Community Participation

The people we serve have been our guiding partners from the very beginning of the East African Center.  In August 2001, our Founder and former Executive Director, Suzanne Wilson, met with leaders and many members of the village of Takaungu to discuss the possibility of future projects there.  The village council expressed a strong desire to work with us, and we conducted a participatory rural appraisal between January and April 2002. From this appraisal we listened to the needs of the community and began planning several programs to address these needs.  In particular, the community wanted a nursery school for their children, educational programs for adults, training to develop marketable skills, and health information and services.We continue to use community participation in order to monitor and evaluate our current programs and in reaching out to neighboring communities to assess their needs.