CAP

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Coalition Against Poverty

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ESTABLISHING A COALITION AGAINST POVERTY

(Expanding the PONT model)

In the year 2000 a small group of people with experience of working overseas came together to develop a new approach to overseas development through community partnerships. The aim was to develop a concept that could be easily replicated in other communities and was based on delivering a flexible framework that could evolve and grow in many different directions as a variety of people and organisations became involved. It was also to be outcome based, with the emphasis on delivering what have become known as the Millennium Development Goals, rather than simply a friendship link.

Instead of setting up new structures at home and overseas, it sought to network existing players- rather like the “join-a-dot” puzzles where the full picture only emerges when all the dots have been joined. We realised that within our own community there is now a critical mass of people in all the key professions who have been deeply stirred by the Make Poverty History campaign. Given the right framework these folk are prepared, entirely at their own expense, to travel overseas, make personal friendships with their counterparts in Africa, help plan projects, then return home and seek ongoing support for their partners. The slogan that sums it up is “VISITORS FOR A WEEK, VISIONARIES FOR A LIFETIME” During the past 4 years over 60 key people from our town have visited Mbale in Uganda and this has led to the formation of PONT- Partnerships Overseas Networking Trust.

Up until now all funds for the projects have been raised by charitable donations- our emphasis is on regular monthly donations from committed donors who are kept informed of how their money is being spent (every penny is sent overseas). Because key people and institutions from our town are involved, we are winning the hearts and minds of our whole community and this is reflected by generous support. However we now feel the network we have developed both at home and overseas has proven itself capable of delivering the Millennium Development Goals and is ready to receive much larger international funding.

Setting up the PONT committee

We started by linking a variety of key individuals from our community with their counterparts overseas by putting out general invitations to all personnel to come with us to Africa at their own expense. Those who responded have self selected themselves as being the right people by demonstrating their commitment and compassion. This has led us to suggest that people paying their own way is a good principle to follow, and sends out clear signals to our counterparts in Africa. The 7 groups we have involved so far are:-

1. Primary care: We have a strong medical team of about 14 GP’s and nurses who visit regularly to help plan and resource the setting up of primary care services at village level. To date the key projects our overseas partners have asked us to help them initiate are- 1- a trained health worker for every village. 2- a mosquito net for every family with young children in the village. 3- Anti-malarial and other treatments to be made available free of charge at village level. 4- data collection to prove the effectiveness of our programmes and to act as the basis of health records for continuing care. 5- to equip the volunteer health workers with health manuals and bicycles.

2. Schools: We are in the process of linking every primary and secondary school in our district with a counterpart in Africa. To date 8 of our teachers have visited and 3 have come to us from Africa. We aspire to educate our next generation of school children about the crushing effects of poverty in Africa by making it personal, through friendships built by letter and email, and by giving 6th formers the chance to visit. As funds allow we hope to turn these links into effective means of improving African schools and increasing school attendance.

3. Faith based organisations: From the outset we have involved churches of most denominations. This is crucial since most of the social care programmes in Africa are run by churches and other faith based groups. Through these we plan to support poor families who have been further burdened by taking in the multitude of children orphaned by AIDS. Our partners in Africa suggested this was best done by supplying a goat to each family then linking them into breeding programmes. To date we have only been able to involve church groups, but obviously the model can be extended to other faith groups where they exist in both communities.

4. Engineers: Over the past 2 years we have included engineers with the teams to look at installing clean piped water into villages, since this has a major health impact.

5. Secondary care: For the past 2 years we have taken a consultant from our hospital to look at how we can best help their hospital. The priority initially is to help repair existing equipment and to improve administration, neither of which requires much capital outlay.

6. Further Education: Involving university lecturers and students is essential in studying and evaluating the impact of our projects. We believe that proving the effectiveness of our work in peer reviewed journals will be instrumental in securing further funding.

7. Political group: From the outset we have had the support and backing of both our town and County Councils, along with our MP and Welsh Assembly Member. However we have only recently formed an active committee within our district council.

The organisation of the network is kept simple by each of the above groupings having a semi-autonomous sub-committee which makes decisions by working directly with their African counterparts. The umbrella organisation which co-ordinates these is known as the PONT main committee. This consists of representatives from each of the sub-committees along with a finance team, a publicity/merchandise team, IT support team, secretary and chairperson. It is a registered charity so that all donations can be augmented by tax reclaims.

