By Eunice Racheal Agbyendazi
The Giving for Change (GfC) Alliance gathered in the beautiful Kenyan city of Kisumu in August for its annual gathering.
The annual gathering is an important calendar event. It is the one platform that brings together all eight countries, across Africa, Asia, Southern America, and the Netherlands to exchange experiences in the quest to introduce and embed community philanthropy as a critical approach and tool for sustaining civil society and promoting civic space.
GfC Alliance getting ready for a field trip
This year, 2023, marked the mid-point in the five-year initiative, and so, the gathering was not only to celebrate the progress made but also to reflect, and re-strategize for the next two and a half years.
I and my colleague, Feruzah represented STAR-Ghana Foundation. Join us as we recount our experiences and reflections from the gathering.
We arrived in Kisumu on Sunday, August 20, 2023. We did not feel alone on our journey! We traveled with other participants including Samar from Dalia Association in Palestine, Jonathas from the Comua Network in Brazil, and Sawadago from the ABF, Burkina Faso. Our first reaction as we exited the airport was “What a beautiful city”! It was sunny with a cool breeze. Kisumu in many ways reminded me of my recent trip to the Rwandan capital Kigali. As soon as we sat in the car that picked us up at the airport, the driver asked us to put on our seat belts. He introduced himself after which he listened politely as we introduced ourselves.
Now, to our European friends, it sounds strange to be reminded to wear your seat belts, right? Well, in Ghana, it is not commonplace to have every driver and passenger wear their seat belts although required by law. In fact, for most people, the only motivation to wear seat belts is the presence of the police on the road. Similarly in Kigali, the vehicle would not move until everyone put their seat belts on. Also, the streets looked clean, and because it was a Sunday the roads were quiet. That evening I missed the group trip to the sunset beach where they enjoyed fresh tilapia from the popular Lake Victoria. I later learned that in Kisumu, tilapia is served in two ways-wet tilapia, which comes in tomato sauce and dry tilapia, which is without tomato sauce!
Our host, the Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF), did well by giving us the chance to familiarize with their work. On Monday, we had field trips concurrently to KCDF GfC partners in Kisumu. I went to Nyalenda and Feruzah to the Kisumu Community of Practice (CoP). In Nyalenda, we participated in the Nyalenda Young Turks community dialogue on sexual gender-based violence. The Nyalenda Young Turks is a budding community-based organisation made up of young people in the area who are committed to creating a Nyalenda where girls and women are safe and thriving.
Community dialogue in Nyalenda
Regrettably, I missed a second group trip to the Kisumu Zoo on Monday evening as I tried to catch up with work after resuming from leave.
The Alliance meeting started on Tuesday, by which time everyone had arrived. Upon entering the conference room that morning, I saw fellow participants exchanging pleasantries and I joined.
It is worth noting that the GfC Alliance is not only a group of organizations working together. It is also a community of individuals from all race, age and sex who connect at personal levels and care for each other. It was indeed a pleasure to reconnect with friends from the Global Fund for Community Foundations (GFCF), Wilde Garzen, and the African Philanthropy Network (APN), and to make new connections with others from KCDF, Uganda NGO Forum, and Macai Foundation. I also for the first time interacted with Meryl, a representative of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was attending the partners meeting for the very first time.
From Tuesday through to Friday, we re-engaged on the ethos of Shift The Power and how we are ‘living’ it. This is a usual practice of the Alliance. We always remind ourselves, at least we become ‘preachers and not doers’.
This was followed by presentations of highlights from each of the 8 countries and was an important element as we listened to the GfC story from different angles. We also engaged on the mid-term evaluation. The analysis and findings corroborated country highlights. The findings from the mid-term evaluation both encouraged and challenged us. We received a pat on our backs for growing a critical mass of individuals and communities that are mobilizing support for addressing community challenges and enabling communities to claim their rights from duty bearers. We were also challenged to define and connect strategies across the three domains to better leverage GfC’s contribution to systems change.
Our key takeaways from the 2023 Alliance Meeting
• Build social capital around your work to make an impact. From the community dialogue, it appeared that the Nyalenda Young Turks commands the respect of the community stakeholders. Their work is extremely valued by the stakeholders. In the dialogue, we saw the representation of all the stakeholders that matter in Nyalenda, from the Council, the traditional leader, the University, and local artists to the Health and Education directorates of Nyalenda. There was also a representation from the Courts. From the accounts of the stakeholders, when Nyalenda Young Turks was being formed, they consulted them and asked about the kind of contribution they required of them. The Young Turks also ensured that the stakeholders are assigned specific roles on their projects. Indeed, all the stakeholders as they spoke of their work with the organization, used ‘we’, to indicate their sense of belonging and ownership of the mission of the organization. What does this mean for us? Money is important but it is not the only thing
that matters to achieve social action and change. The goodwill of people to work with you, listen to you, take actions upon your recommendation among others are equally important and those are the values social capital contributes.
• Everyone can solve a problem. How do you start? Identify a gap and start small to fill it. The history of Nyalenda goes to affirm that solutions to community problems are in the community and everyone is capable of solving a problem. The Nyalenda Young Turks was formed at the onset of COVID-19. This was also the period where communities had to learn to do many things for themselves as external funders had paused work. Their motivation was how they could promote young people’s participation in addressing the information gaps on COVID-19 in the communities, whilst laying the foundation for young people themselves to confront one of their greatest challenges-sexual violence and abuse. Young people were recruited as volunteers and trained to become COVID-19 prevention ambassadors and they have maintained this way of working with young people on many other initiatives. Like Nyalenda Young Turks, many community-based organizations are formed out of the need to offer a solution to a problem. What this tells us is that the solutions to development problems are within the communities and not outside them. As social change facilitators, our role is to recognize communities' capabilities and potential and build on them!
• We need others to carry out OUR vision. Nyalenda Young Turks recounts that their partnership with KCDF has enabled them to expand their work and reach more people within their communities. They acknowledge that the support from KCDF, in terms of funding and mentoring has enabled them to capitalize on their social capital to influence the implementation of the Nyalenda Council’s SGBV policy, which is leading to increased reports of violence and abuse, and the need for support for survivors. They also recognized that the guidance from external research has helped them to engage in a more evidence-based influence and share their stories more confidently. What this tells us is that having a vision alone is not enough. It takes ideas and resources from many others to realize it. But it is also important to build good partnerships that enable you to stay true to that vision.
Participants in a dance
All work and no fun they say is counterproductive. It was not only about work. We also learned about self-care and the need to take care of ourselves while contributing our efforts to change the world. Lately, self-care and personal well-being have become part of the agenda for meetings, including sessions on them. Ensuring self-care is crucial for maintaining physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Here are some self-care tips you should try;
• Establish clear boundaries between work and personal life,
• Set realistic goals.
• Define specific work hours and avoid checking emails or taking work-related calls outside of those times,
• Learn to say no sometimes to additional work.
• Maintain strong relationships with friends and family members who can provide emotional support and companionship,
• Regularly disconnect from electronic devices and screens to avoid overexposure and give your eyes and mind a break.
• Learn to know when to ask for help! some strategies to help you prioritize self-care!