This blog was written by our CEO, Rachel Lindley.
At the start of the year, I foolishly tried to predict Five Talents' priorities for 2020. Little did I know...
Of course, those priorities are still relevant - we must not lose sight of the big picture as we seek to respond to the immediate impacts of coronavirus. But the reality is that a big chunk of my home-working radar is now taken up with CV19. So what are Five Talents' three immediate priorities now?
You can read more detailed thoughts on each of these questions by clicking on the links.
It seems likely that we’ll be grappling with the impacts of CV19 for many months to come - but it is also certain that Five Talents’ work will be needed more than ever in eastern Africa. With your help, we are determined to make sure we can continue supporting our programmes and reaching out to new, even more vulnerable, regions too.
A renewed appreciation of the importance of resilience, community and (re)building local economies may make Five Talents relevant as never before to new UK supporters too. So as ever (indeed, as predicted on the January blog - that one came true!), we ask you please to keep telling others about our work.
Thank you for all your support. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.
1) How are our Savings Groups and local partners coping?
Savings Group meets in Baringo, November 2019.
So far, there have been thankfully relatively few deaths in the countries where we work compared with the UK; at the time of writing (12th May), WHO data shows 31,855 deaths in the UK and 99 deaths across the 6 countries in eastern Africa where we have programmes (0 recorded deaths in Uganda and South Sudan, 1 in Burundi, 21 in Tanzania, 33 in Kenya, 44 in DRC).
Is there a glimmer of hope that governments are containing the virus better than the US and the UK? As this challenging article asks: "the legacy of colonialism has perpetuated the lie that Black bodies are to be pitied and to exclusively be the recipients of aid. Is it possible for African people to be regarded as experts rather than passive victims?"
Many African countries have extensive experience of containing epidemics; in our programme in DR Congo, for example, the message of hand-washing was already well-known in the villages from Ebola, and health workers are familiar with contact tracing methods. Equally, though sadly, many of our Savings Groups are far better acquainted with crisis than we are here in the UK. They always live 'on the edge' and regularly face droughts, flooding, war, displacement, domestic violence, failed harvests, outbreaks of violence.... Does this make them better able to cope with a crisis like coronavirus than we are?
Or... Is the relatively low number of deaths due to under-reporting and lack of testing and diagnosis? Is the worst yet to come?
We must hope and pray not. The reality is that healthcare infrastructure where we work is weak. Kenya, for example, with a lower 'poverty count' than all of its neighbours, has just 130 ICU beds for a population of 50 million. And social distancing is impossible in over-crowded slums or markets, whilst hand-washing is an aspiration if you have no water, or soap. The virus could yet spread, and coupled with the impacts of drought, flooding, locusts and insecurity, the worst forecasts could come true.
We know that many of our members are already struggling economically. With no state assistance (indeed, perhaps the opposite), if our members cannot run their small businesses because markets have been closed, their savings will soon run out and they will be unable to put food on the table. And our members, who at least have some savings and have received training on planning for unexpected events, are more fortunate than others in their communities.
2) So how should Five Talents respond?
Member at her business in Baringo, November 2019.
Our experience is building resilience through savings, training and community groups BEFORE a crisis - we have no expertise in delivering relief after (or during) a crisis. Larger NGOs have Disaster Relief teams ready to act at a moment's notice - and they have the financial capacity to disburse millions of dollars in aid (or goods, or vouchers - without distorting local markets). Five Talents does not.
Equally, we have always said we give a hand-up, not a hand-out. Our funds pay a network of trainers across eastern Africa to unlock the 'talents' (skills and money) of communities themselves. Our message in every new community is that we give training - nothing else. It's a difficult message to deliver in communities which have become dependent on food aid after years of NGO programmes - but we find in the longer-term, it is much more sustainable and much more empowering. We believe communities have their own solutions. Resilience is local.
And if we were to turn to aid now - after all, we might say, these are unprecedented times (overused as that phrase is) - what happens in the next crisis? And the next? And the next? Sadly, there is almost always a state of crisis in the places where we work. That is why we work there.
Does that mean we should walk by on the other side of the road?
No, of course not. We want to stand by our communities in this and every crisis. The question is, how?
As ever, there is no one-size-fits-all answer - although there are some common principles. Broadly, we’re responding in four ways:
Pastorally (messages of encouragement and support to remote communities)
Health messaging (using our network of trainers to ensure even the hard to reach communities are hearing genuine WHO advice)
Technically (helping our savings groups think through how they can keep their assets safe at this time, or how to manage a ‘rush’ on the group savings)
Mapping (how are our groups coping in different places? What are they already doing to adapt? Which other agencies are there to help if it gets worse?)
We know these times are tough in different ways for everyone. We’ve all learnt the value of a friendly phone call or a smile in the street. We’re asking our programme leaders to share messages of encouragement with our groups everywhere too.
