5.12P 1

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HELPING COMMUNITIES TO MAINTAIN BUILDINGS
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Part I A TEN STEP GUIDE

• Planning with the Community
• Good planning means that resources available now
  and in the future are identified and used in the
  best possible way.
• Planning reduces uncertainty. Professionals the
  Community know what resources can be used and
  when, as well as what contributions are required
  from each side.
• Planning provides a base from which to decide
  what we want to achieve and what to do when
  resources are scarce.
• Planning with the community helps to identify the
  goals, aims and objectives of each party and for
  these to be included into an action plan.
• Planning depends on having good quality
  information and for the free sharing of that
  information between all parties.

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Part I A TEN STEP GUIDE

• Working together with communities
• The aim is to create feelings of community
  ownership of buildings that were erected by the
  government but are now required to be managed and
  maintained by the community, but not to make the
  community do the task of the Government at no
  cost, which is a very common argument.
• What Sort of Participation?
• Successful involvement in decision-making,
  controlling the programme and where local people
  play an active and direct role in project
  development is vital.
• The best programme results come when all the
  community, their leaders, and the officers are
  involved equally.
• Money should be available to pay for some work
  and as far as possible, that money should stay
  within the community. This can happen through
  community contracts for work
• Existing community organisations can promote
  participation but they have to represent all
  sections of the community

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Part I A TEN STEP GUIDE

• How to Promote Good Relations Between Officers
  and the Community
• Often there are feelings of mistrust between
  communities and the local authority. To overcome
  these feelings of mistrust, local authority
  officers have to plan and budget carefully to
  make sure that promises can be kept.
• Professionals have to respect local peoples
  views and attitudes.
• Effective partnerships require that all sections
  of the community are consulted, that women as
  well as men are asked for opinions and that
  meetings are located and timed to suit the other
  commitments of the participants

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Part I A TEN STEP GUIDE

• Finding out about the community
•  Having identified the building to be renovated,
  the local authority engineer needs to contact the
  community to start involving the local people.
  Professionals and the community can draw up a
  list of stakeholders.
• There are a number of tools, which can be used to
  interact with communities. One very popular one
  is called the Participatory Learning Approaches
  (PLA).

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Part I A TEN STEP GUIDE

• Consulting the community about what is to be
  maintained
• Hold public meetings with members of the
  community. Ensure full coverage of all ethnic
  and caste groups, occupations and incomes,
  landowners and tenants, men and women and of all
  ages.  
• Outline the plan and all options open for
  discussion and receive comments from the
  community. Assess community interest and
  capacity for involvement and ask how they want to
  be involved.
• Consider whether the community needs help in
  organisation and management of its inputs? Does
  the community have experience of working
  together? Are the differences in the community
  significant enough to hinder the project?

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Part I A TEN STEP GUIDE

• Consider what training is needed to help the
  community participate fully in all aspects of the
  project, especially for bookkeeping and
  management skills.
• Investigate what external resources are available
  to help promote community organisation and
  capacity from government, local authority, and
  NGO sources?
• Access and implement training according to the
  time available for participants.
• Consider what activities may help create
  community organisational capacity and information
  collection

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Part I A TEN STEP GUIDE

• Priorities and management of maintenance and
  repair work
• The community should be able to draw up lists of
  problems, needs and priorities for the local area
  and that decision making should allow the
  community to choose what to prioritise for
  action.
• Local authority officers and the community should
  conduct joint inspections of the building and its
  surrounding area and discuss ideas for
  improvement and then draw up a list of
  priorities.
• The process of discussion and deciding on
  priorities is very helpful for the community.

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Part I A TEN STEP GUIDE

• Doing the maintenance and repair work
• The community needs to form a Community
  Management Committee or Group to run the project.
  Community organisations can allocate unskilled
  labour, source voluntary labour and manage the
  work in progress. Liaison between the local
  authority engineer and the community management
  committee enables the hire and supervision of
  workers to undertake more complex, technical
  tasks beyond local capability
• 9. Record Keeping, transparency in accounting for
  communities
• Communities should manage the financial control
  of the repair and maintenance work as far as is
  possible

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Part I A TEN STEP GUIDE

• Evaluating and continuing the programme
• One of the hardest aspects of working
  with communities is in maintaining commitment.
  There are a number of ways of promoting continued
  involvement
• Helping the community to regularly review the
  work that has been done through monthly public
  meetings.
• Holding evaluation meetings to discuss how
  members felt about the way the work was
  approached, managed and paid for helps to keep
  interest, promote effective management and
  presents opportunities for errors and
  malpractices to be recognised and removed from
  the programme. Sorting out errors reduces
  ill-feeling and promotes better working
  relationships.
•  

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Part I A TEN STEP GUIDE

• Regular inspection visits to the building and the
  checking on of problems that are developing keeps
  community involved.
•  
• Including maintenance issues into the agendas of
  regular Parent Teacher Association or other user
  group meetings maintains awareness.
•  
• Setting targets for maintenance activities and
  posting these on a notice board located in the
  community.

