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NEWSLETTER

ISSUE 1 (MARCH 2009)

Table of Contents

• Letter from Peter Laugharn, Executive Director
• Interview with Zanele Sibanda Knight, Director of Programs
• Rays of Light, Firelight's Partners in Malawi

 

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Dear Friends and Supporters of Firelight,

We are less than three months into the new year, and like many of you, we at Firelight have been experiencing daily highs and lows. Despite the worsening economy, 2009 was off to a great start with the swearing into office of the first African-American president of the United States. Since then, we've seen a massive economic stimulus package signed into law and people everywhere watching with trepidation for more signs of new lows in the global economic downturn.

Listening to our African partners who are often dealing with much more difficult situations helps me keep the anxiety we are feeling here in the US in perspective. While meeting basic needs in the hard-hit areas of Sub-Saharan Africa was challenging enough before the economic crisis hit, it has become even more difficult since, with skyrocketing fuel and food prices, decreasing remittances, and unraveling social safety nets.

"The economic environment in the country makes it difficult for communities to be self-reliant," said one grantee-partner in Zimbabwe. A Rwandan grantee said "[our] staff and volunteers are committed, but our organization needs more finances to increase incentive and efficiency. Morale is low because of the current food crisis." Another partner reported that because of bank fee and other price increases, they could not provide school materials to the children in the community, and their education suffered.

Of course, the Firelight Foundation itself has not been immune to the effects of the crisis. Our endowment has shrunk considerably, and we are working hard to make up the lost income to ensure an uninterrupted flow of funds to our partners. We have cut our original 2009 budget by about 20 percent, but have left funding to partners intact. We are continually looking for ways to tighten our belts and stretch our resources so that we can keep funds flowing to community-based organizations in Africa.

One of my first priorities when I came on board as Firelight's new executive director in July 2008 was to develop an overall strategy to guide Firelight over the next five years. We sought input broadly—from staff, board, partner organizations, and a wide variety of stakeholders. We looked at the larger economic and social context in which our partners operate; we asked key individuals for their perspectives on Firelight's added value; and we examined our internal operations. Above all, we asked which changes we could put into place that would have the most positive impact on the lives of the children, families, and communities that we serve.

I am happy to report that most of the feedback we received was very positive. In surveys carried out by an independent firm, African partner organizations expressed strong satisfaction with our approach, with the way we work with them, and with what we've been able to accomplish together. Peers of Firelight, well-placed within the worlds of international aid, philanthropy, HIV/AIDS, and children, spoke very positively about the impact of Firelight's work, and about the example that our grassroots grantmaking sets for other funders, large and small.

Firelight's mission and vision are largely unchanged. Important changes, however, will take place within the two main lines of our programming. On the grantmaking side, we will continue to put the large majority (about 80 percent) of our resources into direct grants to African community-based organizations. These grants are currently about US$10,000 per year, which goes a long way in Africa: Firelight's partners assisted nearly 100,000 children with the grants that we made in 2008. Still, we hope to be able to increase the average grant size over time and are moving from making one-year grants to making multi-year grants.

A typical partnership between Firelight and an African organization will likely last about seven years and will be divided into three phases: an initial two-year 'getting to know one another' phase, an activity-focused three-year phase, and a two-year 'graduation' phase. This is the length of time we've found to be necessary for grassroots organizations to thrive and grow strong. As in the past, we will continue to put a strong emphasis on helping partner organizations develop their capacity.

The second main line of our programming will be leveraging our field partnerships to try to achieve greater improvement in children's lives. Our African partner organizations know a lot about what works for children affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty. We at Firelight have learned a great deal as well—both about what constitutes effective community action for children, and about the best ways to get resources to the grassroots. We will be distilling these lessons systematically and communicating them effectively with those who are well-positioned to make use of them. We will be seeking dialogue particularly with government, philanthropic, and faith-based groups, who together contribute more than US$1 billion a year for children affected by HIV/AIDS. We believe that we can help them channel their resources in ways that dramatically increase the amount that reaches children, families, and communities.

It's an ambitious agenda, but a feasible one if we can secure the resources. While we know that times are difficult all around, we also know that shared adversity begets generosity, and Firelight's partners are doing very important, tangible, and dollar-stretching work.

We all know the African saying "It takes a village to raise a child." At Firelight, we have a daily opportunity to help villages raise children. In the coming weeks and months, we will be calling on you to join our efforts. Please help us in whatever way you can—lending us your best ideas, your expertise, your experiences, your networks, and your resources—to help us improve the lives of one of the world's most vulnerable populations.

