Community Group Size for Efficient WASH Management

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I'm going to be working on a WASH project in Colombia with a rural community of 750 people.

They have water scarcity issues part of the year, and we're working to help them obtain water year round.

Community involvement is very important to our philosophy, and I'm trying to figure out how to manage 750 people. With that many people, it would be almost impossible to have a community meeting, and we'll want to have a number of them throughout the project.

I'm thinking that the process would work better if I divided the community into smaller groups. 5 groups would be 150 people per group, and 6 would be 125. While it would be encouraged, not everyone will come to these meetings, and some are children, etc. So the numbers at the meetings would be a bit lower.

I was wondering if anyone has dealt with a situation like this, or has an opinion on how big a group could be before it becomes inefficient?

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12 Answers

  1. I agree with the comments previously made. However, your question is more in relation to group management regardless of topic and to answer that if all you need is the number then 150 will be fine but if you want meaningful participation then a "manageable group should be no more than 15 to 20 individuals, because you are talking about a community meeting.

  2. I agree with Sarah, in regard to have the existing community organizations or its representation leader. If there is not, it is worth locating local specialists who support you, usually have the specific experience in the community you treat. In Spanish it is Especialista en Participación Ciudadana (or so) By the way, congrats x such iniciative and work with them! 

  3. I agree with some earlier suggestions by others. I would emphasise to first define the objective of participation which will help you design the best engagement plan. Depending on the purpose of participation (do you just want to "inform", "consult", "involve", "collaborate" or indeed "empower" them?) sought you may find that you do not need to engage everyone per se in a meeting. Get the key stakeholders (a quick stakeholder analysis would help). 

  4. I worked in the more or less similar case but the number was a bit less ( around 450 people), here is what I did:

    1) Divided into 10 groups depending on their location within the village, each group elected its leader

    2) the ten leaders gathered and elected the overall leader with a committee of 4

    3) All communication passed through the leaders and reached all individuals in the village and vice-versa.

    4) During each phase of project the manpower used to come from the village and selected with help of the leaders

    5) As the beneficiaries would own and manage the system after it has completed, the leader of each group provided 2 active people ( in total 20) whom we trained and worked with them throughout the lifetime of that project, later those trained local citizens became technicians and are helping the village in sustaining the infrastructure in place.

     

    As you mentioned, you need to acquaint the village with sufficient water all year round, do u have an alternative source of water which will supplement the existing one so that you designs are going to base on that?  ( in my case we considered also a decentralized rainwater harvesting) you need also to work on the behaviour change on how the demand can be reduced through the proper usage of the available resource.

    All the best.

  5. Hello to this stage we need to know if it is the Organization of participation of people motivated on one side, consultants people the other or else the project by him even: water.

    Here you have experts on both topics. But if it's a question of organization management must go to another forum. If it is a question of solution for water consumption, then explain it otherwise.

    Me for example by recycling immediately the liquid from the treatment of biotechnological treatment of excrement, saving the water. This population uses water for watering the garden or the cleaning of the outside she won't do it again

     

  6. Thank you for all of the responses.  In each group of, for example, 125-150 people (let's call these "sub-groups") I plan to have a community water group of 10-15 people.  My organization will work directly with the water groups, and the water groups will convey information to the sub-groups, and convey questions back to us.  The water groups will also help with collecting data and our education program. 

    I plan to have the community involved in all aspects of the project.  They will be involved in designing/planning the project, they will provide labor for the project, and they will maintain the project after it is complete.  

    They will also help collect data through participatory mapping and surveys.    

    Also, there will be an education program to teach the community 1) about the health implications of drinking dirty water and practicing poor sanitation and hygiene, about the specifics of their water and health problems, etc., and 2) once the project is being built, about how the different aspects of the project work. For example, how to use a hygiene station properly to wash their hands.

    Let me know if I can give any other information that would help.  With the information given, does 125-150 people per group sound manageable? 

    Rafael, thank you for your note on managing different groups.  I may message you separately to talk about this topic.     

    1 Comment

  7. You might want to try the farmers way.  Not many try to plant 750 seeds in one spot. But they do plant one seed at a time (man or machine) and allow nature to take its course. 1. recycle all trash/garbage. 2. make and use compost. 3. make and use compost teas. 4. use compost and teas to build healthy soils "that hold moisture". 5. plant, grow, eat, sell produce to make money. 6. use money to make or purchase rain water collection barrels. 7. build individual home cisterns. 8. later build community cistern for long term storage.(calculate total usage for at least 2 years and build to suit. 9.  Later make or purchase quality roof materials for better collection of rain water. Your goal is to communicate and teach tribalistic people how to live with nature. If you are looking for a short cut. Find the leader and with your funding do the entire process for self sustainability. They will all see and do the same out of respect for their leader. Your group can do the monitoring. Even go out and find buyers for their produce surplus. Select the most qualified and train him well.  He will become village monitor and contact for your organization.

  8. In agreement with the numbers, information sessions should tend for as large as possible "attendance", but I am gathering you are looking for communication, thus participation to find solutions.
    In my experience (Andean villages) be careful to manage hierarchies and groups already existing, if women are not present promote it but not impose it. As much as antagonistic solutions bring debates and divergent directions, keep the objective in mind. Technical solutions will have to be simplified and basics revisited.

  9. First let me acknowledge that working with such a big number of people is almost impossible,so depending on your objectives,you can subdivide them into groups of 100_150,and let each group elect a representative whom you will work with ,the elected leaders will convey and consultant with the members on each key step.Thank you, 

  10. Good with respect to dividing in groups (10) and let each group elect representative and committee and you conduct your sessions with them and they convey to all other members and back to you.

  11. I would suggest that involving all 750 is impossible (or very expensive). Perhaps you can utilise an existing committee or group to discuss the necessary issues, ensuring there is adequate representation of women. You could also choose to do a randomised household survey, again ensuring that women are involved. Good luck!

    1 Comment

    1. this is a very good paper about demand driven water projects https://d3c33hcgiwev3.cloudfront.net/_5141471f29e65c723d0919131f517db3_Reading2-3_WhittingtonEtAl2009-BoliviaPeruGhana.pdf?Expires=1506038400&Signature=betWqusJ5aQMyY3xzRfUI6dxya8nRJFpWDc1jR1h6ue6fY2qPRjM5UVnEL~wOgdAQtRwegr6GsXloHJhzfAPP~YyD3sGZZ3U4KQWe~kiqBiEVApOXXMxkUr7zKdcHa9aMYa3QdkakiXlgeGv8ueMFwseP4UU2seOw5M1tE7cSoU_&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLTNE6QMUY6HBC5A

  12. Thank you for questionnaire,

    At the first point, please specify the community involvement objective, are you going to involve them in designing the project, planing or provide them awereness , data collection...etc. You may have  the community leaders  or representative who can further  spread the word or  message to the entire community members.based objective of the meeting then you can decide what to do next.