just see how committed, how dedicated these people are, how passionate they are to really shift their realities and to work towards impact and development on their own terms, gives me hope. Another thing that gives me hope is just how we're supporting and working with these communities to really deepen the expertise that already exists there. I feel like in the next five, 10 years, these people will take on the leadership and autonomy of their communities whether OVP leaves and also even support other communities. So that is something that I'm optimistic about. It's also how aware the communities are to utilize the resources that they have and seeing the power that is in that is something that gives me hope and, yeah, that I look forward to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you, aminata, for sharing that. I think so many things actually keep me optimistic about this job. One of it is just believing that community-led development is possible and can actually enhance a community capacity to take ownership and also to sustain the gains that they are actually achieving as part of participating in their own development Over the years. It puts us that when I joined this work, it was very impossible for me to believe this the way. I actually believe it now that it is really possible based on what we are seeing. When I see women sharing their story, when I see women taking ownership of over their own life, becoming more financially enlightening and are able to manage their household finances and are able to work along with their husbands and children and making decision that improves their household. When I see these women improving their earnings and also their full security and becoming respected in communities and becoming recognized as partners in the development of their communities, it keeps me awake and optimistic that community-led development is possible and it is the way to sustain development as part of these same communities, writing proposals and taking ownership of their proposals, implementing solutions that address their community needs together, working collectively. It keeps me awake and optimistic that community-led development works.
Speaker 3:Awake and optimistic that community-led development works. This is not just a kind of just something that is coming and just as an aspect of people writing it down. It is something that is very lively because it is visible, and it is something that I have come to realize that when communities have the space, the platform to actually lead their own development, they are able to surmount the insurmountable. They are able to surmount the insurmountable. They are able to really work together to bring things to life that we can see and not believe in. So believing in communities makes things work well, so we have to trust them and trusting them, communities can lead the way, and this is what keeps me optimistic in this work.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's just amazing. I have to say, after listening to both of you, I am optimistic about the work that you were doing and about the ability for other organizations to take on this community-led, community-developed, local leadership intentional model of partnership. So thank you both for joining us on this episode of Optimistic Voices.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for this opportunity to talk about our work and also the opportunity to amplify the work that communities are doing in terms of leadership, in terms of improving their business skills, in terms of improving their household income and earnings. So I think we look forward to more of this engagement in the future. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Yasmin. Thank you, Sheku, for the great work and everything that you do, Yasmin. We really look forward to staying in partnership and collaborating as the needs arise. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1:Oh, the pleasure has definitely been all mine. So thank you both and remember everyone. It's a big messy world out there and there is no shortage of need, but we here at Optimistic Voices believe that with radical courage and radical collaboration, together we can change the world. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you.
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