Small Steps to Massive Change

Model excellence to inspire change! That was always the clarion call of The Thoughtful Path: Munsieville, right from its earliest concept.

The fact is, as a small, hard-pressed organisation in a world of cut-backs and diminishing resources, to set about creating projects to provide essential services for tens of millions of orphans and other vulnerable children across sub-Saharan Africa would be no more effective than a sticking plaster over the sluice gates of the Three Gorges Dam!

Our aim for the entire programme, as well as for each of its many components, is to create models of excellence that are truly sustainable, measurably effective and deeply embedded in the community, so that others facing similar challenges will be inspired to change the way they care for children. Our aim is that people from communities right across Africa will come to the jaw-dropping realisation that if Munsieville can rise to the challenge of ensuring its children can grow into health, productive adults, so can they! It’s no longer about what we can do; its about what they can do with a bit of support and encouragement from us.

Ok, that may be a laudable objective, but, in the real world, how on earth can it emerge from Fantasyland and become a dynamic reality?
Firstly, by making sure that the fundamentals are in place and that the foundations are unshakeable. And the first of the foundation stones is a profound belief in the dignity and value of each and every child and those who care for them. For us, “child rights” does not start with their entitlements; it starts with their status – who they are! Christian and Jewish theologians would describe them as “made in God’s image”; to us they are worth the world and valued as ten-out-of-ten….. and it doesn’t get better than that!

Secondly, The Thoughtful Path: Munsieville is constructed on a belief that every solution we take into Munsieville from the outside is doomed to failure, but every solution we can help to be generated from within the community has a great chance of success, especially if we can fan the flame with sensitive encouragement, training and mentoring, to help take the energy, creativity and enterprise of the local people to the very highest international standard – without them losing control and ownership!

STARTING AT THE BEGINNING

Although the programme in Munsieville operates through seven themed service-delivery “Hubs”, in the early stages of this 10-year initiative we have prioritised the work of the “Early Childhood Development Hub” (ECD) in order to demonstrate to the others just how The Thoughtful Path: Munsieville works.

Long before we arrived in the township, over thirty crèches had been started, mostly as private, small enterprises. The crèches were set up in order to provide cheap day care for children cared for by adults who work elsewhere, or who are unable to care for the children. Sadly, few crèches had trained leaders, toys, books or any resources to stimulate the children, up to eighty of whom could be huddled in one small tin shack, roasting in summer and shivering in winter.

Children are placed in such establishments because it is thought to be safer than staying at home without supervision, or being shut out to fend for themselves on the streets. Personally, I have serious doubts about it being a place of safety: the infants may be protected from some dangers, but are exposed to several hours a day devoid of the stimulation essential to brain development. Countless children in Munsieville and other similar settlements are inadvertently being coaxed into a “zombie-like” state, leaving them susceptible to serious manipulation and under achievement in adolescence and adulthood.

But, by starting small and modelling excellence, a tide of change is beginning to sweep across crèches and child day care centres in Munsieville, inspired by a few pioneers. Funded by GlaxoSmithKline South Africa and in conjunction with our partners, Safe & Sound Learning Association, crèche workers are being offered a two-year professional ECD training package. Eight women have already completed their first eight-week residential induction course and have returned to make immediate and dramatic changes to their work with children.

Last month I had the privilege of visiting some of the crèches now in the process of converting to full Early Childhood Development Centres. The difference, in just a few short weeks, was breathtaking! Children were engaged in active learning through exciting, creative play, and staff are organised, motivated and eager to explore every opportunity to improve the lives of the children in their care. The facilities in which they work are still far from ideal, but already, small steps have been taken to make the environment safer and more suitable for purpose, and bigger steps are being planned to make major improvements.
Modelling excellence does not mean instant perfection; it means total commitment to getting it right and to making the many small adjustments that add up to massive improvements. In Munsieville, there is no finer example of this commitment than the brave pioneers who have stepped forward to accept the challenge of giving pre-school children the very best foundations for a healthy, productive life.

Rating Performance over Potential

The famous American statistician and consultant, W. Edward Deming, largely credited with the transformation of the post-war economy of Japan from the late 1940s, once said, “In God we trust, but all others must bring data”!

On The Thoughtful Path, we obsess about results and are building partnerships with universities around the world to help change the mindset of people to challenge communities, to empower them with the skills by which they can measure what they are doing and perfect the processes that lead to constant and never-ending improvements in the health and total well-being of orphans and other vulnerable children.

George Bernard Shaw observed, “The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew every time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them”. In a rapidly changing environment like Munsieville, we recognise the importance of making the collection and analysis of data the foundation of every activity.

For far too long, “monitoring and evaluation” (fancy charity-speak for measuring and analysing impact) in many international development programmes has been soft-edged, narrow in scope and so slow that by the time it is processed, the whole situation has changed out of all recognition. In response, our aim with this “model of excellence” programme is to develop “real-time monitoring” so that, just like Shaw’s tailor, we always know the situation as it is today, rather than what it was a year ago.

This aspiration will take a while to bring to fruition, but every journey starts with a single step! Over the past two months, we have taken several steps forward in Munsieville. International Development Masters student, Candice Wallace, of Brunel University, UK, undertook a month of “participatory action research” on the issue of child sexual abuse, with focus groups of children and adults in the township, uncovering the alarmingly high number of incidents of such abuse and also demonstrating the importance of measuring the scope and impact of the problem as a basis for future community-led action.

Ten days ago, Betty Nkoana, our programme manager, and I led a community workshop for those working with us to deliver change under The Thoughtful Path. We were able to introduce delegates to Megan Quinn and Twanda Wadlington, both doctoral students with our highly-valued partner, East Tennessee State University, and deployed in Munsieville for two months to help push forward better data collection and analysis across the seven “Hubs” of the programme.

Workshop delegates immediately grasped the essentials as Megan and Twanda led a short Monitoring and Evaluation Basics class. “It’s not good enough that our children smile more than those in the township down the road”, said one local community activist, “We need a much greater understanding of the things that affect them, and then we must develop the programme so we can all be part of the change process”.

How quickly they have embraced the spirit of W Edward Deming, who said, “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing”.