Open house

• open house this week, very successful!
• I attended two of five, Pauline's and John's/Elizabeth's
• great debrief at the end of the week with the leaders

Our open houses were a success! Nearly all of the w+s representatives showed up to their respective leader's homes and attended the open houses that replaced our bi-weekly meetings. I was able to attend two of the five open houses because we had two on the first day and three on the second. The first open house I attended was at Pauline's in the Sirori Simba area, close to the center of the map.

With half of the leaders having the event on Tuesday and the other half on Wednesday, I thought it would be good to pair them up. They were able to help each other with questions from the representatives and keep on top of the long agenda we discussed on Monday. Pauline and John were paired up with Elizabeth coming along too because of only having two open houses the first day. Pauline and John worked well to talk about the rain catchments, update the w+s representatives on the well progress, and emphasize the attendance requirements. I only came in when there were some questions about the leaders being required to share the water from the tank. It is an issue that has come up before and the both Pauline and John answered the question properly but I wanted the w+s representatives to hear it from me. It felt it was necessary to make it crystal clear that the leaders have and will continue to work very hard for the tanks and and sharing is at their discretion.

The second day I attended the open house at John's, in Nymetaburo, because it was for two groups instead of one. With Elizabeth's home still being unfinished, we have decided to hold off on placing her rainwater catchment system so Elizabeth's and John's w+s representatives attended the open house at John's home. Elizabeth and John are both very strong leaders so it was great seeing them in action. All of the pictures below of the open house are from John and Elizabeth's meeting. You can see them trading off and complementing each other. They were doing so well that I was able to slip off my w+s program manager shoes and grab the camera, and try to soak in Nuru at work, building leadership in the community and getting people to work hard to help themselves and each other out of extreme poverty.

At the end of the week we had a great de-brief with the six leaders going over how they felt the open house went. The general consensus was that it was an awesome event for the leaders to step into their roles and the w+s representatives really enjoyed seeing the catchment systems first hand. We have been having these meetings every week so I can get the leader's feedback on their catchments and how things are progressing in general.

I really enjoy these meetings because the leaders put an incredible effort into the feedback. In my first few weeks one of Lucas's fellow Community Development Committee (CDC) members, James, was telling me that the w+s leaders really appreciate the meetings. The leaders were impressed that I cared so much about what they had to say, writing down every suggestion and pestering them with questions about their ideas. All of us at Nuru realize that the Kurian people are the most valuable asset to our work. We give respect to the community and don't rely on the westerner card to force our own ideas upon them. After all, Chris, Aerie, Meghan, Janine, Nicole, Doug, Gaby, Don, Karina, Kim, Bjorn, Billy, and even Jake are not Nuru. The Kurian community, especially the leaders, are Nuru. When we leave, they'll be the torchbearers.

twenty-three new pictures