Tanjona Andriamarolaza of NGO ‘Promo-Antananarivo’ developed a project in 101 & 102 with course partner Marta Gorska (Poland/UK) to increase incomes for these families. A 2009 military coup’s internationally unrecognized government & a collapsed economy increase the challenge.

The villagers traditionally made money through laundry services, but a shortage of clean water and tools – and the national economy – has reduced incomes and led to malnutrition and reduced schooling for village children. See Tanjona and Marta’s Project LogFrame describing their solution activities.

“The Promo-Antananarivo staff has decided to work with these 149 vulnerable families in the fokontany of Ambohipo. This fokontany is divided on 3 villages (Andohaniato,  Ampahateza,  Ambohipo Tanana). 40% of them are a family headed by woman and they have approximately 5 family members each. The very important need of this community is their family incomes which are less than 0.5 USD/day/person.”

Project Goal Statement:

149 families in three Malagasy villages in the fokontany of Ambohipo will have improved family incomes due to improvements of the washery equipment and materials, a program in the diversification of income generating activities, and a program in the improvement of vocational skills of beneficiaries. This will lead to improved and sufficient daily food consumption by the community (in both quality and quantity), improved development of children and their performance at school, improved nutrition for children, enhanced health care for the families enabling them to leave the vicious cycle of poverty.

Read the full LogFrame which describes step-by-step activities for helping these washerwomen increase family incomes, and includes an impact statement and a Monitoring and Evaluation Plan.

OL 101 and OL 102 – the courses Tanjona and Marta took.

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Sierra Nevada Region, northern Colombia. November’s newsletter featured a summary of partner projects – and we saw very few purely social projects.  Here is one from Rodolfo Rodriguez, of Fundacion Prosierra Nevada, working in Northern Colombia with the Wiwa Indigenous group.

“In September 19, 2010, as a starting point to design a conservation and climate change project, I ran a pilot test using the ten seed technique for a needs assessment with 8 Wiwa indigenous people (4 women, 4 men) belonging to two (Rio Molino and El Encanto) isolated villages,

4 hours away from Santa Marta, one of the main cities of the Sierra Nevada region, Colombia. These 8 people were representative of 70 families—30 and 40 respectively for the 2 villages. Women group prioritized elderly support, promotion of cultural tradition and health issues. Men prioritized technical support to crops and promotion of natural health practices.”

 

“The community based needs assessment prioritized the fact that elderly people from 70 families in two Wiwa villages, among them Mamos (male spiritual leaders), Sagas (wise women) and Parteras (local healers) – all of them keepers of traditional knowledge, considered the foundations of the indigenous culture – are not receiving the minimum social assistance (proper food, clothes and proper housing) caused

by the lack of financial resources and a missing policy among the indigenous organization oriented towards elderly people.This undermines their ultimate goal of strengthening their traditional government destabilizes their cultural foundations and finally challenges the survival of this indigenous community as a whole.”

In our September OL 341 course, Rodolfo developed a Social Assistance Program to solve this problem:

Social Assistance Program Conceptual Outline.
Activity 1. Ask and debate with political and indigenous spiritual leaders about the feasibility to implement such a program
Activity 2. Agree with indigenous organization and health indigenous institution on the design of the program
Activity 3. Use of public resources from Red Juntos to implement the program and tackle main objectives of the social assistance program to elderly people
Activity 4. Hold an introductory workshop/meeting with the elderly community to introduce the benefits of the new program

Project Goal Statement:
Elderly people from 70 families in two Wiwa villages, among them Mamos (male spiritual leaders), Sagas (wise women) and Parteras (local healers) are protected by a social assistance program receiving food, clothes and proper housing, thanks to a new policy agreement among the indigenous organization and the public program Red Juntos, and its financial resources. This will strengthen their traditional government; stabilize their cultural foundations and it will guarantee the survival of this indigenous community and its traditions.

Read more about the Wiwa in the brochure: A Message From the Heart of the World.

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OL 341 Community Based Adaptation – the course Rodolfo took.

Bosco Odongo, Kenya, and Conrad Otterness, US, have been working on a Food Security and Home Gardening Project in NW Kenya for the past six months in OL 304. This week’s assignment was to evaluate the most significant problems that the 120 families that have established home gardens are facing. An early problem for them was that seasonal flooding rendered farm fields unproductive.

Bosco worked with 120 families in 3 villages to develop home gardens for food security – using raised gardening beds. As we can see in the photos of the attached assignment, the beds raised the vegetables above waterlogged fields – and the gardeners channeled the flood waters to plant water-loving crops.

This is an effective adaptation to climate change strategy when unpredictable storms precipitate floods in home garden areas.

Visit Bosco and Conrad’s project report.

Readers: What are your thoughts on food security and climate change in the developing world? Please comment below – we want to hear from you. Or comment in our Development Community or on Facebook.