Development and Sustainability

Back in Mogotio today with Ribbon of Hope Self Help Group. We have to go to five villages and identify four especially needy orphans so that we can support their adoptive families to care for them. Not that it's a difficult job to identify four, we ended up with five today and pleas for several others. Yesterday, also, we had several pleas from mothers who heard there were people assessing orphans in the area. It doesn't take long for the word to get around but it's hard to have to tell people that we only have the funding for a very limited number right now.

Today we went to Alfega (a corruption of Alpha and Omega, reflecting the Greek 'ownership' of most of the land in the area), which is about one hour of difficult cycling from Mogotio. I was given one of the very heavy but resilient Indian 'Avon' bikes and told the brakes were not too good. I would have been surprised if I had been told they were good and I've never cycled on a bike that had two brakes here. But by the time I was on a steep hill trying to check my speed, the one brake had failed. I made various attempts to slow down before preparing myself for a crash landing, which I found in a bank of clay that happened to be at just the right angle to stop me without resurfacing my face.

Without further incident, we took the least muddy route through the kilometres of sisal. It was very hot and there were several places where we struggled to push the bikes through the wet mud, but all in all, it was an enjoyable journey. The area is particularly beautiful in the present, rainy season, just a bit wet sometimes. And in the midst of all the sisal, we spotted some industrial greenhouses and some bright green fields of something other than sisal. I hoped to see food crops but, alas, there was mostly flowers (for the European market) and coffee grown there. The area is owned by one of the sons of the former president, Moi, who was quite acquisitive in his time.

Like Majani Mingi, where we went yesterday, Alfega is pretty isolated. The best roads that surround it are mud roads and impassable during and just after the rain. And it's expensive to make the journey if you really need to. So most people don't leave the village much. In spite of being surrounded by such greenery and wealth, the village is as poor as Majani Mingi and far more populous. The latter has a population of only three or four thousand, Alfega is closer to eight thousand. Of course, I never know whether the population figures we are given count the children or just the adults.

We visited four houses, assessing five orphans in all. They were all in need of assistance and the worst thing is seeing the problems that their families have to cope with. It's amazing that families that are so overstretched will still take on another child to care for, but it does seem to happen a lot. And Ribbon of Hope is fortunate enough to have members who are from the area because otherwise, it would be impossible to tell who is genuine and who is not. Even people who are clearly in need sometimes tell a few white lies to try and have one of their children assessed, which is not really surprising.

And that's another way in which we are fortunate, we have limited funding, so we have to be very careful. I've seen and heard of organisations that have large amounts of funding but they end up using it rather indiscriminately and even losing it to people who are not really in need. Organisations shouldn't have any more cash than they know how to administrate. Our biggest asset right now is the closeness of some of our members to the local community we hope to assist.

Just as it seems unfair to help people who are HIV positive when other people are suffering from all sorts of treatable and curable illnesses, it sometimes seems unfair to single out orphaned and vulnerable children for special assistance when there are others who are in equal need. And this is a dilemma that we face every time we visit such villages. Today and yesterday, we saw people, adults and children, who were suffering, but they probably won't attract the attention of NGOs. We try to do things that benefit communities as a whole as well, but we are small right now. Hopefully, things will change over time.

Incidentally, it's worth pointing out that in this area that is mostly owned by Gideon Moi, there are a lot of public toilets being built. As the houses there don't have good sanitation, this sort of intervention will have major benefits for everyone in the village. Water and sanitation related illnesses give rise to a huge share of the disease burden and deaths in developing countries. The Greek owned area around Majani Mingi didn't have any public toilets that I could see and it is likely that the overall health in Alfega in the near future will be far better as a result. I hope to see more of this kind of public intervention, despite the dominance of private (and highly exploitative) enterprise in the area.

Ideally, Ribbon of Hope Self Help Group won't get much bigger because the things we are doing now will be done by other self help groups. To some extent this is already happening. But there is a certain futility to NGOs and community based organisations (CBO) continually setting up and targeting the people and things they most want to benefit, only to be replaced by more NGOs and CBOs, without an end in sight. It would be nice to think that communities like Alfega and Majani Mingi will one day be able to support themselves, perhaps because of the support they received in the past from various parties.

In fact, if that is not what happens, if the development that we are involved in now is not sustainable, if it doesn't give rise to further development that is greater than what came before, I think it may have failed. But the possibility that what we are doing now may only have a short term benefit and that others may have to come and do the same again and again in the future is no reason to stop doing what we are doing. Unless we are doing some harm, and I hope we are not doing that.