Meeting the community

Discussions It's a lot easier and more engaging when everyone can look and point at a physical model.

Today we had a meeting with the mothers of the children enrolled in the study center program. They are responsible for running the kitchen and serving breakfast to the kids before they go to school, as well as organizing all the other practical aspects. Their job is really imporant, and it’s crucial for us to have a good dialogue when building the new center. Our first meeting last week was all about getting to know each other, and explaining each others jobs here at Streetlight. Today we presented our newly built model of the site, and explained the possible logistical challenge of connecting the existing kitchen with the new center. We stressed that it is really important that we have a close dialogue on this matter. After a while the meeting developed into a lively discussion, and Let Let and Erlend did an excellent job as translators. They told us that they had a lot of ideas and points they would write down, and put in our suggestion-box which will be built tomorrow.

Suggestion note from one of the mothers The learning center have to be a biger size in order that if there are more scholars, learning center is not enough for them (translated from waray waray)

One of the main ideas behind Streetlights cooperation with the mothers, is to give them the ability to contribute to their childrens education, instead of having the feeling that it is left to others. The core problem in many of the families is however that the fathers, which are responsible for supporting the family, have a hard time finding a job, and in some cases have given up totally. It is therefore a golden opportunity to get them involved in the process with the new study center. They will be able to contribute to their kids, while at the same time getting valuable working experience and provide income for the family. We are going to have an orientation meeting with the fathers tomorrow, and see who might be interested in working with us on the project. Our plan is that we and five of the fathers are going to start clearing the site and digging next thursday, which we think will be great fun!

-Trond-