Integrated Lives, Integrated Programs

Quick recap - I'm combining the need to lose weight with the desire to raise money for a dynamic community project I visited in Ethiopia. I'm taking per pound pledges in hopes I will lose a LOT by December and these resources can expand the the school three more grades so kids won't have to walk 5 km each way to stay in school past 4th grade! Or to fence in the school, or to add to the microcredit program that supports especially the women's efforts to sell butter, or to strengthen the conservation around the endangered Whitewing flufftail that nests in the wetland behind the school (and really nowhere else but in South Africa where the bird migrates!).

Or whatever the dynamic community decides for it should be about what they want, not what we get excited about funding. Often it is the more mundane that is the most needed. Those of us who do have conservation as one of our goals need to recognize that communities such as the one in Berga have a multiplicity of challenges. Faced simultaneously. With high priority for a lot of folks.

So I find the integrated approach, recognizing that these people live integrated lives and have integrated needs, responds to the true complexity of their lives. In my case, I work directly with programs that combine livelihoods, health (including reproductive health), conservation and natural resource management. Lots of great resources for these programs that are scattered all over the world.