The Self-Help Group Project's Big Day

On the big day of November 15, 2012, fifteen of the thirty-nine community group chairpersons arrived very early and Ann, the Project Manager, served them all Maasai "shaai", hot milky sweet tea.  The big meeting started and more group leaders arrived till we had thirty-three in total.  In the meeting, we explained our process to select the ten groups for our self-help group project, encouraged them to be servant leaders like Jesus, and explained other options for them if they didn’t end up in the selected ten groups.  After about three hours of meeting, including various speeches and prayers, we had lunch and moved into the interviews.

We spent fifteen minutes with each leader. We believe that spending that time, listening to their story allowed each to know they were respected and cared for even if they might not make the selection process. We did interviews all day and into the night and finished the last couple hours by the light of headlamp, since the power was out. We had to finish the last eleven interviews the following Wednesday.

In the interviews we were so happy to learn that the groups were finding themselves moving forward simply because of the requirements that we had given them to apply for the project.  In order to apply, we'd asked them to re-organize their group to make sure everyone was committed, to address their conflicts, and to re-elect their leaders.  Many of the leaders told us that they were hopeful for their self-help group and they were sure they could move on whether they made it into the selected ten groups or not.

In the interviews with the group leaders we learned some encouraging stories:

For Ilaretok Oloserian, a self-help group of twenty-three women and just two men, the requirement to re-elect and re-organize came at just the right time. They were encouraged by the instructions we gave in the project introduction meeting, encouraging them to elect women into leadership since most of them were women.  They realized that they didn’t have to elect only the men to be their leaders.  Paulina, the new chairwoman says that this has brought new life to the group. This group is one of the selected ten that will receive training.

Doug  created an assessment rubric for rating each of the thirty-three groups that applied for the project and we spent one day going through the information for all the groups.  In the end, the ratings accurately delineated the groups and we were easily able to select the top ten groups that will be trained in the next quarters of the project. 

Sorting through the 33 applications and interviews to find the top 10 community groups.

In Maasai culture, it is most respectful to call someone to come, to sit down and to talk about the news, whether it is good or bad.  So, this week, we had another meeting with the twenty-three group leaders that have not been selected.  We explained again our methods of selection and other local opportunities for their training that we have identified. We fed them a meal, and sent them on their way. Though they were sad at first, because we took the time to explain carefully our objective method of selecting, in the end, they were affirming. At least four leaders called the Manager the next day to thank her for the meeting!

Some of our learning in our Self-help group project over the past three months...

We have learned a lot about how to culturally handle selection processes.  It took much longer than we imagined, because we carefully and respectfully explained the project through meetings with all the groups, gave every group a fair chance to apply, selected the groups in an objective and fair manner, and carefully communicated the results with all the group leaders. 

Calling Maasai together to meet for communication is a better method than simply using the phone.

In order to get the information out so that it is understood, it requires not only meeting physically with the people, but also repeating the information on the phone afterwards, sometimes many times.  Repetition is so important when introducing a new idea or project.

Even if it is not the cultural norm to select through objective and fair methods, it was well received once we demonstrated it and took the time to explain it.  Normally, they are used to people being selected because of family connections, friends or special favors.  They were surprised and so thankful to experience this different method.

We had a special moment of celebration when the report for this quarter was sent in and the final group leader was called.  We are eager to see this project move on to the next phase of beginning to train the ten community groups.