CREATING SPACE FOR ENGAGEMENT, A PATH TO COMMUNITY PROBLEM SOLVING

Gone are the days when Baraza’s and Neighborhood Assemblies were the only model for leaders giving accountability and feedback on government programs. Leaders were tasked to answer questions about what they are doing in their offices and how they were doing it. Some leaders liked this model only if they had what to say! Some thought it was a model of exposing their weaknesses to the people they serve. And indeed there was change in terms of service delivery.

However, this model only focuses on the role of duty bearer, forgetting the responsibility of the citizens themselves. This is why KALI changed its model to emphasize on the engagement strategy than just putting duty bearers on the spot to account to the citizens. When we identify a challenge in the community, we share it with the community members and the duty bearers and together, we find a workable solution to overcome it as partners. Everyone has a role to play and at the end, we together evaluate our successes and challenges to inform our next action planning.

In the project “promoting children’s rights in Kasese District, KALI has used more of the engagement model and results have been seen in all sides. The duty bearers have prioritized the issues of children; cases of abuse being given utmost attention; to be handled to conclusion and collective massive awareness campaign on issues of children’s rights have been vivid.

People have been shocked by how children can analyze issues that affect the realization of their rights. This is because of giving them a favorable space for engagement with their duty bearers, which had never been the case. They have succeeded in reducing occurrences of violence in their schools and especially; engaging them in baby sitting at class time, corporal punishments and involving them in hard labor like; asking them to come to school with firewood to cook meals for teachers which prompted other children to miss school.

If we need results in our communities, we need to scale up our engagement processes so that together, we can achieve and also reduce the blame game which leaves out responsibility. If all people realize their roles, then development is felt since every one strives to do best what they are supposed to do.