Help for HIV/AIDS Orphans in Africa (6)
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Dear Peter and All,
Hello and thanks so much for your kind and thoughtful reply! I
"hear" what you're saying and do think that all larger agencies
have an ongoing challenge when it comes to cost effectiveness
and being light enough on their organizational feet to move
quickly to meet needs and do so for the largest number possible.
That's why linkages with small grassroots orgs are so important
(I'm sure this is happening already, but I mean on a broader
scale), and this is where your transparency and accountability
project can be most helpful too, to ensure that the smaller orgs
can and do meet certain standards, which will also help to en-
sure that the larger orgs will as well.
I am going to be in touch with a friend who is now with the FAO,
someone with a forestry background who is very interested in de-
signing and implementing small projects with a sustainable-
development focus, combining human needs with environmental
health. He is especially eager to see how arts and handcrafts
using forest products can be used as a means of income-
generation, which will hopefully provide a way out of poverty
and at the same time lead to ecological preservation. I say this
about him because he is someone very much "close to the roots"
(almost literally, haha!), so understanding the importance of
working with and at the grassroots on FAO projects.
I will ask him about the possibility that "we" (FAO and other
agencies involved in the "Junior Farm School" project, and
grassroots nonprofits like KAIPPG) might work together to dis-
seminate this "model" widely, which may or may not also be the
"program" based on the model. There is a possible conference
next year in E. Africa, with HIV/AIDS and its effects on agri-
culture as the theme, where such a model could be presented to a
number of small nonprofits which would find it useful, and of
course many other venues and opportunities in the meantime.
It's the "linkage" I am interested in developing, which might
allow the FAO and other larger agencies to do more with less, to
become lighter on their feet in a way by being able to "farm
out" (so to speak) this model to a number of smaller nonprofits
regionally and globally who could put it into effect with mini-
mal inputs (implementing resources)--and then train others to do
the same (peer education at its finest)--thus multiplying more
quickly the project and results from it, and hopefully how wide-
spread it will be in the shortest time period. I do see FAO, UN
agencies, and others of this type as being hugely valuable and
important; I also think they are doing great work right now,
which might be strengthened and even more effective (defined as
reaching the greatest number possible, through the most "judi-
cious" use of resources) with the kind of "implementation model"
proposed.
Thanks much for this stimulating discussion, and all best
wishes,
Janet Feldman
mailto:kaippg@earthlink.net