SOS Children's Villages Malawi, through the family strengthening programmes emanating from the SOS Social Centres, are reaching out into the communities surrounding the SOS Children's Villages.
In Lilongwe, Alex Nguwo is the SOS Social Centre co-ordinator. Here, he explains the delicate process of negotiating with community leaders not only the type of programmes which will be most suited to the communities, but exactly how the programmes will run and who will be responsible for which actions. Time and energy needs to be put into not only action, but in the planning of suitable interventions so that programmes run smoothly and efficiently, with full participation of all partners.
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| Village development committee meeting in progress - Photo: SOS Archives |
All sorts of issues need to be discussed, from basic policy matters to the details of individual programmes. In Malawi, the traditional forum for discussing village matters is through a gathering of the elders of the village, and this traditional structure has been adapted by the SOS Social Centres to ensure that the correct support gets to the correct members of the community.
"The signs are there that it will be another good year for the beneficiaries of the family strengthening programmes", Alex comments. "There has been much participation in the past by village elders and respected members of the local communities. Being one of the village development committee members, I was glad to be invited to a very important meeting held in Ngwenya village where we participated in the designing and formulation of a monthly report format for the village development committees.
Village development committees have already started using a basic form on a monthly basis to communicate with the family strengthening programme on different activities that have taken place in the respective villages.
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| Co-workers of the SOS Social Centre helding a discussion - Photo: J. Dufty |
One of the issues that we agreed is that guardians or children who are part of the programme must not be entertained by family strengthening programme co-workers if they decide to seek assistance from the office without being accompanied by committee representatives. This is because any assistance rendered to communities need to be channelled through village development committee members to ensure that the programmes assist only those legitimately registered for the programmes with which the SOS Social Centre Lilongwe is associated.
However, if pupils are sent from their respective schools, or if there is an urgent issue to be sorted out, then community members can be entertained immediately and the formalities will be followed up as soon as possible afterwards - the committees recognise that we are often dealing with extreme cases of need and as such, some flexibility needs to be built into the structures without exposing partners to avoidable risk of fraudulent behaviour. Responsibility sharing between guardians and the social centre was also discussed.
The village development committees shall have the duty to monitor activities of sub committees as these report to the village development committee. Action plans, problems encountered and how issues of concern were solved shall be documented and be referred back to in times of need.
Different local structures shall perform their duties in readiness for a feedback to the main committees. Family strengthening programme activities shall be monitored easily so long as they follow their action plans. Every activity shall be documented and filed for future reference."