Community in Action

So day one of getting to know BRDC I spent with their Community Based Training team - Jimmy, Beatrice and Immaculate. They began by explaining that the ethos behind BRDC is 'Helping others help themselves' which they do through coordinating the work with community groups to help address issues faced by children, youth and families. This generally focuses on education, healthcare, employment, nutrition and financial management. Currently they are working across seven parishes in and around Mbale.

So how does this work?
First, they establish Self Help Groups in communities to learn how to work together, save money and start small businesses that address their individual issues. In order to start these, there are meetings with council and community leaders to gather support for the training and benefits the group can bring. These groups typically meet once a week and are mostly the local women supporting each other and their families. Typically the groups will start saving schemes, enabling them to give loans to each other to start small businesses or put youth into training in skills needed within the community.


What next? 
Once the groups in an area are working well for approximately six months, eight to ten nearby groups form what is called a Cluster Level Association (CLA). These meet once a month and are when groups start to focus on issues facing the whole community, rather than individual needs. I was impressed that this structure is well established with two Group Members from each Group forming the main CLA with a set of sub committees looking at Formation of New Groups, Strengthening Existing Groups, Networks and Linkages and Resource Mobilisation (sharing money, people and skills for wider benefit). It also includes invited local council members and business leaders. Once the CLAs are established, they then seek to generate their own income to support their work. Although not all at this point yet, the early CLAs from 2012/13 have fundraised to buy sewing machines that they rent to tailors/seamstresses; and there is a plan for one of them to save and buy tents and chairs to hire to their community as it is very expensive if these needs to be hired from Mbale.

How do BRDC know what's going on?
There is a trained community facilitator within each group who reports back to the team on a monthly basis. This includes outlining issues they are dealing with as well as solutions or new ideas which can then be shared through the cluster network.  The team help coordinate this response.

Wednesday afternoon, I joined Immaculate on a visit to the Church of Uganda in Namilama, about half an hour outside of Mbale. My 'Ugandan watch' told me this 2pm meeting didn't start until 3.15pm as we waited for everyone to arrive. Luckily, my taxi also got lost so I didn't turn up until 2.30pm so my panic was unfounded! This was the first meeting of a new CLA so Immaculate was running a training session on the purpose and benefits of a CLA; the role and responsibilities of the group and individual roles required from the CLA. It was great to see a really engaged group of women come together to learn how they can start to pool their resources for the benefit of everyone. As I soon learned would be a come a custom, at the end of the meeting I signed their visitor book, I think they were quite taken that a Muzungu had travelled to join them.

Currently there are seven CLAs taking in about 70 groups in the Bukiende Sub County area.