Whatever progress there will be in life, it doesn’t come through adapting but through daring! The Swahili word ‘Thubutu’ means ‘to dare’. Dare to be your change! However, to be able to change, you need to get opportunities; opportunities to gain information, learn, process, and shape your thoughts and ideas.
Thubutu Africa Initiatives (TAI) is a Non-Government Organization that wants to see local communities flourish, daring to take measures into their own hands. Children are at the base of this and they deserve a safe and healthy environment that enables them to reach their full potential. Unfortunately, this is often not the case. One of the major problems? The lack of ‘education’ (as an information provision tool). Education results in knowledge and knowledge drives change.
TAI successfully and managed to facilitate the construction of a girl’s toilet at Lubaga Primary School at Shinyanga Municipal in Lubaga ward by using human, financial, and material resources which were organized by the mobilization team through community giving. The coordinating team managed to spread the idea of community philanthropy within and outside of the Shinyanga region using different social media like radio, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs among others. Community members appreciated the innovation used since the project was accomplished timely and they encouraged the team to conduct different projects by using the community philanthropy approach since it is one way of ensuring sustainability, accountability, transparency, and commitment which made community members feel part and part of the project. TAI is now a pioneer of community philanthropy and a number of civil society organizations are learning from TAI on how to implement different projects in their localities by using local giving which has increased the value of community resources in project implementation.
Community members raised a challenge of increased school dropout and poor performance among school girls of standard 5 to 7 because of poor latrines at school. There were few latrines compared to the number of girls and they were very old without changing rooms which discouraged them, especially during their menstruation. This made most of them drop out of school which made community members come up with the solution of constructing latrines with changing rooms to reduce the cases of school dropout and poor performance among girls. The selected team for resource mobilization conducted several meetings at school and all streets around the project area which were fruitful. The team also used the door-knocking method and this was done by moving to different stakeholders and community members like businessmen, government and private institutions, and individuals looking for resources. This helped to increase understanding of community philanthropy ideas since most of the community members who did not attend the meetings that were organized, were reached in their working sites.
Since the community philanthropy project is voluntary, community members were free to pledge anything that they were sure of despite the size and we were focusing much on materials since it was easy for the community to give out materials compared to money because this was the first project to be implemented through community philanthropy approach and most of the community members wanted to first prove if the project will be successful through the stated approach and this made them to be willing to provide material and manpower support compare to financial support.
Change realized
- 89% of the material used to accomplish the project was direct from the community. This evidenced that community members are ready to participate in solving their problems. This was due to the full involvement of community members in project design, planning, and transparency of the committee team during and after resource mobilization.
- Community members were able to use the available resources within their localities to address the identified challenge. Since it was a community project, communities were free to give out materials without considering the ratio and size as long as it was building material the committee welcomed them and this made them feel free to donate even the material in which they were using and their working sites.
- The participatory approach puts community members at the front line during project implementation. This made them feel part of the project since they were involved from the initiation stage and the team was giving out feedback on each step during project implementation.
- Through the project introduction meeting, community members became very positive about the approach to be used and ready to participate. Because they were the ones who selected the fund fundraising team, they had trust in them as they were capable of conducting the project successfully.
Lessons Learned and Recommendations
- Community philanthropy is voluntary, when the community is aware they are ready and proud to engage in their development. Community members were free to pledge whatever they had, willingly and in their own time as long as it was within the stated period of implementation and this made them donate as much as they could no matter the stage of the project.
- Accountability and transparency are key in implementing community philanthropy projects. This helps community members to know the value of the material they had contributed and how they were used.
- Every resource is valuable in the community despite how small or large, and every contribution is a resource not necessarily a financial resource. Community members were free to donate whatever they were willing to give as long as it could be used to accomplish the project.
- Through community engagement, project ownership and sustainability are ensured. This helps even after project closeout; the community will be free and willing to do any renovation when required since they own the project.
- Transparent, accountable, and trustworthy smoothen community philanthropy project implementation. This is because the community members are aware of all resources collected and how they were used.
- It has very potential to engage influential figures in the community like religious leaders, community leaders, public figures, platforms, and social media in influencing community members to participate in their development. It helps in increasing trust in community members and their willingness to donate their resources as most of them will donate according to how familiar they are with the person mobilizing those resources.
- Community philanthropy projects are voluntary, hence no need to force community members during resource collection. Community members are free to donate whatever they wish willingly without considering the size since each contribution is valuable.
- Engagement of community members in problem identification, project designing, and planning helps in smoothen resource mobilization process and ensure project ownership and sustainability. This makes them aware of all necessary resources required and their values in every stage of project implementation.