Team Peru

Balance

May 15, 2013

Guest Post by Mandy Kruse, Community Social Change Workshop, April 2013

This class highlighted the time, effort, and buy-in that is required to achieve social change by engaging and involving communities. In our case study specifically the projects failed – failed because there was not a strong leader in the schools to support the project. The problem was not so much funding, as it was buy-in. Aaron and Adam even said lack of funding shaped their initial strategy and strengthened their commitment to slow and thorough development work. That is not to say that development organizations do not need funding; there needs to be balance.

That is the biggest takeaway I got from this class. I think it should be recognized that we do not always have the resources or the time to do development in a way that is inclusive, relevant, and effective.  However, if development intervention is not sufficiently inclusive, relevant, and effective, is it worth the time (however short), or the funding (especially when it could be allocated more usefully)? When working in community development we must always be asking ourselves if the work we are doing is actually worth the funding we get, and even more so, worth the time of the community with whom we are engaging? If we do not satisfy these things, we can do a lot more harm than good.

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