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Summer Blog

Finding a Pathway to Impact: M&E in the WaSH Project

8/9/2017

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In each of CDI’s projects, one volunteer specifically takes on the role of Impact Evaluator. Overseeing the whole project, they produce a report by the end of the summer trip, detailing the progress that has been made and the challenges that have been faced. Zach Brubert (far left) holds this role in the WaSH team, and here he details the way in which the process of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) shapes the vision of the project.​
The work of the WaSH Project has, for the past 3 years, revolved around the community of Vingunguti. Prior to our involvement, all households were using pit latrines, a method which collects and stores human faeces in pits directly below the toilets. These pits should be periodically emptied; however, due to the cost of this, most households neglect this method, instead allowing sewage to overflow during the rainy season. Simplified sewerage offers an affordable, safer alternative, which combats the levels of trachoma and waterborne diseases which otherwise thrive. So far, 45 new toilets have been connected to CDI’s network, impacting over 320 people.
As the WaSH Project’s impact evaluator, my role this summer has involved making an assessment of what the project aims to achieve, and monitoring our progress to determine whether or not we meet those aims. In essence, it is the evaluation of whether the vision is being transferred into reality.
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Practically, this task has taken several forms. On the one hand, I have met with our major stakeholders, in order to determine the success of the deferred payment scheme (allowing people to pay back the cost of the toilet over a period of years to increase affordability) and the Sanitation Users’ Association (a group of representatives from the households on the network who are responsible for maintaining it and resolving conflicts). On a community level, meetings with the three SUA chairpersons helped to establish the practical feasibility of the network within the community, and the household surveys we conducted in collaboration with CDI’s Health Project gave insight to the day-to-day habits and challenges faced by the individuals within this settlement.

As a small organisation, the way in which we can draw conclusions from this work will differ hugely from a bigger organisation running the same project on a larger scale. With only a small amount of data collected, it is hard to find specific trends or correlations. Where other organisations can survey several hundred people, comparing multiple networks and thereby discovering clear patterns in data, our conclusions have to be more tentative.​​
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Theory of Change is a method by which organisations across the third sector measure M&E. It has been described as a sequence which ‘forms the ‘pathway’ towards impact’, and is a method we have applied to the WaSH Project this summer.[1] By creating a diagram which maps out the logical sequence of changes needed to bring about the desired long-term change, we are able to monitor and evaluate the work we undertake.
However, due to the scale on which we work, our Theory of Change diagram bears inconsistencies to the data we collect. One example of this is that, whilst we have found significant progress in key areas including toilet construction and the deferred payment scheme, the SUA model still does not function as we might expect it to. The chairpersons are performing their duties, but the fact that nothing is recorded results in an informal and unstructured association. Impromptu meetings and affable agreements are the norm in the informal settlements of Dar es Salaam, and so, whilst our project is achieving its goals, the process by which they are reached is not what we initially expected.
The fact that we cannot conduct M&E on a large scale, however, does not hamper our progress as an organisation. On the contrary, CDI’s uniqueness lies in the size and vision its model. As a student-led CIO, we aim to collaborate with and empower students, professionals and local communities in Tanzania. This means that we are perfectly placed to conduct on-the-ground, local research. The conversations we have may not produce conclusive and comprehensive evidence, but they are nevertheless significant and can tell us a huge amount about the lives of the individuals we are working with and for.
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As we move forward, this also informs our strategy as an organisation: to research and pilot projects before handing them over to other, larger bodies. Our projects necessarily remain small-scale while we run them. However, once we have reached a proof of concept, they can be scaled up by others. Our M&E informs all that we do, and the fact that it focusses heavily upon community engagement and specific one-on-one feedback is only an advantage. We are best placed to carry out this kind of work, and it ensures that the value we place upon close collaboration and community empowerment is upheld.


[1] http://www.espa.ac.uk/files/espa/ESPA-Theory-of-Change-Manual-FINAL.pdf
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Entrepreneurship Project - A Brief Intro to 'Ideation to Investment'

6/9/2017

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Our final video of the 'Brief Intro' series this summer looks at the progression of the DAREnterprisers course.