CAP-Coalition Against Poverty

From the outset we realised that if we were serious about “making poverty history” for the whole of Mbale region with 760,000 people, we would need to engage the key institutions in our community. This would allow us to call on them for advice and skills and free a whole new tier of professionals to input overseas. It also allows us to apply for major funding by going through their official channels, including checks, protocols and procedures which would provide welcome safeguards both at home and within Africa. The proposed key founder members of this coalition are:

1) RCT (Rhondda Cynon Taff) District Council

2) RCT Local Health Board.

3) Royal Glamorgan Hospital trust

4) University of Glamorgan

5) PONT - which will continue in its present form as the charitable wing of the coalition.

Eventually we plan to involve any other interested organizations in our network, including business people, trade unions, Police, ambulance trust, voluntary organizations, charitable organizations etc. We believe it is only when we all work together we can form an effective coalition against poverty in our twinned communities. It is our firm intention to stand shoulder to shoulder with our African partners, no matter how long the struggle to end poverty takes.

Replicating the models overseas.

We believe that one of the main strengths of the network we have created within our own community is that it automatically leads to the development of similar networks in our partner community. The 3 groupings within this network are:-

1. Non-Governmental Organisations: By working through a network of existing indigenous NGOs we are able to tap into a wealth of expertise and skills. By networking them with each other they learn from each other and share best practice. The projects are decided by consensus of their shared priorities. They provide inbuilt audit and financial scrutiny by allowing comparisons between outcomes. Furthermore these organisations are deeply rooted within communities, utilise volunteers from the communities and have the support and respect of their communities. Crucially they are the key providers of primary care in the region.

2. Faith based organisations: These are usually at the forefront of attempts to alleviate poverty through orphan and family support programmes, women’s groups etc. By identifying those already achieving alot with meagre resources and then empowering them, we can help them deliver several of the Millennium Development Goals.

3. Regional authority: It is the elected members and officers of the Council who have ultimate responsibility for the health, wellbeing, education and infrastructure of their region. By networking the regional authority with NGO’s and faith based organisations we believe that we have established a coalition which will be effective, reliable and robust enough to receive the large sums required to deliver the Millennium Development Goals to the whole population.

The gradual evolution of this organisation mirrored the structures we have developed at home. The initial body was a network of Non Governmental Organisations known as the Mbale –PONT committee. This has now been expanded to include the Local Government departments in the “MBALE COALITION AGAINST POVERTY”

Making the link

At the outset we were keen to develop the concept from a clean sheet, so instead of building on an existing link we created a new one. In planning the initial visits we approached several international NGOs and asked them to recommend indigenous NGOs that they had positive experiences of working with. International NGOs provide an essential service in helping to establish, train and resource indigenous NGOs but are usually unable to provide long term or permanent support. There comes a time when they have to start decreasing support for these worthy organisations, so welcomed our offer of picking up the long term support for them. We first visited the projects run by these groups and confirmed their effectiveness. Next we met with their leaders and asked if they would be willing to network with each other and their local government. This met with a firm approval from 3 such organisations.

We then met with the regional interdenominational committee and asked the same question and received an equally enthusiastic response.

On the same visit we met with the leaders and officers of the district council to inform them of our plans and invite them to join the coalition. From the outset we found them most helpful and cooperative.

In conclusion

We are now almost 2 years into the running of our projects and have been greatly encouraged by the commitment and involvement of members in both communities. We believe that what we have developed in our region is a concept that can easily be replicated in any other region across the UK since the building blocks are already in place – all that is needed is for them to be joined together to form a robust coalition against poverty. We are aware of a multitude of existing links between individual Councils, schools, hospitals, churches, voluntary organisations etc and believe that any of these could be built into a similar coalition to ours if the various institutions already in existence are given a chance to join the alliance.

Finally the alliance is very much a two way process. Everyone who travels overseas is built up by the experience both as individuals and as a part of a team. All come back inspired to continue in their existing professions with new energy and vigour. Our community is stronger as a result and we have greatly appreciated the friendships that have developed and given us a new world perspective.

PONT