Resilience: People Talking To People
Mama Hope’s Partner Sustainability Conference 2017 — Failure and Resilience
by Hannah Clyne, Sustainable Programs Manager, Mama Hope
When the going gets tough . . .
Last year’s drought in East Africa cost many of our partners dearly, as it did millions of people all over the region. Food was scarce and expensive, crops dried up, people went hungry and many died. As with any natural disaster, those at the bottom of our human hierarchies were hit hardest.
Our partners, in their usual style, innovated and adapted their way through, but it wasn’t easy. They worked hard — in some cases forfeiting their health — to provide for the kids attending their schools, the patients coming to them for health care services, the families relying on them, the vulnerable children living under their care and the workers building their projects.
They used their networks, they rationed available resources, they tapped into the stores of food that they had put aside in more plentiful times, they borrowed money, they borrowed maize, they harvested any rainwater available and re-used it multiple times. They felt stress, they felt responsibility. They knew that for many in their communities, the line between rain and no rain is a line between life and death.
These were tough times. Times of lack, times of frustration. Our partners told us about struggles with theft, lack of funding, ethnic conflict in their area and political instability. These struggles determined the shape of much of the past year, and so, they emerged as the focus when we brought our partners together from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Ghana to our annual conference in Arusha, Tanzania in August 2017.
. . . the tough get together.
“This is my story. I struggled to provide education for my children. I have seven kids, all of whom went through private schools and it was a big struggle finding school fees for them. There were times when it was not easy to harvest food or to sleep. It was hard for such a long time, but my husband and I just had to keep on believing. We sold most of our property but still it was not enough. As they grew, our kids started joining in the fight to get more resources to contribute to the family. Some of them sacrificed their education so others could get one. We were resilient together, we came together to improvise with resources. We got there together.” — Topista Mukisa
This story was shared by Topista Mukisa, Chairperson of the Budondo Intercultural Center in Budondo, Uganda during a session where we asked our partners to share instances where they had witnessed resilience in their own lives.
Embracing resilience: socially, economically and environmentally
Of the many stories told, what tied all them together were themes of collapse and recovery, struggle and persistence, and the strength of human bonds. Where one might expect despair, the stories were full of moments of focus, patience, optimism and hope.
This theme was seen both in personal reflections, and within the realm of our partner’s community work. Conference sessions were designed to build trust, to diminish the fear of sharing challenges and failures, and to encourage our partners and staff to be open to the support of others and embracing the power of that openness.
We brainstormed what we can do as organisations working across local and global communities to reduce the chances of falling into crises, and strategized ways of becoming more resilient to crises when they inevitably occur.
We were joined by Priscilla Nzamalu, a trainer from the Permaculture Research Institute of Kenya, who led us in a day of permaculture exploration. We visited a local smallholder, Kitomari, who showed us the practical ways in which he and his wife have built a resilient and regenerative homestead.
We talked about the absolute centrality of a thriving natural environment in ensuring the wellbeing and resilience of us all. That protecting the environment has a positive impact in all parts of society and each of us has a responsibility to do so. These principles rang true with our partners — they know what this means in real terms. From the feeling of an empty stomach because a precious harvest dried up too early, to the discovery that a much loved childhood tree has been cut down, to damaged homes and loss of the lives of loved ones as a result of flash floods caused by rampant deforestation. In their lives and work, our partners and their communities have experienced the sharp edge of human degradation of the environment and know just how powerfully it determines whether people suffer or thrive. As a result of the sessions with Priscilla and Kitomari, they were all inspired to initiate or continue to grow the environmentally regenerative aspects of their work.
“We need to shift our worldview from thoughtless takers to thoughtful givers that conserve society. We are accountable to the unborn and those that lived before us. Put your roots deep so that you can produce the seeds needed to feed the community and society.” — Priscilla Nzamalu, Permaculture Research Institute of Kenya
The power of human connection
The group came up with many different strategies to build resilience in their communities across the board. Ideas included environmental education, permaculture training and design, innovative saving systems, expanding global networks, initiatives to promote community cohesion and dialogue between disparate groups, providing more affordable and accessible health care, education and many more. Our partners shared with one another, listened and gave advice, were open and understanding of what others had gone through and what they might need. Their shared experiences had power. As a group, they came to realise that so much of what they are already doing is building the resilience of their communities and by taking opportunities to come together, they can further begin to galvanise and develop their ideas growing their work exponentially.
Coming into this year’s conference, Mama Hope’s vision was one of organizations and communities well equipped — socially, mentally and financially — to deal with stressful times, standing on human connection and collaboration as the cornerstones of resilient programs and social change. As Atal Gawande, an American surgeon, writer and public health researcher said in the BBC’s Costing the Earth podcast,
“Our biggest opportunity is around the innovation systems that affect our lives and not just in technology…it is people talking to people that is still the strongest force for making change.”
We need each other; we learn from one another, we hold each other up. In times of crisis, it is by tapping into social systems that we can produce the good solutions that get us through hard times, just as it did for Topista and her family. Tapping into their social system brought the Mukisas to the point where they are now improving the lives of thousands of people in rural Uganda through their work in community health. Each leg of their journey was conquered through human relationship, both local and global. Without access to this kind of strong social system, individual technical solutions lose their meaning and are often ineffective, if they ever come along at all.
In this uncertain period in our world’s history, more than ever, we need to be working on building relationships rather than creating division. We need to be getting together and listening to each other to come up with lasting solutions to social and environmental challenges. We shouldn’t be afraid of failure, we should only be afraid of isolation. We should be thinking of others, including those yet to be born, endeavoring to find ways forward with those we may disagree with and sharing our knowledge and resources abundantly. This is the road to the kind of innovation that will make real change happen, and we saw it in action in Arusha.
Photo credit to Rod Markham. Thanks Rod!