​Following the businesses from the stage of ideation to investment, it highlights the practical, hands-on nature of the course and the support it intends to give the participants.

There will only be one more blog this summer - please do follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for updates throughout the year!
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Education Project - A Brief Intro to Careers & Skills Workshops

4/9/2017

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In collaboration with their partner, Bridge for Change, CDI's Education Project have set up several workshops for Tanzanian students: the Self-Discovery Workshops, Youth Empowerment Clubs and KompyutHER.

​All the workshops aim to empower and equip the youth of Dar es Salaam with the soft skills side-lined by the education system.

​For more information about the launch of Kite Dar es Salaam, which is happening on Saturday 9th September, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/events/118196042173392/?active_tab=about
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Empowerment and Education: Advancing Women’s Health

2/9/2017

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This summer, the Health Project have been focussing their work on several different lines of research. Charlie Calver (second right), one of the Health Project Volunteers, here details how their examination into the state of women’s health in Tanzania has been translated into a series of workshops, with the aim of educating and empowering the local community.
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Women shoulder a disproportionately large share of disease within Tanzania, with gender inequity, neglected maternal health, and sexual-based violence all acting as major obstacles to good health. As of 2014, Tanzania had failed to achieve the 5th MDG (Millennium Development Goals): to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by 75% between 1990 and 2015.[1] Moreover, although Tanzania was on track to achieve MDG 3 (gender equality in primary education) in 2014, it lags behind in the Gender Inequality Index, ranking 125 out of 155 countries.[2]
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Whilst some progress has been made towards improving women’s health, maternal mortality remains high: there were 398 deaths per 100,000 births in 2015, with only 49% of births attended to by a skilled personnel.[3] UTIs, sexually transmitted diseases, access to contraception, and various forms of cancer also continue to be pressing issues for many Tanzanian women, and, as such, women’s healthcare stands out as a clear matter that requires evaluation, improvement, and investment.  
In response, CDI’s Health Project decided to facilitate a series of Women’s Health Workshops within the informal settlement of Vingunguti in Dar es Salaam. Initially, we conducted focus groups with Community Health Workers, to ensure that our proposed workshops would effectively meet the needs of the community. The main issues identified primarily revolved around UTIs, contraception, breast and cervical cancer, and maternal health. The interviews which were later conducted at the Buguruni Health Centre confirmed these findings, therefore providing a clear curriculum around which to structure the workshops.
Working in collaboration with Childbirth Survival International (CSI), CDI successfully delivered the first of these workshops last Saturday (26th August), with two more to follow over the next couple of weeks. Over 30 women attended and reported positive feedback, particularly stating how pleased they were that international organisations were taking an active interest in their health, wellbeing and empowerment. Although the enthusiastic and engaging responses of the participants were a positive indication of the workshop’s success, they also indicate the lack of healthcare provision in settlements like Vingunguti, and the need for an established educational programme.
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Good health is both a cause and a consequence of socioeconomic development. Although only part of a wider set of amelioration initiatives that need to be taken, CDI are focussing upon empowerment and education as methods with which to advance the quality of women’s health in Dar es Salaam. Women can be major agents for change, but are routinely denied access to the most basic tenets of information regarding their own health. Until such deficiencies are accounted for, women will continue to bear the brunt of weak health systems and inadequate infrastructures. As a WHO report into Tanzanian women’s health concluded, ‘the preferences and experiences of women should […] inform health system design.’[4] Through the Health Project’s workshops, CDI hopes to make a positive change that will liberate women, enabling them to take an active stance in their bodily choices and decisions.


[1] http://www.aho.afro.who.int/profiles_information/images/c/c8/Tanzania-Statistical_Factsheet.pdf
[2] http://www.tz.undp.org/content/tanzania/en/home/countryinfo/
[3] http://www.aho.afro.who.int/profiles_information/images/c/c8/Tanzania-Statistical_Factsheet.pdf
[4] http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/92/4/13-126417/en/
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WaSH Project - A Brief Intro to Simplified Sewerage

1/9/2017

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Construction is currently underway, and this video follows the progress of the WaSH Project as they build their fourth simplified sewerage network in Vingunguti.

