Our Principles

1. Work closely at grass-roots level We always respect the views of local governments and communities in the areas where we work. They have huge experience over many years.

2. Stay local For 19 years we have remained small and localized. Our Ethiopian team know the area and local leaders extremely well.  This is a huge advantage in garnering respect and local support and by minimising the corruption risk.

3. Local community participation. Our agreements for the construction of projects are all similar.

• We first discuss priorities with the Woreda Departments of Health, Water and Education. (A woreda is an administrative unit (similar to an English county) comprising around 20 kebeles, population 100,000 – 200,000.)
• In Health and Education, the Woreda must agree to provide and pay health workers and teachers – we will not proceed without this agreement.
• We visit the local project site with the Department representatives to meet local leaders. They must agree to collect sand, gravel (often by hand-breaking rock) and provide unskilled labour, all free of charge.   We provide the cement, corrugated iron, pipes, etc. and the local Ethiopian builder to manage the community workforce.
• On completion, we hand over the building to the community. They must form a committee to maintain it.
• We make unannounced spot-checks to a proportion of the completed projects during our four-monthly visits.
• The communities love an Opening Ceremony and this is a chance for local government Heads in Health and Education to promote the use of the new facility. In turn we say thank you for their manual labour.    We then hand the facility over to the community.