Thinking for yourself instead of running on automatic pilot

How do you make partner organisations take the initiative to alter development programmes if this proves necessary? Tear Fund, a Tear cooperation partner, introduced Self Organized Learning to Ethiopian partner organisations involved in HIV issues.

September 2009

One of Tear Fund Ethiopia's partners is involved in two HIV programmes. One of which focuses on providing loans to orphans so that they can start their own business. This programme is not running well because the repayment of the loans is causing problems.

The other programme, in the same town and works with self-help groups. The participants save money, put that in a fund and give each other loans. Quite successfully in fact. In two years' time, these self-help groups have become relatively well off. The children are attending school, are well fed and have access to good healthcare.

Tear Fund's partner noticed that one programme was going better than the other, but did not intervene. Why not? 'Because Ethiopians are accustomed to carrying out activities as once set up by someone else,' says Keith Etherington of Tear Fund. 'This example demonstrates how important it is to change things when necessary. And that is precisely the added value of the SOL-method. It aims to encourage people to take their own responsibility. To learn to think for themselves about what is necessary, to lay that down in plans of action and to subsequently implement these.'

Stop running on automatic pilot

In 2004, Tear Fund started the SOL programme with a few partners. Initially, the process got off to a slow start. Etherington: 'Ethiopians are used to classical knowledge transfer. However, the SOL-method does not centre on lectures and exams, but on stimulating conversations between the participants in which they identify their learning needs. Once they know what they want to learn they can find answers to their questions. Initially, the participants were very quiet during the sessions. After two to three months they started becoming rowdy because they were not getting what they expected: information. After some time, a few participants picked up the SOL approach by indicating what they wanted to learn. Think of, for example, monitoring, facilitating groups or setting up an efficient food aid programme. This made the participants stop doing their daily activities on automatic pilot. Instead, they asked themselves: 'Are we doing the right things? Should we be tackling things differently, focusing more on achieving the ultimate goal?''

New solutions

Etherington refers to a food aid programme for children. It used to take the partner organisation 30 days to get the food to the children. Occasioned by the SOL programme, the partner switched tactics and made the distribution system more efficient.

The food now reaches its destination inside four days. Another example is a partner involved with church leaders and HIV. An important and touchy subject in Ethiopia. 'Some church leaders believe that HIV is God's punishment. The partner that participated in the SOL-programme tried to change the church leaders' attitude by convincing them with knowledge transfer. That failed, he told us. He wrote us a letter stating that he is now using a different approach. Instead of wanting to convince church leaders, he facilitates meetings in which there is room to learn from one another. Thanks to SOL our partner now sees other options for solving the problem. This illustrates how the SOL process stimulates people to reflect, to see new opportunities and grasp them.'

Far-reaching process

Etherington points out that it will take a number of years before SOL's effect can be felt at all partners, in all layers of the organisation. After all, it concerns a fundamental and cultural change. Tear Fund will therefore continue to organise SOL workshops over the coming years. 'Achieving change is sometimes an unpredictable process,' says Etherington. 'Sometimes we are pleasantly surprised, sometimes we have to watch people struggling to learn to take their own responsibility. That is part and parcel of these far-reaching processes. But once we manage to teach partners to think differently it is more than worth the effort and results in plans of action with tangible objectives and results.'