Becoming A Star!

Abel Mote keeps reminding me that I run a risk of losing my audience if I don’t update my blog soon. This has been my worry all along. I never anticipate that I will never have personal time to write! This is because, even with greater effort I put to meet every dateline I set for my project, I still find myself way behind. First of all, I traveled to the States and stayed there for more than a month. And recently, I got a medical condition that kept me away for treatment for about two weeks. And then there are some other programmatic delays. All these have made me feel like I am chasing a train that has already pulled away from the station…not quite…maybe I feel like boarding and discovered that the Charlie card is missing; and now feel disorganized completely! I am trying to catch up with everything. So, I must say, this is the reason you have not heard from me, my dear readers. But I will keep my promise to give you updates as much as I can and as time allows.
So here are some few updates. I have come to like my work so much. Being a community organizer feels unique in its own way. You have to be ready for disappointments as well as excitements. It brings you closer to common man—mankind, no offend!! I see real desperations as well as optimisms in the eyes of people on daily basis. But, what is so rewarding about this kind of work is that I feel like am sowing seeds of development as well as roots of progress in the villages I work in. My community development portfolio aims to establish what we called Community Action Groups (CAGs) and Women Support Groups. These are provisional councils of Bomas. A Boma is a small, but bigger than a village, administrative entity within a Payam. And a Payam is an administrative boundary lower than a County. Sorry for all these Southern Sudanese terms!
To get a community action group, I do multiple visits to the village where the CAG/WSG is to be established. I meet with villagers, chiefs, and local government officials. In these meetings, I make sure it clear to everyone who different our approach to development is from development during war times: Building Responsibility for the Delivery of Government Services (BRIDGE) is to change things from relief times to sustainable development. My project is to create that sustainability at the community level. My goal is to assist these communities to own development of their own villages so that nonprofit organizations don’t worry about long term sustainability.
This ownership starts with members of the community elected to a CAG/WSG. These elections draw very large crowd. For many in these communities, elections are new phenomenon. Everyone is excited to be part of this new thing. People line up behind their candidates of their choice. In one of the Bomas that I my team has established a CAG/WSG, something fascinating to watch happened. A woman candidate was neck and neck to a man. This was especially interesting given the culture here: patriarchy. A man later won 107 to 103 votes. I really was hoping the woman win; people in this particular Boma continue to amaze me, nevertheless.
I feel am becoming a star in doing this community mobilization activities. I just find it interesting to standing in front of 200-300 people, and to explain to them how development of their communities must come from them. I share with them my experiences and what I have seen in all the places I have been to. Sometimes, I surprise myself when people give me round of applause every time I open my mouth! But, what is important to me is my conviction to them—my people. I want to see that they change from the state of dependency to become self-reliance. This, I believe, will be achieved when these communities realized their potential and work with these action groups to initiate process of development.