Designed to be a cheap and flexible system, this form of sewerage is able to overcome the difficulties associated with densely pack, low income settlements.

​We are now just over a week away until the launch of Kite Dar es Salaam - see our Facebook page for more details!
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Women in Business: Tackling the Statistics

29/8/2017

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The Women’s Empowerment Workshop was run by CDI’s Entrepreneurship Project as a part of the DAREnterprisers Course. Lizzy O’Brien (centre) was one of the Workshop organisers, and here she explains the importance of promoting gender equality among the next generation of entrepreneurs in Tanzania.
The OECD Development Centre’s Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) is a cross-country measure of discrimination against women in social institutions across 160 countries. In their profile of Tanzania, they categorise the country under the SIGI category of ‘High’, stating that ‘the 1977 Constitution of Tanzania prohibits gender-based discrimination but the country’s legislation has yet to be adjusted to support this principle’.[1] This assessment is backed-up by the data collected by several other international organisations, which has found that:
 
·         Women in Tanzania earn only 68% of what men earn whilst performing similar work.[2]
·         Approximately a quarter of Tanzanians believe that boys’ education is more important than girls’.[3]
·         Only 22% of graduates are female.[4]

 
With statistics such as these standing before young women, CDI’s Entrepreneurship Project has been focusing upon how we can encourage the empowerment of female entrepreneurs who are striving for social change.
The Women’s Empowerment Workshop was a CDI wide event, run by DAREnterprisers, to which all UK and Tanzanian CDI volunteers were invited. We invited three female guest speakers: Blandini Semu, an ITV presenter and an advocate for women's and disabled rights; Amina Sanga, a successful young entrepreneur; and Tatu Said, a motivational speaker. After each of these women had spoken about their experiences as a woman in the workplace, the audience engaged the panel in a question and answer session, before continuing the afternoon in structured group discussions.​
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One of the areas we particularly addressed was the fact that the female demographic within the DAREntreprisers course is so low: only 24%. This is a topic our Project team has frequently discussed, but it was especially constructive to hear the thoughts of the participants themselves. One specific reason they articulated was that, in Tanzania, there is still the prevailing expectation that a woman’s role is primarily within her household. When a student’s university term ends, it is expected that she will return home and assist with the day to day upkeep of her family household. Consequently, girls are not often supported by their families to apply for opportunities such as the DAREnterprisers course, and so either reject the place or drop out. 

Another reason for the low rate of female applications which we considered was that the three tracks of the course (Manufacturing & Urban Living, WaSH (Water, Sanitation & Hygiene) and Off-Grid Energy) may be perceived as ‘masculine’. All of these tracks imply an engineering, STEM focus which, traditionally, has been dominated by men.​​
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To further this idea, I asked Regina Kwisakwani Mwakibinga about her experience. Regina is an engineering student at UDSM, and she said that, although she is thoroughly used to a classroom dominated by boys, she feels that this isn’t the way it should be and that an active effort should be made to encourage an equal gender balance. She appreciates the support that CDI has given in the classroom and is inspired by the gender balance of the volunteers on the Entrepreneurship Project. She suggested that the recruitment process could be improved by clearly communicating that female involvement is encouraged and advertising the opportunity on women dominated platforms such as forums. ​
An active and effective effort has been made this year on the DAREnterprisers course to retain and develop the skill of all our female participants. An all-women's Whatsapp group has been set up as a forum in which to discuss thought-provoking articles or ideas. The addition of a women's welfare officer on the Tanzanian and UK team of volunteers has also been invaluable in sorting out any conflicts and providing support, and we have ensured that feedback sessions have been run specifically for the female participants.
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There is always more that organisations can do to encourage female empowerment in the workplace, but the ideas generated through our discussion during and after the Workshop are steps which CDI will continue to explore and implement. The SIGI quite rightly points out that ‘as underlying drivers of gender inequalities, discriminatory social institutions perpetuate gender gaps in development areas, such as education, employment and health, and hinder progress towards rights-based social transformation that benefits both women and men.’[5] It is CDI’s vision to ensure that both our projects and our organisation as a whole are spaces in which such transformation and positive development can occur.


