What worked…….the experience of Carre d’As' Local Response!!

[Autry Haynes]

The Carre d’As community comprising of 14 families is one of three that Le Pont du Tamarinier works  with and the first with which SALT as a different way of working was engaged. Over the period of five months stimulation in terms of hopes and concerns to dream building and now action planning are achieved in terms of local response and ownership. Five months seem long….well probably but it’s their choice. As Facilitators of change we may want things to happen at a quicker rate. The community allocated time based on its commitment to other family and community activities. What may be appreciated is that they saw wisdom in being committed to a process that could and is making a difference. Since the start there was an average of 20 persons in attendance and sometimes they walked for 10-14 minutes to a meeting hall of LPDT. This is  a considered strength and commitment. We worked with their time and mostly on the days they agreed to do SALT, we did  so within one hour and as much as possible we stuck to that. Over the period it was one hour per week or every other week. However they stayed with it and is now accomplishing elements of their action plan.

Working with this community was an action plan for LPDT itself who was engaged in a training event of SALT / CLCP. We can say this is a period of accompaniment. The action planning sessions seem to be taking more time and challenging the team...The team at one of its reflection indicated that the action planning was most challenging for them and a similar experience is being had here. The community started with 14 ‘stepping stones’ by which they could achieve their dream. We know these as practices. That identification of the ‘stepping stones’ took the allocated time period of one hour to accomplish. So the next time we met, we asked the question, “..before we move forward, lets have another look at these ‘stepping stones’, are there any that may be similar and that can be merged, but there might be similarities but we want to keep them separate?” The end result were five practices with explanation of what each means based on the ‘stepping stones’ from the merging process.

To the action planning step. They identified the priority practice as “We have effective communication between neighbours.” The other practices are:

1. We ensure that there are opportunities for education for our children

2. We take care of and maintain our community’s environment

3. Be responsible parents and community members

4. We stimulate opportunities for employment for residents of our village

There were many suggestions of SMART actions to achieve the priority practice but the challenge was they couldn’t fit SMART: Specific Measurable, Appropriate, Realistic and Time bound. But SALT is about being flexible and adaptable. We encouraged the group to still think of a SMART action for the priority practice but, was there another practice that we can find SMART actions for and that could lead to the priority practice? A community member suggested the practice about environment. Everyone agreed! So, the logical question, what SMART action can we do achieve “We take care of and maintain our community’s environment?” There was agreement on the SMART action, ‘clean-up campaign’. So we agreed to, the what, who will do what, when it will be done and how do we know we have achieved the action. In terms of ‘how do we know we achieve? they agreed to taking pictures and do an after action reflection, immediately after the action. This was three days after, actually (^_^). The reflection focused on three questions [1] what have we learn? [2] What strengths did we identify and [3] what could we do even better the next time we do another SMART action?

what have we learn

 

What have we learnt?	What Strength have we observed?	What can we even do better?
Team Work (happy together).	Men have given us          our strength and this has  been our power.	Enough materials.
Sharing Moment (laugh).	We are the force.	Much more persons present.
Team Strength.	Cooperation with those who were present (30 person).	Atmosphere should be much more festive.
Take time and have Time to play to the “LOTO”.	We were joking, laughing, cleaning and talking.	Should have       much more men next time.
Put money together to buy dustbin plastic bag.	Sharing moment.	Should plan         for more drink and food next time.
Clean our neighbor’s yard without hesitation.	Men and Women together.	Should organize much better next time.
Re use all materials that we have used, to help us in our new houses.	Does not matter with         those who don’t come and do     not react negatively but use the strength that were present to work.
Communication.	We have do things by ourselves without LPDT.
The women have the strength.	Every one communicate with each other
Built friendship.
We have learned how to       communicate with our neighbors to have materials to help us.

The engagement to do After Experience Reflection included also another planning session and they agreed to go back to the priority practice. Stay tuned for that (^_^).