Advisory notes yet to abide to if this project is to succeed

Here are some brain given by a person deemed to have plenty of experience in this field.

Please note down the points you feel are relevant to the kids's education project and compare them with our observations found in the comment section. If different, please send in yours such that no useful advice is ignored! Many thanks!
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PROJECT CYCLE MANAGEMENT

INTRODUCTION
Our communities face different problems that they are not able to solve on their own. They need different people and institutions to be their partners in developing “community projects”.

When an organisation or individuals seek to help a given community in addressing their problems, it is worth bearing in mind that participative methods have proved to offer two invaluable advantages: sustainability and creation of "community ownership”.

A number of projects failed as their initiators ignored beneficiaries in the planning or implementing stage.

A secret for a successful project (owned and touching people’s real needs) is beneficiaries’ participation: whereby a common motto “nothing for us without us”!!!

In the following sections I am going to explain briefly different stages of a project cycle management. These are my own notes and whenever you feel you need more explanations or any further assistance please send me an email here

1. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

A community has many and different problems. The common word used to refer to those problems is “poverty”. Although all are commonly known as problems, you may find that some are causes while others are consequences of the existing problems!!!

It is a worth exercise to identify with the population you want to serve, their problems. Allow them to make an exhaustive list of all their problems without, off course, raising unnecessary expectations.

2. PROBLEM ANALYSIS

The problem analysis aims mainly at categorising those problems and prioritizing them. It is important that the population realises and decides what their real problem is; in other words what is their root problem. You will be amazed that causes are few and consequences are multiple and in most cases our actions are directed to consequences!!!!

After that categorization, you should tell the population that they can not solve at once those problems. They have to select priority sectors where actions should be taken. For instance in the case of this particular parish “education can be a priority sector”.

In the selected sectors, they are going to rank their problems according to the level of importance. Serious problems will be on the top of the list while those less serious will be on the bottom. You should let them know that they have to choose those which are seriously affecting their children education. Hopefully “lack of food may be one of the top priorities”. You are allowed to contribute to their “list of priorities “if you realise they have forgotten an important problem.

They choose one or two problems to start with and you design a project on how to solve them.

3. PROJECT DESIGN

As you made a list of problems, in this stage you have to make a list of solutions to the identified problem!!!!

The population may have a variety of answers to the raised question. For instance “lack of food” can be solved through:
- providing lunch to mostly needy children at school
- assisting parents in starting income generating activities so they can feed their kids easily
- giving food assistance to poor families etc.

Again, the community prioritises those solutions. Their prioritisation should aim at finding out which solution responds better to the existing problem. Feasibility as well as costs should be kept into minds. This is important as most of better solutions are not feasible in a short time or require a lot of costs.

Let us assume that the solution of “providing lunch at school to mostly needy children” is accepted and chosen as the project in which you are going to invest.

At that stage, together with community and other stakeholders you identify how you are going to formulate your answer. This is where timeline and contributions from parents, church, children; are considered. For instance they will identify what the church can do such as providing kitchen facilities and a field where vegetables can be grown; parents may offer to make a rotation to cook for these children (after all they would cook for them at home); they can offer to cultivate those rice fields free of charge, providing for wood and other accessories etc.

You make sure you write down the points identified and should know that your role is to facilitate this process. So you should make sure that all necessary points are highlighted such as when the project should start, how many children should be fed at the beginning, how will the selection process undertaken, costing and time schedule for each activity are identified and responsibility are assigned to every stakeholder etc.

4. PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION

Now it is time to implement our project. You should make sure that the community has availed what they were supposed to. Then implement the project as designed it together with the population. Usually it is good to have a logical framework showing how every thing will be done.

5. PROJECT MONITORING AND EVALUATION

At each stage of the PCM it is important to evaluate what you are doing and monitor the success in order to make necessary adjustments. It enables you to check if you are still on the track and every one is playing their role.

Note: Hopefully these notes may help you in this project. As I said it is a brief explanation but if you need further assistance do not hesitate to come back to me by email (please click here)l!!!!

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Thanks for your readership!
God bless you!