Your Rotary Foundation Dollars at Work

This was presented at the Rotary District 5960 Foundation Celebration on October 27, 2012

Kathy:

We are here to tell you about how your Foundation dollars are at work not only in Ghana, but right here - building partnerships, developing capacity and leveraging relationships. This story begins in 2003 when our District sent a Group Study Exchange Team to West Africa. While there we began to develop the relationships that would grow over the years. Group Study Exchange is a program funded by the Foundation.  A year later, two of our GSE Team members, including myself returned as Rotary Volunteers to further develop relationships and to “vet” projects to be leveraged into matching grants; building toilets, equipping schools and assessing needs at Street Girls Aid. Rotary Volunteers was funded at the time by The Rotary Foundation. Two years later, this District partnered with others to fund equipment at Street Girls Aid to develop their sewing trade school based upon the needs assessment conducted earlier. That matching grant was funded in part by your Foundation dollars.

Cathy:

And then something interesting happened in this District...in 2006 we started looking at new ways of partnering and delivering funds and service with our FFH initiative. We were interested in breaking the cycles of dependency that oftentimes are created by “foreign aid”, we wanted to be more intentional in developing relationships -engaging recipients and beneficiaries, and we wanted to focus our efforts on economic sustainability.

Kathy:

In Accra, Ghana, we are currently in the middle of a 3 phase project working to develop capacity with Street Girls Aid – what does that mean? Last year, because of the relationships previously developed, we received a call from SAid – asking for help in developing a strategic plan…in February we traveled to Ghana to do just that – develop capacity, build software.

Cathy:

In a TED talk titled “Learning from Failure”, Dave Damberger discusses different approaches to service – software vs. hardware…hardware is what we have been doing for many years – drilling wells, building schools, sending books…software is capacity building with people, skills training, strategic planning, enhancing business skills – the “leave behind” of intellectual property that can also be shared with others.

Engaging in capacity building is hard work and requires patience and a willingness to be open and flexible. It requires us to suspend all assumptions and be a teacher and a student at the same time. While in Ghana we met with Rotarians, Rotaractors, and Ambassadorial Scholars to share ideas about alternative strategies for engaging partners in the 6 focus areas of the Foundation.  We did this while focusing on sustainability, capacity development and engaging beneficiaries and recipients.

Kathy:

During Phase 1, we began to develop a model for training, supporting and developing capacity. We conducted listening sessions, trained facilitators, conducted “business coaching”, trained the leadership team in consensus development, marketing, strategic planning, visioning, and listening.  During the second week something magical happened, we went from being trainers to observers and the SAid staff began to cheer each other on as their confidence in their new skills increased.  Here are some of the things that the staff said in the evaluations about the sessions.

Kathy:

I learned how to build consensus even though there may be dissenting views…even in deciding what needs to be done as we move forward;

Cathy:

 I learned about the important of consistency in the message throughout the entire organization;

Kathy:

 Facilitation is not about giving speeches;

Cathy:

Whatever activity you want to do there needs to be a plan;

Kathy:

Facilitation involves helping the group to arrive at their own consensus;

Cathy:

I learned that there is power in imagination.

These are all lessons that we can relate to.

Kathy:

And, these lessons will remain behind as Street Aid becomes a stronger organization.

Cathy:

Stay tuned….we leave in 2 weeks to begin Phase 2 which includes a booster of the work completed in February as well as other very specific training topics requested by the SAID team. Part of Phase 2 includes advance planning for Phase 3 which will bring a brigade of people from District 5960 to work in areas planned.  Please let one us know if you have interest in a “feet on the ground” experience in Ghana in 2013.

Developing capacity, engaging the beneficiaries and building the “software” is so important to working in a new way as Rotarians and others serve in the world. The impact of this work will benefit more people than we will ever know thanks to all of you and your support of The Rotary Foundation.