March and April Kmojajlo updates

 It has been too long since I posted last!

March was the end of our first year (six month year) and we were busy trying to finish clinic orientations, recruitment of neighbor women and leader mothers, print our first set of materials, and spend the rest of our year 1 budget.  We ended recruitment in March with only about 50% of our expected target of pregnant women and women with children under 2.  So in April we opened the groups up to all women 15 and over and did additional recruitment.

Community health volunteer orientation in Free Town

With the team in Free Town

Since it was the end of the year, we also had to write our first annual report.  Writing reports are not fun but it was beneficial as writing the report made me reflect and realize that we actually did a lot and have already started seeing successes.  Here are a few…

• Local ownership by hiring local staff through a unique hiring process of going into each district for interviews rather than interviewing at the office

Two of our care group promoters hired from the community

•  Local ownership by giving the project a local name. Mrs. Annie Youo is a community health development committee (CHDC) member in River Gbeh clinic catchment area.  During her remarks at the orientation, she stated that the name Kmͻ̌jajlo was very impressing and that it was going to make a significant change.  She also said “Kmͻ̌jajlo in the Grebo dialect is the first of its kind in the County, and we will practice the new ways of doing things like working for our people without pay and practicing new things and changed behaviors.  We welcome this program and we will work with you people.  Thank you.”

• Building good relationships at all levels of the health system – from the county health staff down to the community health volunteers.

• Entry into the community.  My staff brought this to my attention as it was one of their responses when I asked what they saw as our biggest success.  It started with our baseline survey.  While I saw this as pure data collection, my staff saw it as their first entry into the community.  Because they came back later just as they said they would, to introduce the project after collecting the data, they gained a sense of trust and respect in many of the communities.  Baseline survey was followed by community data collection, clinic orientations, and community orientations – all this before even starting to form neighbor women groups.

One of our supervisors teaching with the poster

• Equity in terms of gender – targeting women is key, but also not making literacy a requirement for volunteers was key.  Respected but illiterate women who may be overlooked in other  projects were welcomed as volunteers.  Our materials are all developed to allow anyone to lead, regardless of their education.  After the first meeting, our care group promoters reported that at first many of these women were hesitant or shy because of their lack of education, but when they saw how the session was facilitated using picture posters and not taught like school, they realized they can do it and started participating more in the meetings.

• Equity in terms of access.  Mr. Toe from Jalipo Town in Putopo district appreciated the Samaritan’s Purse family saying, “I thank God for Samaritan’s Purse reaching this far to us and pray that you people stay and work with us.  Many NGO’s come in our community and don’t come back again because our distance is far and our roads are very bad. Although there is no money in the program, but what the Kmͻ̌jajlo program stands for is more than money or food.  We are happy for to stop our women and children from dying.  When my wife or child dies, than I lose.” 

In April I went to Kenya and the UK for two weeks.  I got to cheer SP runners in the London marathon and I had the opportunity to go to the UK and present these updates to our SPUK office, our donor DFID/UKAID, and the funds manager for DFID.  I was nervous about it – but they went well and I was encouraged.  People were very interested to get the experiences from the field which made the presentations easier.

After the marathon with the Liberian flag - Joni and Jamie did awesome!

While I was gone, my staff held their first care group meetings.  Though some areas it has been hard to gather the volunteers, slowly, women are seeing what the program is all about and starting to attend the meetings more.  One sad bit of news when I came back was about the death of one of our leader mothers.  Joni and I had interviewed her a couple months back and I included this picture and quote in my presentations. When I showed the staff the presentation, they told me she had passed away unexpectedly last week.  It is a reminder to me of why we are doing what we do.  This is what Rosalyn said about the program coming to her community. 

"I want to see the mothers and children coming on well. The way you are all doing it now, they didn't do it like that before. To go around and teach baby mother how to take care of their child, it wasn't like that before, but now, I know the thing that is coming will be alright."

Since I have returned, there have been several stories that my staff told me that just break my heart and remind me of the need not only for health education, but for transformation through the gospel.  I am excited about this vast network of women we are creating across the county but I feel like there must be more that we can do to spread not just health messages, but the love of Christ.  In our leader mother registration, most of the women report they are Christians, but the stories I hear remind me that despite being a Christian area, people are still living in fear and as one of my staff said, living in suffering.  

Please continue to pray for us.  Pray for the project activities to go smoothly and for the staff to overcome the challenges of the terrain and of motivating the volunteers.  Pray for wisdom and strength to continue the activities.  But most of all, please pray for the people that we are interacting with, that they will see Christ through our actions and that our project will foster not just a physical transformation but also a spiritual transformation in River Gee.

** Thanks to my staff and Joni for some of the quotes in the success stories they gathered

View from Fish Town base, early in the morning before going to the field

Kmͻ̌jajlo is hard at work!

It’s hard to believe another month is past.  February was a month of hard work with a little fun thrown in the middle.  Kmͻ̌jajlo is growing into its new name, everyone in the Fish Town office calls the project and staff by that name now. 

