OUR VISION

Revisiting COFHED's Vision

COFHED has been working with the village of Lougou for almost five years.  During this time we have witnessed incredible progress that lends testimony to the model of community-led development.  In order for communities to reach a sustainable path to poverty alleviation, the change needs to come from within.  With this in mind, we thought it would be helpful to review the community-based development approach that we try to follow with COFHED.

What COFHED does:

• Builds relationships
• Helps the community to organize (i.e. Lougou Development Committee, Lougou Women's Committee, etc)
• Helps the community identify needs (i.e. PRAP)
• Leadership development (training in communication, conflict resolution, basic business skills, etc.)
• Helps the community to identify resources (i.e. local resources, short-term teams, etc.)
• Emphasizes spiritual health/growth (i.e. discipleship training, prayer meetings ("Boukan"))
• Fundraising (helping the community to procure funds for various projects that they have identified-i.e. feeding program, education project)

What COFHED does not do:

• Bring our own agenda of what needs to be done and how it should be done
• Manage/run the programs started-programs are led by the villagers and committees that were motivated to start them
• Hold the community to our own timetables for outcomes

Our commitment to these principles means that sometimes we need to hold our tongue or step aside so that we do not hinder the process of change that the community is bringing about on their own accord.  There can be a tendency for a community accustomed to dependency to rely on outside organizations as directors or executors.  Our goal through community-led development is to achieve attitude and behavioral change through education and empowerment.  The community should be in the driver's seat as they move toward change.  We firmly believe this is the only way to achieve long-lasting transformation from poverty to self-sufficiency.