The Government Steps Up
Sustainability is a bit of jargon these days that you'll likely find most organizations using to describe their operations. There is obviously a tremendous spectrum of ideas and solutions that may be called environmentally, socially, or governmentally sustainable. In community development, the adage "teach a man to fish" cerainly goes a long way.When it comes to our work, we tend to try to think of our role within a very limited range of the word sustainability: When we leave, the benefits of our work will endure. Whether those benefits are owned by the community, the government, or just enterprising individuals that wish to continue our work to their best capacity.
We feel like it should be every NGO and Nonprofit's goal to put itself out of work eventually. Clearly there are a huge number of problems for organizations to help solve, but solutions should always be implemented with the prefix of "when we are gone..." in mind. Otherwise, short term impacts may be thoroughly overshadowed by a long-term breakdown of responsibility.
We've been working with the national and provincial government (a long arduous process) to get them to understand many of these pieces of this puzzle. It's been an interesting conversation: "Yes, eventually we'll be leaving." and "Yes, the watergate is owned by the community, not us." Although all our friends in the community understand this and feel immense pride and ownership of the reservoir, within the government this process takes some time.
So, with these difficulties in mind, it was a great sight to see several weeks ago when the Minister of the department of Agriculture, as well as a large portion of the local government and community, organized a ceremony to stock the reservoir with over 100,000 fish. Ultimately, this will create an enormous protein source for the thousands of people living near the reservoir. It was quite a sight to see, and something we all were proud to be a part of.
Fortunately, almost everyone nearby already knows how to fish.
