The Love Project

The intention from the beginning was to do good, to help others.

Two brave middle-aged women , themselves living in appalling poverty understood that others like themselves needed help. Especially as HIV and AIDS had ravaged the village. There were orphans, sick people, all poor, all needing support like never before. They started by visiting the sick. They begged donations of  food, clothing, blankets ...... anything............... And it came

As they were themselves poor and in similar circumstances to the people they served , the organisation they set up to serve others, served them as well. They were provided for through the same donations. They called themselves the Love Project. The workers formed themselves into the Management Committee which then met every week to plan the programme and the clients needs With 150 orphans alone on their lists, and many more families, sponsorship, training and regular donations in kind followed fairly easily. The poor helping the poor with the workers as clients in their own organisation. It all made sense. " We are poor aren't we?"

The program expanded quite rapidly and included then a Literacy Training Programme, an Early Childhood Development Programme, A Home-based Care Service .and other programmes.at least one of which generated a little income. For Home- Based Care  the Government paid a stipend to the workers, who still regarded themselves as clients in the project they were managing.

Power struggles and conflict arose in the worker/management system in the Love Project especially when the more trained workers challenged the two founders. The result of this was that issues of ownership splintered the Committee and some workers claimed sub-projects as their own and independence from the main Love Project Body.They took the donated equipment  and resources with them.


What sense does all this make to the sick people, the orphans,the children in need of care, the ones in need of literacy training and the poorest of the poor all served in the same organisational system?

Of concern is the "trickle down' effect. If management is  experienced as benefiting by donated goods in kind  seen to be meant for the client.  If power games, splitting, pairing and conflict without resolution except to claim ownership is the culture of the organisations. Then what are the children learning about the world and the way it works. What are the children likely to grow into?

The intention was always, from the very start, to do good.