With warm regards and thanks,

Peter Laugharn
Executive Director
Firelight Foundation

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INTERVIEW WITH ZANELE SIBANDA KNIGHT, DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS

A few weeks after assuming her new role as Director of Programs, leading Firelight's grantmaking, grantee strengthening, and organizational learning programs, Zanele Sibanda Knight (ZSK) sat for an interview with Suzana Grego (SG), Director of Communications & Advocacy.

SG: How did you become interested in and start working with children affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty?

ZSK: This work brings together two passions of mine: children and communities. The community piece comes from my upbringing. My parents were community organizers and political activists in Zimbabwe, so I grew up fighting for our country's independence—a lot of which was done by mobilizing communities. Many communities had been destroyed during the period of conflict and sanctions in the lead-up to independence in 1980. After independence, my mother worked in both rural and urban areas to rebuild and develop communities through grassroots organizing and community empowerment. I was only 7 or 8 years old, but I accompanied her to trainings and meetings. That was such a vivid and transformative part of my life.

I always knew I wanted to work with children, even when I was still a child. In fact, all of my professional work to date has been with organizations that focused on improving the lives of poor and marginalized children. When I returned to Zimbabwe from the US in 2003, I was deeply affected by the fact that HIV/AIDS was no longer something I heard about…it was affecting members of my own extended family, as well as neighbors and friends. It almost seemed like a wave that was washing over our communities, during which so many people were falling ill in quick succession. My dad was involved in politics, so we were going to funerals in the community at least two or three days a week. And with every funeral I would attend, I was increasingly haunted by the question of what would happen to the children left behind.

So I started working with my mother, who had established her own organization called Rural Craft Cottage Industries to empower women in rural communities by providing them the earnings from the export of their arts and crafts. My mom died shortly thereafter, and the women whose goods she had exported approached me and told me how much they had depended on my mother and on her organization. They were able to produce the different crafts but needed help connecting to markets overseas. It struck but didn't surprise me that the question of what would happen to their children was always front-and-center for these women.

I worked with them for two years and really saw firsthand that building a community of support around children and empowering women was one of the most important ways to make a difference in children's lives. So when I returned to the United States, I knew that I had to continue that work even though I was so far away from home. I could no longer afford to say that I would do something when I returned home—I knew that this work had to be part of my every day.

SG: So how did you go from community development work in Zimbabwe to child-focused grantmaking at Firelight in Santa Cruz, California?

ZSK: I married an American, left Zimbabwe, and settled in Seattle, where I became involved in a small giving circle called Pangea, which was just starting to explore grantmaking in Africa. After doing some research, circle members came across Firelight, and asked them to visit and talk about what they were doing and what they had learned from their work with vulnerable children and communities in Sub-Saharan Africa.

At the time, Firelight was advocating that children should not be put into orphanages. I wrote to Firelight urging them to make their recommendations public, and shortly after, started working with them on a consultancy. That consultancy eventually led to the production of From Faith to Action, Firelight's first major advocacy document aimed at promoting family- and community-based responses among the growing numbers of US faith-based organizations interested in improving the lives of vulnerable children in Africa. Firelight invited me to apply for a full-time position and I joined the foundation as a program officer and advocacy coordinator in late 2005.

SG: What was so compelling about Firelight that convinced you to move here?

ZSK: As a Zimbabwean, Firelight's respect for local leadership and ownership, and emphasis on sustainability—not only stated, but lived—was very important to me, and especially at that time, was still relatively rare in the development world.

Firelight's child, family, and community focus was also a major compelling factor. Zimbabwe is a very communal society. It was only as an adult that I realized that some people in our community were actually not related to me. They all played such important roles in my life. The reality there is that we don't separate the 'nuclear' from the 'extended' family—it's all family.

SG: How did your community upbringing affect your life?

ZSK: My parents were both politically active and at various points in my life were either in exile or in prison, sometimes for two to three years at a time. Despite that, thanks to my 'extended' family, I led about as normal a life as you could imagine: I still had food and I went to school. While I missed my parents as any young child would, my siblings and I still had all of our basic needs met, and we also gained a sense of security from the care and support of everyone who cared for us. In many ways I didn't feel any of the negative consequences of my parents being in prison or in exile. That's how much my community—my family—means to me.

SG: As the newly appointed Director of Programs, what do you see as some of your most important priorities?

ZSK: One of the strengths of our strategy is that on one side, it is located within a larger ecological model, and on the other it is framed by a theory of change that articulates what happens in the course of our partnerships with grantees. In other words, it describes how community-based and nongovernmental organizations develop and transform; how they facilitate access to services in order to impact the lives of children and families; and how they effectively mobilize and sustain community action.

