Lessons Learnt for Asutsuare

I have learnt quite a number of lessons from what I will describe as this ‘Asutsuare Encounter or Phenomenon’. Let me share these with those who might want to go to the field in future to carry out community developmental activities. I must point out that what I encountered at Asutsuare was nothing new – they rather re-enforced and firmed up what I already knew. I shall support each of the lessons and experiences with case studies from Asutsuare wherever it becomes relevant and possible. The following are just a few of the numerous lessons that I have learnt.

Be carefull whom to trust

Never wholly trust what the community members tell you in your first encounter and interaction with them. Most of them can lie between their teeth. Give yourself ample time to reflect and painstakingly probe what they say, how they say it, why they say it, who says it and when it is said.

An emotion laden world

A large proportion of community members live in a world of fleeting emotions and depending on the social, economic, political, cultural and psychological state they find themselves in at a particular point in time they will tell you emotional stories that they hope would move you and win your sympathy, especially in matters relating to the payment of community contributions. While some of them genuinely have economic problems, a greater number of them will show very little commitment and concern notwithstanding the fact that they are earning enough to be able to financially contribute towards a developmental project. This is because most community members today have not been able to divest themselves of the notion that every developmental activity is the responsibility of the government. .

Tale spinners

As they spin their tales of woe, listing a catalogue of difficulties and frustrations to show their incapacity to meet their financial obligations, do not become overwhelmed and wax sympathetic. Just watch them, listen attentively, show interest in what they are saying if even it is a window dressing gesture; put in a question here and there during the discourse to check the veracity of the stories, never lose your eye contact – it is pure psychology to find out whether the speaker is lying or being economical with the truth. In the communities a liar will immediately wilt under a strong and sustained stare and later blurt out the truth. Probing, checking and re-checking community stories and not waxing emotional was one of the reasons why the TREND group succeeded in its fund mobilisation effort.

Case study: Water and taxis

I had been told that people from Gbese, one of the beneficiary communities convey ‘drinking’ water which they fetch everyday from the canal waters used to water the rice paddy fields at the Asutsuare township in hired taxis and in (some cases dirty) rubber jerry cans. (The water from the canal had been badly infected by the insecticides that are used to treat the young paddy rice when they start germinating) This type of delivery service always cost them five thousand cedis per trip. One day I accosted one of the women who uses this service everyday and asked her to give me twenty thousand cedis for just once and promised her that I could supply her with good potable water for life. With incredulity written all over her face she told me that if I could do this, she would pay me a hundred thousand cedis a month to enable her to continue enjoying this service for life. When later I pointed out to her that I was a member of the water team asking her to pay twenty thousand cedis for once as her contribution for the installation of a piped water system in her community her face changed immediately as she blurted out these words

“I have already told you people that I am unemployed ……I just cannot pay that much money ……. That is the responsibility of the government” With that she hurriedly entered the taxi, waved me a feeble goodbye while the taxi scooted off. I froze in my tracks.

Case study:

I joined in a game of cards with a noisy group of young men all reeking of alcohol and tobacco one afternoon at Asutsuare. My purpose was to try to find out why the youth, in particular, through out the communities had felt very reluctant to contribute to the payment of their share of the capital cost. It was one group which was daily using unemployment to justify its reluctance to pay up. The way these young men crawl idly about in the community always on a drinking binge was enough to win the sympathy of the callow community worker. In spite of all my field experiences I nearly fell a victim to what I later discovered was a big lie which had been put out by the youth because they had not broken away from the culture of looking up to the government to provide them with all social amenities especially water. Through my interaction with them that afternoon (alcohol has the power to loosen the tongue sometimes, however tight lipped one wants to be) I discovered that each of them and for that matter a greater percentage of the youth cultivate large plots and acres of rice paddy fields by which they earned a lot of money . The yields are bagged in quantities and sold to a rice company in situ at the community - most of the time for ready cash. Money to pay twenty thousand cedis once to enjoy good, potable water was therefore not a problem.

Never expect too much from unmotivated and ill-resourced Watsan Committees and Water Board Members

Poor implementation strategy

The consultant preceding the TREND group had embarked on a strategy which involved members of the WSDB going round all the communities to explain what the project objectives were and then ask for contributions from them. He operated from Accra and once in a while would visit the community with the expectation that the WSDB had spread the word and that communities suffering from inadequate provision of potable water would have paid their contributions with speed. And for the nearly three years that they had used this approach they had only succeeded in bagging 360.000 cedis instead of the one 160.000.000 cedis the communities were expected to pay. In short, the consultants failed and had to pack off from the communities.

Problem of accessibility

What the TREND group did discover was that the communities were located far and wide and on slopes and hilly areas which the volunteer members of the WSDB, poorly resourced as they were, in terms of mobility, could not easily access on foot to disseminate project information and collect contributions for the project. The TREND group rather used its vehicle and together with members of the WSDB held constant dawn and dusk meetings with communities whose members were mostly peasant farmers and who left their homes early in the morning to work on their farms and returned late in the evening.

Dearth of project information

The new approach adopted by the TREND group brought out one serious flaw in the project’s implementation strategy – dearth of project information among community members. This confirmed the point I have always made that project’s expectation that information about the project will sink down to the grass root level after an expensive start up workshops at the District Assemblies is only a pipe dream. Our interaction with these peasant farmers revealed that they had little or no information about the project and its objectives. Whenever these were explained to them some members who were drinking water from disease ridden streams and rivers made an on the spot payment of their contributions. Unmotivated WSDB members can often be real sloppy partners as I found at Asutsuare.