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PART II COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN THE ON SITE
DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

• Context
• Community Assets and infrastructure are major
  support structures and civic amenities that are
  provided to supplement better quality of life in
  human settlements thereby ensuring good habitat
  practices.
• The attitude of "non-involvement" of the users at
  every stage practically alienates the
  beneficiaries from the valued vision of the
  benefactor because the former often fail to
  comprehend the multiple dynamics purposefully
  included in the implementation process of such
  assets in view of certain tangible benefits.
  Thus, the entire purpose of developmental
  activities is largely defeated on the ground of
  sustainability.

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PART II COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN THE ON SITE
DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

• Context
• The on-site demonstration on "Community Asset
  Management (CAM) " program at Huda Bhoi Sahi
  (HBS) is a pilot project initiated by HSMI,
  HUDCO, Bhubaneswar in association with Max lock
  Centre, University of Westminster to examine the
  said convictions and to thereby conclude the need
  to have CAM for all such creation of Assets.

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PART II COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN THE ON SITE
DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

• Objectives
• The major objectives of the on-site demonstration
  are
• To ensure wholesole public participation
  (janbhagidari) of the community by extending
  their mental, physical and financial contribution
  towards the qualitative renovation of the school
  building and its peripheral infrastructural
  development.
• To economise the implementation cost of the
  project by dispensing with the cost of
  contractor, middle-man and the cost for watch and
  ward, so that the money saved can be utilised in
  enhancing the quality of work through the use of
  quality building materials.
• To avoid any kind of non-cooperation,
  prolongation, stagnation, financial
  misappropriation or corruption during the
  implementation of the project.

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PART II COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN THE ON SITE
DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

• Objectives
• To elevate a sense of ownership for the
  community asset and thus pride in the minds of
  the community by ensuring sweat contribution
  (free labour) at the cost of their daily
  livelihood-
• To ensure sustainability of the community
  infrastructure so that the beneficiaries of the
  group avails the benefits of the project
  perpetually.
• To elevate technical expertise, dissemination of
  cost effective technology and execution among the
  community to manage the project independently.
• To generate awareness among the beneficiary
  thereby generation of quality, progress and
  belongingness resulting in capacity built up.
• Disseminate the learning of the project to a
  larger group ensuring the concept of lab to land
  under the objective of Building Centre Movement.

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PART II COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN THE ON SITE
DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

• Need for the Demonstration
• To evolve a feasible mechanism for smooth
  implementation of construction-related
  development activities so that the mechanism can
  be replicated elsewhere as a model for
  development.
• To establish transparency between the
  beneficiaries and benefactors, is essential in
  all developmental initiatives to avoid any kind
  of attempt by either party to hijack the sense of
  development in its favour.
• The need to transfer minimum technological
  know-how amongst the people is increasingly
  essential these days, as its creates awareness
  for cost-effective technology and building
  components in construction among the users
  besides maximises the utility of resources
  available through the process of capacity
  building.
• Transfer of technologies through "community
  participation" builds up the capacity of the
  communities and helps them to sustain the
  environment in the interest of mankind.

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PART II COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN THE ON SITE
DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

• Assessment of Community
• The community is homogeneous socio-economically,
  and all the 110 families are living with close
  proximity to one another in amiable condition
• The community comprises of labour class with
  average earning of Rs 60 per man-day and Rs 30
  per woman day.

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PART II COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN THE ON SITE
DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

• Assessment of Community
• The community is hierarchically organised.

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PART II COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN THE ON SITE
DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

• Assessment of Community
• The influence of peoples organisation on the
  community living can be summarised
  diagrammatically as

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PART II COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN THE ON SITE
DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

• Assessment of Community
• The fringe adverse physical conditions of the
  school and its environment as well as economic
  constraints compels the community to improve the
  conditions of their habitat on their own as
  government or any other external assistance has
  not been facilitating their need.
• The entire community in the habitation
  participated in unison to facilitate the
  construction of 110 uniform dwelling units in a
  record time of one year under a special program
  called as " Kalinga Kutir Yojana ".

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PART II COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN THE ON SITE
DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

• Outcomes of the Project
• The community has participated and contributed in
  decision making in designing, layout, space
  utilisation, repositioning and modifying certain
  items like fixing of gate.
• Quality of work has been assured by involving the
  group. The community has maintained the right
  specification and standard for all items
  accomplished as per their satisfaction.
  Inadequate "curing" which is a universal
  phenomenon has been well taken care for all
  cement works. In this case the community as well
  as the student of the school have poured water
  periodically from the nearby tube-well on all new
  works.