The new strategy really builds on Firelight's experience and the lessons we've learned over the last nearly 10 years. I'm excited about seeing how the coherence of our strategy and the deepening of our support will impact our partners and ultimately improve the lives of vulnerable children and families. I think that our learning agenda brings a new dimension to our work by creating an organizational culture of learning and reflection. In a sense, we are deepening our own inquiry into our work, which has the great potential of improving it.

If we are successful in conveying the efficacy of community-based organizations to others, we will have the opportunity to create much greater impact than we, by ourselves, could ever have with our limited resources. It will also strengthen our ability to advocate for community-based organizations, especially those we're not reaching. While I am always excited about our partners' work and how it is helping to improve children's lives, I can't help but think of the scores of other children who still need support. And the only way they will be able to get that support is if we can direct larger flows of resources directly to the community level.

As just one example, in my home village in Zimbabwe, there is no external funding reaching my community. If we at Firelight are able to capture what we have experienced and can share it with others so that even a greater amount of resources and support can reach a greater number of vulnerable families and children, that would be very exciting and fulfilling for us. If we are successful, it will take Firelight to the next level, in a very concrete way.

I am also excited about what this learning will mean for our grantees, who have a deep thirst and desire to know what we think and what we know. They are always wanting to improve; to accomplish more; to aspire to better; to become self-sustaining. The fruits of our organizational learning efforts will also be geared toward addressing their concerns and meeting their needs.

SG: Sitting in Santa Cruz, California, how is it that we make our partnerships with grantees 'click'?

ZSK: Face-to-face meetings are extremely important and enriching both for our partners and for us. But there's not really a need for us to be there every day. Our fundamental approach is to provide grantees with the support they need to really own and lead their programs.

There are, of course, important touch-points with our grantees, which is why we have very strong 'resource people' who live in these contexts, deal with these issues on a daily basis, and work very closely with our grantee-partners.

One of the goals of our new strategy is to more formally institutionalize the role of our resource people and make it consistent across countries. We are also working to deepen and expand cross-learning and peer education among our partners through partner networks. We know it makes a difference for organizations to learn from each other. Supporting partner networking will also provide increased opportunities for collaboration.

We are also working with our Communications and IT departments to come up with creative solutions to facilitate better and richer access to communications systems for our smaller and more rurally-based grantees. Good communications systems are the backbone of our rich partnerships.

SG: This is very rewarding, but also demanding and time-intensive work. Over the next few years, as we move forward with our new strategy, we will be looking to increase the number of our grantees and the level of support that we provide. How do you see us effectively accomplishing this?

ZSK: It is indeed very demanding for us to be responsive to the range of different grantee-partners, who are at different capacity levels, and have different needs and different experiences. Whenever we do anything, we always have to think about the consequences of our actions and our work on all of our partners. But this gets at the heart and soul of our approach, which is to meet our partners where they are and to be as responsive as we possibly can be to the needs of the communities and the children that they serve.

When you visit a grantee and see how much they're accomplishing with so few resources, it makes it all the more worth it. It's very common for us to be traveling to visit a partner who is located so far away…so far from any major town or city. It's still a source of great amazement to us that those partners were able to find us, reach out to us, communicate with us, apply for and receive a grant from us. Saying they are 'resourceful' doesn't even begin to do them justice.

So, you ask: how are we going to accomplish all these goals?

We are deepening our partner support by increasing grant sizes according to the capacity of the partner, especially at the exit phase in order to help our partners prepare for graduation from Firelight. I also think that by providing them with multi-year grants, we are giving them stability for their programs and the ability to plan ahead.

We have good insights and knowledge about what constitutes effective technical assistance support to community-based organizations, especially in the area of monitoring and evaluation. We are strategically identifying the needs of organizations at each stage of organizational development, and will focus our technical assistance to support those needs in a way that is tailored to the stage of development. If we can approach the other areas of capacity building with the same thoughtfulness and sensitivity that we employed with monitoring and evaluation, I think we will be really successful in helping our partners to become more effective in their work.

Over the next five years, we should increase the number of organizations we reach through our intermediary onward granting strategy, which will allow us to reach a higher number of smaller organizations without greatly increasing our number of direct partners. This strategy has the added value of building the funding pipeline so that it reaches deeply into communities. This is an area of strength for Firelight, because we can mentor intermediary partners based on our experience and expertise in funding and supporting community-based organizations. As we document the effectiveness of that strategy, I think there will be many other foundations that will welcome the opportunity to learn from our experience and will be able to more easily adopt that strategy in order to increase funding to grassroots organizations.

