Give a man a fish and they will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime...

Hi everyone, what an amazing week the last one has been in the progress towards the launch of the Project HOPE UK Munsieville Orphans and other Vulnerable Children's Model of Excellence.
Several key stakeholders meetings were held during the week, where Paul (Project HOPE UK Director) and I gathered great feedback and a huge amount of buy-in to make things move forward.

We had the chance to meet with numerous people within the healthcare and political systems over the last week, from the provincial to the district level, municipality, passing by the ward councillors of the various areas of the Munsieville township, the local community based organisations association representative, the government social services dept…

Throughout these meetings, we have been able to observe what we have defined as the 'Munsieville Model Stakeholder Gene', i.e. a series of values and attitudes sought in people involved which will 'make it happen', in alignment with the Model objective, vision and... 'DNA': commitment, engaged, focused on results, agent of change, visionary, believer, accountable, team player...

The response to the Model has been amazing at every level, with the various key stakeholders all taking actions towards immediate next steps: engagement and early momentum has been created!

Paul and I also had the opportunity to meet who might become the Munsieville Model of Excellence first NGO Partner, in the name of Ms. Coleen Walter, from the Safe and Sound Organisation, an organisation focusing on early childhood development, which has recently played a major role in influencing South African national policies in this regard! Clearly Coleen and her team have the 'right gene'!

The last week has also allowed me personally to further integrate the whole essence of the Munsieville Model and its aim. I am sure that you all know the famous Chinese proverb: 'give a man a fish and they will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime!' In summary, what the Munsieville Model aims to do is to push further the boundaries of this old proverb… by re-shaping the whole fishing industry through a community movement/local empowerment to make things happen, within the resources of this community to create sustainable change. The main actors being the children and the community members so that the momentum for change comes from within: Project HOPE UK being a catalyst for change. And from what we have heard and seen this week…the Munsieville community and its leaders are ready for this! They have the 'gene'!

Talk to you soon!

Martin

Martin Lafontaine

GSK Pulse Volunteer

Project HOPE UK