23/10/2025
We intend to apply participatory methods to begin rebuilding trust between the community and government, increase accountability, and facilitate the project’s completion. To achieve this incredible feat, NEWA Family shall organize a clever two-phased participatory approach.
First, we shall convene meetings open to all members of local communities, where 300-400 community members could collectively discuss and identify their priorities for the water system infrastructure project. The whole community will then elect representatives from their numbers, known as social auditors, to interface directly with government officials and to communicate the priorities they had identified.
In the second phase, both the elected social auditors and government officials will hold a meeting with the community to present what they proposed as a path forward, answer questions, and ultimately be held to account. With the fullimplementation of this innovative participatory mechanism, community members will begin to feel that their voices were accurately represented and effectively communicated to the county government.
The community forums will also provide an opportunity for government officials to better understand the challenges and frustrations of their constituents, while community leaders were able to more fully appreciate the budgetary constraints and competing priorities of government officials.
This type of constructive, two-way dialogue with the local government has been previously unimaginable to many community members who, according to us, tend to lack awareness of the power of their voices and felt they had little influence over government decisions. Going foward, we belive that community members will make a point of attending assemblies for debate and have even self-organized to submit memos to the government making project proposals to help improve their communities.
NEWA Family CBO acknowledges that building back trust will take time, but already there has been considerable progress. We believe that government officials who once avoided interfacing with the community for fear of criticism, will begin to routinely interact with the community. Even the Governor will begin to attend a community forum facilitated by PPI. The government will formally allocated funding in this year’s budget to the project and has begun delivering the piping and other materials necessary to expand the water system to more households.