We also hope to harness the power and voice of the communities that we serve by developing national level advocacy strategies so that our partners can have a mechanism and a channel for infusing their experiences and perspectives into national level policy. In this sense, we would really be making an important contribution to supporting the power and impact of civil society focused on improving children's lives.

Our new 'leverage' strategy is geared toward expanding and deepening our impact by harnessing the years of grantmaking and partner support experience and lessons we've learned to fuel our organizational learning, communications, and advocacy efforts. All of these efforts are geared toward leveraging the knowledge we've acquired to raise greater awareness, understanding, and ultimately, adoption of our approach in order to channel greater resources to the grassroots, community level, because it's from there that it's most likely to reach vulnerable children.

SG: Can you give us any more personal impressions and anecdotes that would illustrate for our readers your approach and perspectives on this work?

ZSK: One thing that is important for people to know is that most of the caregivers of vulnerable children are women, who, in many cases, are themselves so vulnerable. It is an incredibly empowering—and humbling—experience to witness their determination, their self-pride, their courage to stand up against the odds to address issues they're confronted with on a daily basis, and how much they extend themselves well beyond normal capacity for each other.

In October, I met a woman in a village in Tanzania who had refused to marry her husband's brother because she wanted to give her children a better life, a chance at an education, and the ability to achieve a better standard of living. She suffered immensely for refusing this common cultural practice. Her in-laws took away the cattle she and her husband had bought when he was still alive. They tried to throw her out of her home and take possession of her small farm—the only source of food and income for her and her children. The support she subsequently received from her local community-based organization is making a real difference in her and her children's lives. I think the power of her choice, and the important role that community-based organizations can play, gives courage to her daughter as well as to other women in the community and their daughters.

Another thing that I would like to convey to our readers and supporters is how the love, care, and nurture the children receive from their caregivers and from their communities is seminal in their lives. Seeing and hearing the stories of their lives and some of the things they've gone through has shown me how much it really means to them that someone has tried to provide them with the things they need; that someone has cared for them; that someone has made them feel like children anywhere else in the world….It's the difference between hope and despair. These children have not only been given the opportunity for a better life, but also hope for the future.

And it's contagious. It's amazing to see how the kids start caring for each other and exhibiting a selflessness—even the youngest of children. It comes from the notion that "my well-being is attached to your well-being". This is 'ubuntu,' in Zulu, and it embodies community solidarity and the heart of our community-based approach.

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"RAYS OF LIGHT"¹, FIRELIGHT'S PARTNERS IN MALAWI

Since 2002, Firelight has awarded more than 80 grants totaling upwards of US$800,000, and provided capacity-building support to community-based organizations (CBOs) in Malawi. In 2008 alone, nearly 20,000 children benefited from the programs and services provided by our 25 grantee-partner organizations.

The biggest challenges in Malawi are serious health problems and widespread food insecurity resulting from frequent agricultural shocks such as drought. The global economic crisis has also hit hard in this small country, where people are struggling to cope with skyrocketing food and fuel prices. An inadequate social welfare system barely reaches the very young and expanding population.

While Firelight's funding is a drop in the bucket when set against these challenges, we have seen again and again that our small grants go a long way to make a big difference in communities. The CBOs that Firelight supports use these funds to empower communities and mobilize community action to address these problems.

Across Malawi, CBOs and NGOs have emerged to fill critical gaps in: helping communities cope with the impact of HIV/AIDS and poverty; connecting vulnerable children and families to services; and providing children and caregivers essential emotional support and material assistance. For example, CBOs have created a strong nation-wide network of community-based childcare centers (CBCCs) to strengthen the informal safety net of care. CBOs also mobilize communities to support CBCCs and to take action to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families.

In fall 2008, Firelight Program Associate Aili Langseth, Jennifer Lentfer, head of organizational learning, and Executive Director Peter Laugharn traveled from the northern to the southern tip of Malawi to meet with partner organizations. Their goal was to see how our grantees were faring, especially in the midst of the economic downturn. They also wanted to understand what challenges partner organizations might face in the coming months and years.

In the capital city of Lilongwe, Firelight staff convened a two-day meeting to discuss a variety of topics, including partners' priorities for national and local government advocacy initiatives. The meeting also provided partner organizations an opportunity to finalize their plans for a partner-learning network to facilitate peer-to-peer learning. The network will function with lead partners supporting and mentoring other organizations on topics related to advocacy, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation, and fundraising. Firelight staff members also conducted a monitoring and evaluation training for 10 organizations in the capital city.