Break the dichotomy jinx

Where there is a dichotomy in ideas, views, interests and opinions between an entrenched youth and the elderly, projects are often hampered, truncated or abandoned all together. That was the situation in Asutsuare which had nearly cost them the project, at a time when a decision was being taken gradually to withdraw the project completely from the area because of the communities’ foot dragging approach in the payment of their share of the capital cost.

The TREND group, in an attempt to break this dangerous dichotomy jinx held meetings severally and jointly with the youth, chiefs and some opinion leaders who of necessity had to live outside the communities in the aftermath of some political differences between them and the youth groups. The effort eventually paid off. Its upshot was the concurrence of the chiefs and some influential elders to contribute heavily towards the capital cost up front whilst the youth groups kept deliberating on how to tackle the payment issue through consensus building. By their approach the elderly helped to save the project being withdrawn. The youth eventually brought up the rear in the payment exercise following the example set by their elders. The lesson here is that you do not try any mobilisation programme in a situation where consensus building is difficult.

Case study

The TREND group observed that political lineages and alliances which had eaten into the social fabric of Asutsuare and its environs had ripped it from top to bottom. Every issue was being politicised. The situation proved to be a drag on all efforts to mobilise the communities for fund raising activities to pay their share of the capital cost. Added to this was the standoff between the elders and youth groups, the latter accusing the former of greatly contributing to the irreparable loss of the once economically viable Sugar Factory located in the Asutsuare township. Fearing for their lives the elderly (including the chiefs and several influential people) had been forced to live outside the town from where they had been watching events from the peripheries. There was also the problem of persuading the assembly man for AsutsuareTownship, a young populist politician (with political clout and influence) to use his influence and power to help the TREND group in the fund mobilisation exercise. In the initial stages his co-operation was not forthcoming because he completely disagreed with the method being used by the project (direct payment of 20,000 cedis) as unreasonable and unrealistic in an area like Asutsuare where there was a high level of employment and a low level of economic livelihood throughout the four beneficiary communities. He believed in the indirect approach where the people’s contributions took the form of contributions in the form of labour, other in-kind contributions such as investment in time. After a long protracted discussion during which the assembly man took an entrenched position the TREND group had no other choice than to use the theory of the 3 Csto get its way through. The assembly man later had to congratulate TREND for its success.

Look for talents from among the community members

Never discount the capabilities, talents and skills of community members. Hunt for them and use them. The lesson learnt here was that these come in very handy when there are problems and difficulties as was experienced by the TREND group in the field.

The field was rough and needed situation specific action.

In the initial stages of its work, the TREND group foresaw from the evidence on the ground that a difficult time laid ahead of them. There was, for instance, this field officer from the World Vision international office at Asutsuare who on hearing of our mission informed the TREND group to abandon its programme because the people of Asutsuare are difficult to mobilise. The group therefore was forced to adopt a strategy which involved turning liabilities into assets.

Turning liabilities into assets

Among the community members were people who had the natural flair for mobilisation, creativity and animation. These were identified during community meetings, informed of the great roles they could play by using their natural talents to help the TREND group in its mobilisation and sensitisation programme. The strategy worked like magic. If the fund mobilisation efforts became successful later it was due in part to this strategy.

Case study: the story of Madam Akakpovie

Madam Akakpovie, a resident of the Gbese community is an illiterate petty trader. The TREND group always found her very regular at community meetings and admired her natural eloquence, animation and facilitative skills. Unfortunately she did not appear to believe in the project’s implementation strategies especially the one insisting on community contributions. She believed in one of two options – either the government provided water free of charge to the communities or the project first built the facility and depending on the communities’ later acceptance of the system, contributions could then be made to pay for the communities share of the capital cost. The TREND group observed that by her eloquence she was influencing a large section of community members especially the women to adopt a wait and see attitude towards the payment of communities’ share of the capital cost. The TREND group decided to beard the lioness in her den. One day the group paid Madam Akakpovie a surprise visit in her home. The idea was to try to turn her round by helping her to have a better understanding of the project through information and education and then later use her as a facilitator and animator for the project – gifted as she was. The group later thanked its stars that it took that action. Akakpovie told the group when she got to know the reason for the visit that her seemingly intractable and inflexible posture was the result of the sufferings that the communities had endured at the hands of field workers who had several times collected money from them with the promise of providing them with social amenities. She revealed that, these ‘unscrupulous people had never made good their promises’. Hence her fear and doubt about us and the project. From that day Madam Akapokavie became an ally and a star performer for the project. We had succeeded in turning a Saul into a Paul.

Avoid being a text book worm

At Asutsuare, the TREND group learnt an important lesson – the dangers of over- relying on textbook stuff for implementation activities. The situation on the ground at Asutsuare was such that none of that pedestrian and arcane range of facilitation methodologies and approaches found in textbooks could work, try as we did. A rather creative, innovative and flexible methodology interspersed with doses of animator’s skills was used to tackle the job on hand. And they all worked to perfection. That is how and why the gods intervened and paid the communities’ share of their capital cost.