Goals for week beginning June 11th

In an effort to truly understand what the health needs in Bagar are, and where the existing health system falls short of the community’s needs, I am conducting a survey in roughly 300 households from all of Bagar’s 15 wards. This week’s goal was to finalize both the survey and the logistics behind conducting the survey. Some of the logistics include commissioning the help of several community members to conduct the survey, training these surveyors to produce quality results, determining the details of how these surveyors will be managed by me, and determining the incentive/compensation details. These goals have not been completed to the extent that I had originally planned because of a difficulty that I have come across numerous times since my arrival. One of the difficulties I’ve found here is that often members of the community, some who are quite influential, do not believe that your project will be successful and try to convince you of it. The difficulty lies in determining whether their opinion is based on false assumptions about their community and a lack of exposure to new possibilities or whether their opinion is based on a solid understanding of the inner workings of their society that will forever remain elusive to the foreign development worker.

I commissioned the help of several influential community members to determine the best way to conduct the survey, and met with a lot of resistance. A couple of people are of the mind that a survey would be a waste of time because it would be fictitious and initially, that set me back as I was analyzing the validity of the opinion. I decided to move forward regardless, and met with the same opposition from several community members whose help was greatly needed (in finding surveyors, in determining what kinds of questions we could potentially ask, in determining the right amount of money to give surveyors, etc.). Until now, I have not been able to get these answers from trusted, senior resources and have had to rely instead on asking many people we have existing relationships with.

The other biggest challenge this week has been finding members of the community to conduct the survey. I am looking for males, age 17 and up, that seem to be responsible and honest since the way the survey is conducted will be critical and will determine the degree to which we can rely on the results.

The survey and logistics should be in place by Monday or Tuesday and the survey is still set to be conducted next week.