And everywhere we work, we want to make sure remote communities have heard genuine WHO advice on coronavirus. There is a lot of false information and damaging rumours. We have a vast network of trainers in the hard-to-reach places, who speak the local languages and are trusted by the communities. So we've asked all of our trainers to disseminate proper health messages and advice to all of our groups - including by phone where the groups themselves can no longer meet. We're also sharing messages of hope and encouragement in these isolating times.
Where Savings Groups can still meet physically (South Sudan, Burundi, DR Congo, Tanzania - albeit with social distancing or in smaller sub-groups), we're seeking to make sure they have plans in place in case a lockdown is suddenly imposed. How will they keep their savings safe in this period if the group has no bank account? Will they pause the savings cycle? Will they share out the group savings in case members need the money? How will they handle a large number of applications to the group emergency fund at once?
These discussions are not just focused on the group - we're also asking our members what plans they have to support others in their communities too. Each Group may have its own needs, but we know they are part of the solution too. They are groups of well-organised, dynamic women and men, used to leadership, used to handling money - we know many groups will already be planning for how they can help the most vulnerable in their own villages. We want to find out how, so we can support their ideas and share the good practices emerging with other groups.
Where our Groups can no longer meet (Kenya, Uganda, Myanmar, Bolivia), our trainers will be carrying out this data collection by phone to the Group leaders.
And everywhere, we are trying to map which other NGOs, Church or government agencies are present, and what they are doing to help. If the worst happens, we want to be able link our groups up with expert providers of aid, those with the capacity (financial, technical) and experience to deliver.
Will we launch an emergency appeal ourselves? We are still considering that. Right now it feels unlikely - but we might, if in the coming weeks and months we identify several groups with urgent needs for food, soap or other essentials and we can’t find any other agencies able to meet those needs. But, along with all the other caveats above, pragmatically we also need to be sure we could actually raise enough money to offer meaningful assistance. And we need to be sure we can raise that money from ‘new’ sources, without jeopardising our ability to continue funding our usual programmes. Compassion can’t always be strategic, but it doesn’t seem strategic to raise additional short-term funds now if that leaves us short of funding to pay our trainers in 6 months' time - when we know our work to rebuild local economies, which really is our expertise, is likely to be vital.
If we do raise any funds for emergency relief, we have three clear principles: to follow:
The funds would be in response to the needs expressed by communities themselves - otherwise, we risk falling into the trap of thinking we know what's best, despite our years of experience to the contrary!
The funds would be channelled through the Church or another appropriate agency - not through Five Talents partners. Otherwise, we risk creating a precedent that means our own partners cannot effectively deliver their trainings on self-reliance in future, and we risk over-burdening our partners who are not experts in delivering aid.
Any funds we raise would be for the whole community too, not just for our members.
But we are not at that stage yet - and we may never be. First, we need to do some more data collection to identify the gaps and the needs based on evidence, and to hear more about how our Savings Groups and the local Church are already responding themselves.
3) How much is Five Talents' income going to suffer?
Savings recorded at a Group meeting in Baringo, November 2019.
The British press is full of stories of charities facing catastrophic drops in their income. We're so grateful that so far, Five Talents has not lost any income. In fact, we have raised slightly more money so far in 2020 than at this stage of 2019. Unlike some charities, we don't rely on events (like galas, auctions, major sporting challenges) or charity shops to raise a large amount of funding to support our income. Instead, around two thirds of our income comes from generous, loyal individual supporters.
Of course, we know that some of those individual supporters may be struggling financially, whether through job insecurity or loss of investment income. We are expecting that some of our supporters may not be able to give as generously this year - and to you, we want to say of course we understand that. We would hate you to feel any pressure or obligation to give - now, or any time. We ask all our supporters to Pray (if you are a person of faith), Tell a friend about Five Talents, and lastly, to Give to our work. If you are unable to Give, please continue to Pray (if appropriate) and Tell. And let us know if you are in need of prayer or a friendly phone call yourself.
At the same time, some of our supporters have been more generous than ever before in this period. As always, but perhaps now more than ever, your support means so much and is so humbling. Thank you.
We've loved being able to keep in touch with our supporters in new ways during lockdown - much as we miss face to face contact, we're finding some of our supporters have a little more time to chat now, and others have been able to join our Zoom events where they could not have managed to attend in person.
We are continuing to monitor our income carefully and have prepared five different income forecasts for the year and identified some savings we are already making (reduced travel, for example, both in our programmes and amongst the UK team). We have also identified further savings we could make - which might, in the very last resort, include furloughing staff. However, that really would be a last resort.
We’ve lost count of how long we’ve been working from home now, but we remain really productive - I’m so proud of the way the team has adapted and remained so focused and committed. I know it’s foolish to make predictions, but I predict we will continue to need all of our small team firing on all cylinders so that we can keep raising funds and supporting our programmes as they too adapt to ever-changing circumstances. At present we are all incredibly busy, even at our kitchen tables, and grateful to be so since it shows you, our wonderful donors, are still giving - and that means our programmes are still thriving, even if differently from what we expected. Long may that continue.