Community Programming
After meticulous data collection and thorough research and analysis, IMPL. PROJECT compiles a community action plan to target the root causes of vulnerability affecting a community. These plans are then presented to our donors and, if accepted, put into place to drive positive outcomes for the people living in the communities.
How It’s Normally Done
Too often in international development, practitioners have a pre-designed plan lined up before they engage with a community. This may be a plan to build a well in a community that has a lack of potable water or a hospital for a community that lacks access to healthcare. However, these practitioners fail to do the research, community consultations, and data collection necessary to determine whether their programming will solve the systemic issues at hand most important to a community.
After all, what good is a well if the groundwater is contaminated and not safe for drinking? What good is a hospital if the community doesn’t have the people necessary to staff it or the education required to provide quality care?
This all comes down to a lack of community engagement. Despite being the focus of programming, communities rarely have a voice in framing the problem, designing solutions, choosing partners, implementing solutions, and reporting intervention outcomes – good or bad.
How IMPL. PROJECT Does It
At IMPL. PROJECT, we think programming should be targeted, so it’s about what that specific community needs. The data collected by people living in the communities combined with our team’s research and analysis provides us with a clear picture of what is harming the community and what community-prioritized solutions will lead to real change.
To use the previous example: If we discover that the community’s lack of access to quality healthcare is due to poor education standards, we will make education a priority before building the hospital itself, so we can be confident that the community is equipped to make the most of it.
Benefits of Our Methodology
When the people living in the community have a say in the programming that is created to solve their problems, they’re far more likely to buy into it. This leads to better results in the short-term and a higher likelihood that the community will be resilient enough to maintain those positive gains after our team leaves.
IMPL. PROJECT has a track record of strengthening communities and helping them fight back against internal threats (poverty, dehydration, starvation) and external threats (terrorism, youth safety, political strife) alike.