a semi new project to undertake at the Red Cross before I go. I
believe I mentioned the Community Based Health and First Aid Project
we were working on at the beginning of the year. For multiple
reasons, the three months of evaluation and planning resulted in
significant breakdowns that prevented the program from getting off the
ground. I won't bore you with specifics but it has always been the
plan to revisit this and get a community based program up and running.
In the mean time I have taken up projects in the areas of HIV and
Blood donation to keep myself busy including reestablishing the
communication links and team work of the Samoa AIDS Alliance as well
as developing brochures and posters for blood donation and working the
strengthen the Club 25 program, a youth blood donation initiative.
Now that this program has been given the green light to resume
planning and begin implementation I am going to have to wrap up my
other efforts and shift my focus. I will plan on remaining the point
person for communication and coordination of the AIDS Alliance
organizations as there is no one that can fill that role currently. I
am working on getting funding to reestablish that position before I
leave. (It was filled before the tsunami hit but due to a shift in
program focus on the relief and recovery efforts the person left the
position and it has remained vacant and unfunded since)
I am actually going to be filling the role for what we are calling the
CAPP (Community Assessment and Planning Program) as a stop gap
solution. Once funding is secured the CAPP coordinator can be hired
on as a regular employee. So the plan is in the coming 5 months I
will be working with a team of three employees to develop this program
and if time allows, begin a pilot program.
So what is this program? To sum it up, it is program that will assess
the capacity, vulnerability, needs and wants of communities in Samoa
primarily with regards to disasters and health. This approach is a
very common one in developing nations now and it emphasizes the
participation of community members in assessing the disaster
vulnerability, health status and capacity of the community to meet or
improve on these needs. Once this is done, the community is involved
in reviewing the results and making decisions on what types of
capacity building/vulnerability reducing/community health programs or
interventions they want. Then the program is planed with the
community and requires them to have a significant contribution to the
development and implementation of the program in their community. So
basically it's moving away from the old school approach in developing
nations of bringing a cookie cutter program with personnel and
resources into a community.
I have to say I think this approach is the best one out there that I
have seen, though I am obviously new to this game, and I am excited to
learn more about it and work to develop a Samoan version. What I like
most about it is that it moves away from the handout mentality that
seems to be common to this day in assisting developing nations,
including Samoa. Through my life experiences up to this point i have
come to revise the old saying about teaching a man to fish, "You teach
a man to fish, he can feed himself for a life time (barring
catastrophic global warming effects or the exhaustion of fish
populations of course), you hand a man a fish you teach him to put the
other one out and ask for another." While this is not universally
true, I think, from my experience, it appears to be much more likely
when the person or people are not in great need of support or have
been continually supported for extended periods of time with no
efforts to build capacity and actually "teach them to fish".
It appears I have wandered in to a bit of a philosophical mode.
Before I start rambling incoherently I think I'll end it there. I am
planning on getting some pics of the Red Cross office so you can see
where I work up on my webalbum soon. I know, a year later and I
finally get around to it. Shameful. Until then, fa soifua.
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