SALT Visits and AAR in CARE India

[Dr. E. Mohamed Rafique]

Dear Friends,

We have in the last three weeks begun introducing CLC and ACP in the EMPHASIS project of CARE India. The difference is that SALT visits in CARE show how SALT can be used to achieve CARE's + Community's objectives, dreams and so on...Moreover, it is useful as a tool for impressing on other International NGO's that you need no additional investment, and you get better returns on your own indicators, if you practice SALT. Finally, the field teams have vowed, that henceforth they will do everything that they would have to do in their project only by SALT. Accordingly, I present here the After Action Review of the first SALT visit that we made:

The After Action Review of Day 1

What was supposed to happen?

We hoped that there would be a community of Nepali people waiting to meet the field visit team and share their issues, experiences, and expectations from the program. The field visit team also hoped to validate the guess estimates made earlier about the total Nepali population in Indra Vikas Colony. The Field team also sought to get approximate disaggregated data by age, source, and duration of stay for the Nepali population in Indra Vikas Colony,

What actually happened?

The field visit team found that there were two types of community settlements. On one side of the main road were urban one-room tenement housing. These were rundown, low-rental apartment building with hardly any facilities or maintenance. Therefore, the team could not have a meeting place. Consequently, the meeting was a free-wheeling one, with Nepalis dropping in, sharing a point or two, and then leaving. Subsequently, new Nepali men or women would join, the conversation, and leave. This happened throughout the meeting. Thus, even though about twenty-five Nepalis would have contributed at least once during the entire meeting, at any point of time there were not more than six of them present, due to constraints of space.

The other was the slum population. Here the Nepali population was dispersed. Moreover, one Nepali slum resident did not have any information about where the next Nepali slum resident was. This was a dead-end for our snow balling technique, forcing the team to think up new methods of estimating such type of dispersed an d unknown Nepali population in slums

Why were there differences?

The field visit team did not have information regarding the two types of housing in Indra Vikas Colony, both of which were not conducive for holding a community meeting. People did not have information about any other Nepali, if the others were outside their vicinity. Even those in the joint tenement housing the sixty-odd residents of one building who were aware that there were similar buildings fully occupied by Nepalis, could not provide any further information about their Nepali country men.

What can we learn from this?

We learnt that there is a difference between the attitudes and behaviours of the Nepalis living in the tenement housing together and those living dispersed in the slums. While those in the tenement housing were united among their immediate neighbours, with the unity and familiarity established within the building, those in the slums were living in comparative anonymity.

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Download the whole four-day report: Nepalis in Delhi estimate in four days.doc

[Phil]

Hello Rafique,

What can do you differently next time as a result of what you learned from the visit and the AAR?

phil

[moushumi kundu]

Hi Gaston. As Rafique said I would like to anwer your question with my limited experince on SALT. In the first community they have a small catering business, in which a few members of the community work togetther and that is one of their strengths. Also, at the time of need they come together to fight the hardship togetther both by providing emotional support and also by helping each other by giving money if there a finacial need. For example, when they tranport a pregnant women for delivey to the hospital they pool their resources both in kind and cash. Another strength is that they trust one another so that if one member of the 250 odd strong community go back to Nepal some of them send their savings through these travellers.

Under Rafique's guidance to work as a team is the most convinient thing either with or without SALT:-). Jokes apart, our team is gelling together as a SALTy one.

[Dr. E. Mohamed Rafique]

Dear Laurence,

Gaston's question is being answered by Moushmi.

As how the SALT and CLC process helps us in CARE to achieve both CARE's and the Community objectives can be seen from what we are planning. For this we have to go back a little to our basics in CLC. Remember the first slide of our CLC Process Powerpoint which only says:
ownership + strengths = community's response

So, the CARE approach say for setting up a Drop-in-Centre would be:
Sit down with the community and follow up on how the Community would like to go ahead after they form an association which is of, by and for Nepalis. Subsequently, the community members will at some point in the discussion state they want a place to meet, if they have not already said so. Then we ask them to choose that place. Also, we will ask them to draw a list of what all is required to establish a DIC and what all is required to run a DIC. We can help them in this list, keeping well in mind what the EMPHASIS project of CARE can offer, and what the EMPHASIS program cannot.

We then ask the community what all strengths they have, from which they can provide to the DIC. Some Communities I know have established and run DIC wholly by themselves. If our Community cannot do all, they will be able to share mostly in kind some of the activities and establishment costs. What is available and what is missing can be put up in a Community Life Competence table like this :

I hope this helps, as Finance department of CARE, and everyone will also have a clear idea of how the budget of the BIG Lottery Fund is being utlized and for what, as well as how much and for what is the Community's contribution.

I am sure, it has worked elsewhere, and so most probably will work in CARE too,

[Laurence Gilliot]

Hi Rafique,

I was about to ask the same question as Gaston, he was faster :-)

One other question. You write SALT can be used to achieve CARE's + Community's objectives, dreams and so on.... The Community Life Competence Process is about accompanying communities so that they can achieve their objectives, their dreams. How do you find the balance between the organizations objectives (Care) and the communities objectives?

Thanks,

Laurence

[Gaston]

Thanks Rafique for sharing. I was wondering for you and your team: What strengths did you observe in those two communities? And how did you work as a SALT team together? Was it difficult?