This is the third of five posts from Team Dayā member Chevan Nanayakkara about his experience Building Change in Nchetana, Malawi. Please subscribe to receive future posts.
- Please donate to my Team Dayā fundraising effort – all funds go directly to building schools.
- If you are curious about Building Change with Team Dayā, please contact our Head of Recruiting Jaryd Knutsen.
Find all of Chevan’s posts here.
By Team Dayā member Chevan Nanayakkara
Team Dayā partners with a NGO (non-governmental organization) called buildOn. buildOn is a global organization who has built a model for the sustainable development of human capital in emerging economies. Their strategy is to work with “funding teams” like Team Dayā to raise capital for the school build, send those funding teams to engage directly with the local community to provide resources and motivate the community to provide labor for the build and, finally, to gain buy-in from the community to make sure children are sent to school once the build is complete. buildOn also coordinates with the target country’s national government to make sure laws and best practices (like building codes) are followed, the community’s school-build initiative has support and awareness by the government and that the government funds and sends teachers to the community to do the day-to-day work of educating the youth. Finally, buildOn provides support – maintaining a vast in-country network of contractors to draw on for services and expertise and also conducting analysis to understand the impact that school builds have on the nation and community over time.
What makes the school building project sustainable is that the people in the community where the school will reside are the ones who construct and maintain the structure and also take the responsibility to send their children to the school. Before the sustainable development strategy emerged, oftentimes schools were built without engaging the community and giving them an incentive to take ownership of the project. Buildings would be erected but would remain unused and unmaintained. Because Team Dayā sends people directly to the community there is an energy and enthusiasm by the local population to be involved and drive the success of the school both as a construction project and as an ongoing operation.
The Team Dayā and buildOn partnership is very different from other models because they foster an environment of self-sufficiency for the community and give them a sense of accomplishment whose energy can continue into other projects in the future. This strategy of development helps the community grow and evolve across many dimensions: economic, cultural, political etc and is intended to avoid creating a cycle of dependence but instead an energy of self-directed growth. As the buildOn motto goes: “BuildOn is not charity, it is a movement” – it truly is a mission to enable self-sufficiency, economic development and raise expectations within a developing country. BuildOn and Team Dayā are both at their core: “people investing in people”.
Even though sustainable development at the local level means inspiring local communities to raise their expectations, develop a multi-generational vision about what progress looks like and take an active role in improving their quality of life, at the national level sustainable development projects enable the idea of helping a country build strategic independence on the global stage.
There’s a wave of new colonial activity happening right now in many African countries. These countries are trading government control and their natural resources to bigger foreign countries who undertake near-term development projects. Malawi hasn’t committed to following that path yet because they see that many of their neighbors have ceded their ability to control their long-term future and political flexibility for short-term gains. Team Dayā stands out as committed to supporting projects that are sustainable for the community and the nation.
I was blessed to participate in this Team Dayā activity with the following people, who provided me with an unforgettable experience and were also sources of unending inspiration, support and joy. Please reach out to any one of them to hear more about Building Change: Davina Kent, Riley Jacobson, Kerri Olson, Nicolle Pangis, Vib Prasad, Lauren Rosen and Jay Sears.
This is the third of five posts from Team Dayā member Chevan Nanayakkara about his experience Building Change in Nchetana, Malawi. Please subscribe to receive future posts.
- Please donate to my Team Dayā fundraising effort – all funds go directly to building schools.
- If you are curious about Building Change with Team Dayā, please contact our Head of Recruiting Jaryd Knutsen.
Find all of Chevan’s posts here.
