Philosophy

WCDP works with communities to help them find solutions to the problems they are facing. We do not presume to know the most important community development project for that community, but allow them to make that determination on their own, providing support as requested.

Our Guiding Philosophy

The WCDP philosophy is guided by two fundamental principles:

Comprehensive, Multisectoral Development
From the very beginning, the primary guiding principle has been that community development must be comprehensive. It is not sufficient to simply build a school, establish a health clinic, or install a water pump. The success of any program targeting any specific sector (education, health, infrastructure, business growth and agricultural developmet) depends on support from each of the others, whether directly or indirectly. Therefore it is one of the founding principles of WCDP to work with communities to develop each of these five sectors simultaneously.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
The reason WCDP is so heavily grassroot and community directed is that we recognize the significance of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. We know that people are going to focus on what is most important to them as individuals and as a community. And we know that Maslow's Hierarchy is a guide for how this will play out.
First, people are going to focus on their most basic, Physiological Needs: Air, Food, Water and Shelter. WCDP works with communities to begin identifying these deficiencies and developing solutions. Most people manage to find something to fulfull these most basic needs. The bigger problem is the quality of the food, water and shelter that they have managed to secure for themselves.

The second level of the Hierarchy is that of Safety or Security. While some people may have addressed the most basic needs, they may not be very secure with them. The housing may be temporary or flimsy, food may lack nutrition, and water may be unclean, spreading otherwise easily preventable diseases. WCDP programs help secure these basic needs in a more secure manner. Women receiving microfinance loans have used their new income to build more secure housing, purchase healthier foods, and are better able to secure clean water, or improve their capacity to boil and/or filter their own water. Beyond securing the basic survival needs, the families have other safety needs: security of the physical body, the family, health, and capacity to provide for themselves and family. These can be met through education, job training and business development assistance, financial planning, food storage, and access to health care.

The third level, Love and Belonging, is also very important, and WCDP takes this into consideration as well. WCDP is extremely inclusive. Our Women's Advisory Group is our primary guide and source of inspiration. This empowers them, and establishes them as members of a community. Our requirement to engage a Community Based Organization has a similar impact in that the whole community becomes involved in its development. The sense of belonging to something is so important, not only with respect to the Maslow's Hierarchy, but also to the long-term success of any community development project. When a person or group takes ownership in a project, its chances for success are greatly increased.

The fourth level, Esteem Need, is also met within the framework of WCDP. Women form groups when participating in the micro loan program. The women support each other and are recognized amongst themselves for their personal accomplishments - making a weekly or monthly payment, establishing a business, increasing the family income, etc. This helps to build their esteem as an individual working within the community, and providing for the greater good of their family or the entire community.

If WCDP is successful with these first 4 levels, the last, Self Actualization, will become open to them to grasp. This is not something that can be accomplished from the outside, it is entirely an internal personal journey.

Our Approach

We only work in communities where we have been invited and where there is an established community based organization (CBO) organized for the development of the community.

Key aspects of WCDP that set us apart from other development organizations include:

1. WCDP provides assistance only. We do not direct the communities to do a specific project, but encourage them to create a vision for their community, and consider the dreams of the individual members of the community and how those dreams can be used to benefit the individual and their community. We provide support for both the individual dreams and the realization of the community vision.

2. WCDP is dedicated to comprehensive, multi-sectoral development. While most organizations focus on one narrow sector, such as education, health care, infrastructure, business development or food resource development, WCDP incorporates all of these aspects into their programs. For example, the community may want to establish a primary school in their community. WCDP will work with them and encourage them to think beyond a simple school building and consider adding a student health clinic, a computer lab, biogas collection to provide fuel for cooking student meals, demonstration farms that provide food for the schools and serve as education and research centers for the community, libraries that serve the school and the community, vocational education services for adult learning, solar power that can service the school and the community, water sources for the school and the community, and more.

3. WCDP demands full community support and participation. By working with an established local CBO, WCDP knows that the community is already organized and enthusiastic about their own development. WCDP requires full participation of the communty in all aspects. This includes the community visioning, planning, and implementation as well as contributing materials, labor and financial support to the development of their community. Through this process, the community develops a strong sense of ownership and accountability to the success of their program. WCDP encourages the benefitting commuity to contribute 10% of the value of their project. WCDP, with the assistance of contributions from idonors and grants, provides the remaining 90%.

4. WCDP also requires the community to provide a description of how they will provide for the long term sustainabiity of the projects we assist them with. If it is a school, how they will pay for teacher and staff salaries, provide food for the students, costs of maintaining school grounds and equipment. If they have a water pump, how will they fund the upkeep of this equipment. We work with the communities to explore opportunities to do this, but encourage them to provide some initial ideas. We find that the communities generally know best how to achieve these goals.