What was very apparent to Firelight staff about our partners across the board was the deep sense of solidarity that connects the individuals, families, and network of formal and informal organizations in the communities. It is this solidarity that strengthens and multiplies the efforts to improve the lives of vulnerable children.

Following are brief descriptions of two of our grantees in Malawi—what they're focusing on today; what challenges they are facing and are working to address; and in some cases, what their plans are for the future.

Imvani Women's Support Group:
Income-generation project empowers women and gives hope to a community

"Imvani" means "to listen and take action." Founded in 2002 by Flossie Simango, an HIV-positive primary school teacher who lost nine brothers and sisters to AIDS, Imvani began as a support group for HIV-positive women in the Mchinji District. At the time, these women were very sick and also isolated because of the stigma they were experiencing in the community. Today, these same women are healthy and confident, running businesses and serving more than 800 people in the community. The difference that Imvani made in their lives over the course of a few years couldn't be more striking.

One factor in Imvani's success has been a piggery project, started with a small grant from Firelight. After twice expanding the operation, Imvani is now the sole supplier of pigs in the area. Through income from the piggery, Imvani currently reaches more than 800 children and caregivers with early childhood education, school fees, counseling, food, and clothes. With more than 200 adult members, the group has expanded its programs to offer counseling, literacy classes, and micro-loans to women to start their own businesses. The sale of one very large pig alone funded most of the costs for the construction of Imvani's new office building.

The piggery has made a remarkable difference in the lives of these women, as well as in the lives of the children and caregivers that they serve. But it is the strength of the women, and the trust and solidarity among them that has made the piggery—and Imvani—a success. Seven years of hard work and advocacy efforts conducted vis-à-vis local authorities have helped reduce stigma in the community: "People in the community trust us and know we respect confidentiality." The chiefs in the community have requested that Imvani scale-up its activities in Mchinji, resulting in men joining the group.

Though they have no other international donors, Imvani's successful piggery gives them a sense of confidence and security: "If we have no donors tomorrow, we still have that piggery." From a few small grants, these strong and caring women have managed to build a very solid base and are committed to sustaining and growing it so that they can continue to improve living standards and eliminate stigma for orphans and people living with HIV/AIDS.

Community Youth in Development Activities (COYIDA):
Youth-led group changes the lives of vulnerable and abused children

Community Youth in Development Activities is a youth-led group located in Mzimba, in the northern region of Malawi. Impressed by the value COYIDA places on community participation, Firelight has given the group two grants. COYIDA assists community-based childcare centers, support groups for people living with HIV/AIDS, and youth groups to increase their capacity to serve the vulnerable members of their communities. COYIDA does not claim any of the community activities that it supports as its own. Instead, its members work behind the scenes to help increase the impact of existing community groups.

Believing that building the skills of community members sustains its work beyond the organization's lifetime, COYIDA is developing a cadre of strong and empowered young leaders. One group that has benefitted from COYIDA's assistance is the Orphans Affairs Unit (OAU). COYIDA used part of Firelight's first grant to train a group of 20 secondary school students—many of whom had been orphaned—in children's rights and accessing services. Working in 61 villages, these youth—who form the backbone of the OAU—have established weekly gathering points called "children's corners" where young people meet to discuss issues, and to eat and play together.

Through peer relationships, OAU members quickly become aware of cases of child abuse and maltreatment in their villages and bring them to monthly meetings to discuss how to address and resolve them. Many of these cases would otherwise likely not have surfaced had the children not felt comfortable sharing the information with peers from their own villages. Together, the OAU representatives decide how to work with traditional and government authorities to ensure that children stay in school, avoid early marriage, and live free from abuse.

Skilled, serious, and confident, OAU representatives reported intervening in more than 120 cases of abuse, maltreatment, or school fee shortfalls; bringing 15 cases to the attention of the Department of Social Welfare; and, with COYIDA support, taking three cases to court—all during their first year of operation.

The OAU is an amazing and inspiring example of how big a difference youth-led groups can make in their communities, particularly when they are given strong support and capacity-building assistance from community organizations like COYIDA. Through their hands-on, dedicated work, OAU representatives have transferred their own sense of solidarity and self-help to the children in their communities, and have changed the course of the lives of many vulnerable and abused children.

Mirrium Nyirenda is one of these children. She sent the following letter to COYIDA last fall, expressing her deep thanks for the OAU's assistance:

For more information on Firelight's work in Malawi, go to:
http://www.firelightfoundation.org/Grants-Countries/Grants-Malawi.htm

¹ "Malawi" means "lights of the fires."

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