After the orientation at the end of January, the first big task in the project was to form all the women into neighbor women groups.  When you consider the number of communities and the distances (including many walking distances!), this is a large task!  Then, you consider that the expectations of the community members are often very different than what we are coming to do.  The staff have risen to the challenge and are doing great. At the community level orientation I often hear them emphasizing – “there is no money business here”  and at the end, when asked if they want to join a group, all the women have stayed to take part.  We continue to pray that they will really see the value in the knowledge and peer support that the care groups will offer.   We expect to be finished by the end of March, our targeted date.  Pray that all goes well so this will happen and we can start care group meetings in April!

Last week Joni was here in Fish Town and came out to photograph this process.  These are some of the pictures she took – thank you Joni, awesome pictures capturing what is happening with Kmͻ̌jajlo!

Care Group Promoter explaining the program

Taking down the information for the neighbor women

Another community meeting to introduce the program

Love the quote behind the ladies!

Diagramming care groups

Earlier in February we had a staff retreat in Harper, Maryland – the next county over, right on the coast.  It was a good time for the Fish Town staff to learn and relax together. Two highlights for me - the singing and dancing before the sessions and trying to teach a few of the staff how to swim during the beach time. Below are some pictures from the event…

Singing and dancing during the sessions

Around Harper

Fish Town staff picture

Kmͻ̌jajlo staff picture

New Life

Happy New Year!  It is a little late, but I started off running as soon as I got back in January.  I am thankful that I did not have any flight delays as several of my coworkers were delayed from the storms and extreme cold.  Right after getting back I jumped into two big tasks – budget revisions and hiring our nine community based care group promoters.  I flew to Fish Town the morning after arriving in Liberia to meet with my staff about the hiring – I left them to do the interview process and they did a great job!  Before I left that same day, we prayed that God would give us wisdom in the process and put the right team together.  

A week later I returned and I made it to the last round of interviews, then we had some deliberations.  Overall, in each district there were some clear candidates who were at the top, well above the others, but for other districts we had to make some tough decisions.  All the new staff were here in Fish Town last week for orientation.  I am so excited for the new year and to really get moving in this project.  It took some time for the new staff to really understand some of the key concepts, but I think they are learning – small-small:)  They were all at least very willing to learn new ways and new ideas.  I think God did give us wisdom and help us put a great team together.  Here are some pictures from the week.

New staff at orientation

The three health supervisors

One of the new care group promoters

At the end of the training, we asked the staff to come up with a local name for the project.  After some brainstorming, voting, discussions and refining, they chose a Grebo name that translates to New Life: Saving mothers and children together.  I like the name, it really reflects what we want to do on multiple levels – it is new life in the sense that it is a new way of life we are teaching, a focus on changing behaviors and lifestyles; it is also new life as our focus is on pregnant women and women with young children – so the focus is also new lives.  And, as Christians, our ultimate goal is new life in Christ.  I pray that this name will be embraced by the community and help move our program forward here.

While the staff were conducting interviews in River Gee, I was in Monrovia working on budget revisions and getting some things in order for the new year.  It was a good decision to stay in town to get things done more easily, but it was also really good to reconnect with coworkers returning from home leave. This time with co-workers was especially important as we lost one of our co-workers on Christmas Eve.  David passed away unexpectedly while climbing Mt. Kenya and it was a shock to all of us.  

When one of my co-workers told me the news, she ended the conversation reminding me that David gets to celebrate this Christmas with his savior. At the Christmas Eve service and the days after, when I was sad, I remembered that.  It made the celebration of Christmas especially meaningful; because God sent his only son into the world, we have the hope that one day when our earthly life passes away, we will be rejoicing with our Lord in heaven.  What can be better than that?

The first week we were all back, we had a memorial service; it was great to remember, mourn, and celebrate together.  Though I did not have a lot of deep conversations with David, he really impacted me by who he was. He clearly loved God and cared deeply for others, and because of that, he impacted a lot of people in his short time here in Liberia.  It has challenged me to be intentional in my actions; I pray that I can leave that kind of legacy!  

One of my embarrassing dancing moments at the end of 2013 was during a good bye and Christmas party at the office in Monrovia my last day in Liberia. David and I had to dance in front of all the staff.  I didn’t want to see the video at the time, but when I got back in January, I tracked it down. That was one of my last times with David and it reminds me to not be so worried about how I look or to be embarrassed about minor things like that, but to embrace the moment.

At the beginning of a new year, I often like to spend some of my quiet time reflecting on the previous year and the year to come.  I thank God for where he brought my in 2013 – my prayer in January 2013 was that I would desire God more and he was faithful and answered (and is still answering) that prayer.  He revealed some things in my life that were getting in the way of that desire and helped me to work through them.  This year, I want to go deeper.  While having our own church today, my co-worker brought up how Liberian churches have a slogan for each year.  For myself, this year is the year of going deeper and the year of being intentional.  

I am excited to see what God does this year and I am excited to continue moving forward in the New Life project.  Now that we have our core staff, the next step is to form groups of neighbor women, elect the care group volunteers, and form care groups with the volunteers.  This past week we moved into our new base, it is exciting to have so much more space, and especially to have a separate guest house.  I am looking forward to getting to know my project staff more as well as the other staff here in Fish Town.  Please pray for our projects and our base as we continue to set up everything and get everything going in this new year.  Happy 2014!