Seven Learnings and Reflections — Setting Up A New Charitable Project in Sierra Leone
It’s been a year since the idea of the AdAmi Project was borne and what a year it’s been! Founder Kirsty Wood shares her key learnings and reflections from the first 12 months of setting up a new charitable project.
1) Determine the need
Don’t let your work be guided by assumptions. Your assumptions may well turn out to be correct, but if they are not you may end up setting up a project that is not needed or causes more harm than good. Scruitinise and question your beliefs and take the time to build up an evidence base for your planned approach. As well as doing extensive desk based research and speaking with a wide range of organisations and stakeholders in Sierra Leone, we also conducted a detailed needs assessment in Bo district. Speaking with 88 expectant and young mothers, this research helped us to better understand the challenges that expectant and young mothers faced and enabled us to gather invaluable data and information from the girls on what support they needed.
2) And ask yourself, what value can we bring?
When you encounter an injustice you feel passionately about it is easy to get carried away and throw yourself head first into fixing it. Be cautious and take a step back before you intervene — ask yourself, what value can I bring in solving the problem? If there are already lots of individuals and organisations working on the issue, perhaps your energy and efforts would be better focused on supporting them, rather than trying to re-invent the wheel? As part of our needs assessment work we spent a huge amount of time mapping out what other organisations were doing to address the problems facing expectant and young mothers. This research confirmed a gap in the services available and a clear need for a new programme offering tailored and targeted holistic support to these girls.
3) Start “small small”
As they say in Sierra Leone, start the project “small small”. You will likely have big dreams and ambitions for the project, but avoid the temptation of trying to do too much too soon. We opted to launch our work with a small pilot, working with just 25 expectant and young mothers to test our programme model and monitor and evaluate its impact. This has enabled us to launch the work in a controlled and thoughtful manner, critical for the projects overall success and sustainability longer-term.
4) Have a longer term plan and vision for the project
Invest time, energy and thought into creating a longer-term strategy and vision for the project. Ask yourself, what do we want to achieve in the next 12 months, 2 and 5 years and what do we need to successfully reach these ambitions? It can be tempting to work in the ‘here and now’, focused only on every day interventions and activities, but it’s important to remember the bigger picture and to constantly question how current work contributes to these longer-term plans and ambitions.
5) Find your tribe
Involve and surround yourself with people who share your passion, vision and ambition, people who will champion the cause and become tireless advocates for your work. Unless you have superhuman powers and talents, you will likely not have all the skills, knowledge and experience required to set up a successful project on your own. Map out what skills and help you need and reach out to those who may be able to contribute. The AdAmi Project has an active committee full of experienced, talented and dedicated individuals who have been working tirelessly for the past year to set up and launch the project. Everything achieved to date has been thanks to this ‘tribe’.
6) Patience and perseverance is key
It’s stating the obvious, but success does not happen overnight, it takes patience and perseverance. You will inevitably have days when you feel overwhelmed and want to give up, or when things don’t go to plan and you feel like a failure. And that’s ok. Take a day off to refresh, break down big tasks into small manageable actions, spend time remembering the lives you will impact thanks to your work — do whatever helps you to reset and push on.
7) Take time to pause, reflect and celebrate success
It can be tempting to spend most of your time worrying about your to do list and what’s not been done. But don’t forget to take a step back and reflect on what you have achieved. Last month we had a very special launch event in London which did just that, and it was amazing for the team to have an opportunity to show off what the AdAmi Project has accomplished so far. So don’t forget to pause, reflect and celebrate success!
Seven Learnings and Reflections — Setting Up A New Charitable Project in Sierra Leone
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