[1] http://www.genderindex.org/country/tanzania/
[2] World Economic Forum, 2013, p. 354
[3] UNICEF, 2010, p. 28
[4] UNESCO Institute of Statistics, 2015
[5] http://www.genderindex.org/
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Health Project - A Brief Intro to Community Engagement

29/8/2017

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Our fifth video this summer looks at the Health Project's focus upon community engagement. 

In addition to the research they have been conducting, the team have been running surveys and workshops in the informal settlement of Vingunguti, in order to raise awareness about the most common diseases in this community, and the methods of prevention against them, particularly in the area of women's health. 

​Please follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for more of the latest news!
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Thinking Big: Youth Becoming Change-Makers

24/8/2017

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David Leonce Ndika (pictured) is a volunteer on the Education Project, particularly focusing upon the work of the Youth Empowerment Clubs. Both from his interactions with the students he works with and from his own personal experience, he has a deep understanding of the challenges of being a young person in Tanzania. Now in its third cycle, the Think Big Challenge was set up to help combat some of these adversities. Here, David details how the Challenge aims to empower students to work towards mitigating some of the problems associated with their environment themselves.
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Approximately 85% of the world’s youth live in developing countries.[1] According to the Restless Development youth led research, Tanzania has the 10th largest youth population globally, with 66% being under the age of 25.[2]

Even though they make up such a large proportion of the population, sadly most youth are marginalized and do not take part in the development of Tanzanian society.  Young people remain the group with the least opportunity to contribute their ideas to influence positive change. Indeed, many do not even take part in solving the tiny problems in their daily life. Great minds with vibrant ideas do not have a platform to air them nor the ability to pilot them. This represents a huge setback to achieving a genuinely inclusive society.
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One of the major causes of this is youth simply not believing in their abilities: they end up hiding and not implementing their plans. Added to this, adults do not believe in the youth and so they hesitate to give them an opportunity to address the prevailing conditions which bring discomfort to them. Any mistakes made are taken as proof by the older generation that the youth cannot solve anything.
It is in this context that the CDI Education Project, in collaboration with Bridge For Change, set up the Think Big Challenge. Now in its third cycle, the Challenge is encouraging energetic and enthusiastic youth from schools in the Temeke District to design and implement initiatives that solve problems local to them. The teams are provided with workshops that aim to develop the students’ solutions as well as mentoring them to develop their soft skills.

​In order to gain insight into how the students are finding the Challenge so far, we chatted to a couple of them about their experience as young people and how the programme is helping them tackle this:

“There are so many good groups with great ideas and they seem to be well prepared and so the competition is stiff but that is good as it challenges my team and I to actually think big. It was not easy to get permission to access the necessary tools needed for our idea but I am happy to be in the Think Big Challenge because it has also helped to build confidence in my ability to solve a problem which in our case is Land Pollution.” - Rehema Ibrahim Monga (Temeke Secondary School).
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“The Think Big challenge has helped me to think outside the box to get the best possible and feasible solution to the Early Pregnancy problem that my team have decided to solve and we have come up with a concrete action plan. In the beginning it was hard to convince people to join my team, but after we formed this team, we have gained public speaking skills.” - Haji Mwinyimvua (Wailes Secondary School).

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The Dream Sharing Event is the culminating celebration of the Think Big Challenge to showcase the student initiatives and award the teams for all that they have achieved. But whilst the Event may be a conclusion to the Think Big Challenge, it is also meant to provide a launch pad for the sustainable development of the initiatives. These simple but original ideas are meant to be implemented and the Challenge is only a success if the students feel motivated and inspired to cause a wider impact in their communities. ​
Ban Ki-Moon, the ex-Secretary General of the UN, once said, “The youth are often at the frontline to stand against discrimination, inequality and marginalization. The youth are a force for transformation.”[3]  CDI acknowledges the crucial role of youth in the transformation of their societies, and urges all young people to take charge of their lives. When youth are encouraged to think big, they have the potential to become the change-makers in their societies.


[1] http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/publications-a-z/455-youth-and-the-state-of-the-world
[2] Restless Development 2011 Annual Report
[3] http://www.globi-observatory.org/marginalization-and-inclusion-what-do-young-people-have-to-say/
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Education Project - A Brief Intro to the Think Big Challenge

22/8/2017

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Focussing upon the Education Project, this next video takes a look at the Think Big Challenge.

​Run in collaboration with Bridge for Change (a local NGO), this programme aims to give secondary school students an opportunity to develop employability-boosting/entrepreneurial soft skills not covered in the standard curriculum, and to empower young people to work towards mitigating some of the problems experienced in their schools and communities.

​Committee applications closed today; if you still wish to contact CDI about this, please email info@cambridgedevelopment.org
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Empowering Ownership: Community Engagement in Sewerage Construction

19/8/2017

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After three successful years of construction, CDI’s WaSH (Water, Sanitation & Hygiene) Project is about to begin work on its fourth simplified sewerage network. Built in the informal settlement of Vingunguti, it is a cheap and flexible system, able to overcome the difficulties associated with densely packed low income settlements. In this blog, the two Community Engagement volunteers, Laura Barrett and Alice Murphy (pictured), detail the fundamental ethos of the WaSH Project: to complement the physical construction of these latrines with strong community engagement.
At present, over 80% of residents in Dar es Salaam live in low-income, high-density settlements that suffer from a lack of adequate sanitation.[1] The majority of households use pit latrines that crack, collapse and leak. Indeed, the preferred emptying method is simply letting the latrines overflow into the streets during the rainy season - paying a vacuum truck to empty them is a luxury not accessible to most community members.
The implications of such conditions are severe: the country’s annual economic loss caused by poor sanitation in 2012 was estimated to be more than 300 billion TSh (roughly £100 million).[2] Furthermore, the limited awareness of bacterial disease transmission and the importance of health practices such as hand-washing mean that community members are susceptible to diarrhoeal diseases. Children are particularly vulnerable: 13% of all infant deaths under the age of five in 2015 were due to preventable diarrhoea in Tanzania.[3]
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The simplified sewerage network is part of the WaSH Project’s solution to this problem. We connect approximately twelve households to each route, and each household has a representative who sits on the Sanitation Users’ Association (SUA). This representative is trained in key issues such as how to manage the latrines and how to ensure the smooth functioning of the network in terms of behavioural, technical and financial issues. These training sessions are designed to impart skills to the community which they are unlikely to obtain elsewhere, as well as reinforcing the community’s complete ownership of the network.
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As well as preparing to start construction on our fourth route, the WaSH team have successfully set up the SUA for this new network and have begun official training. We are also working closely with local NGOs in order to promote health awareness and understanding. This year we are running workshops on topics such as toothbrushing, female hygiene and hand-washing for local primary school children. Moreover, the Community Engagement team has been working with an NGO, Bridge for Change, to create a nine-month workshop scheme focused on community bonding, entrepreneurial enterprise and life skills for the people living along our network routes in Vingunguti. ​
Participation in such schemes breeds ownership, which fosters ‘self-empowerment’, a theme at the root of a lot of CDI’s work. The SUA structure and local participation model are fundamental to ensuring the network’s sustainability: ultimately, it is the community who are responsible for the functioning of their latrine system. Every initiative undertaken by the WaSH team aims to move the project closer to our overarching goal of a model which runs without any external input. It is only through sustainability that such projects have the potential to beneficially develop communities and globally spark long-term changes.
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[1] https://www.unicef.org/media/files/JMPreport2012.pdf, UNICEF/ WHO (2012).  
[2] https://www.wsp.org/sites/wsp.org/files/publications/WSP-Econ-San-TZ1.pdf, Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) (2012).
[3] http://apps.who.int/gho/data/view.main.ghe3002015-TZA?lang=en WHO (2012).
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    ​Every summer, CDI publishes a running blog, so that all those interested in our progress can keep up-to-date, and gain a clearer idea of what it is like to work together for two months in Dar es Salaam.

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