Hearth Program Challenges

I will preface this post by saying that it is extremely critical (and long), mostly because I believe the project I am working on has enormous potential. I can be an awfully opinionated and critical person at times, and this is one of those times. However, I feel incredibly lucky to be working with the Hearth model and I have tremendous respect for PCV who lived here before me, and the work she did. Having said that… 

One of the incredible things about the Positive Deviant/Hearth model is that it requires very little funding. Peace Corps Volunteers should be able to conduct a Hearth course without having to fill out any grant proposals or ask for outside resources. Generally, Peace Corps projects rely on partnership with the community. The best projects come from initiatives made by local stakeholders, who have the most invested in the project’s success, with PCVs acting simply as facilitators. 

At my health center, Peace Corps provided an enormous one-time grant for this project. In the words of my former roommate, the health center accountant (who is considered by people in my community to be rich), funding for the Hearth Project was “more money than she had seen in her entire life”.

The money was used to buy some durable goods (notebooks, pens, cooking pots), lots of ingredients for cooking (corn flour, soy flour, dried fish, oil), take-away’s for Hearth participants (soap, chlorine, live chickens) and lots, lots of per diems. Money for the project is now gone—all spent. Left are ingredients for the cooking classes and staff members who are expecting to get paid.

Now you might be thinking to yourself, Alma, you are a heartless ice queen. Are you turning into a republican? Since when did you become so fiscally conservative? You live in a country where annual per capita income is $290 and the poverty rate is 64%, what could possibly be wrong with providing extra cash flow? The answer is quite a few things.

Let me just briefly comment (ok, let me complain about) the ridiculous number of Western NGOs dropping all sorts of materials, projects and cash in Rwanda and then leaving. I’m not saying these organizations are bad or that I know better, I’m just saying it makes my job (and explaining my job) a lot harder. Dependency on foreign assistance in Rwanda, particularly in the health sector, is enormous. This is not what Peace Corps Volunteers are supposed to do. Unfortunately, the Hearth Project, bringing in such an incredible amount of money, has rather distorted the perception of Peace Corps and the PCV in my community. 

I discussed the issue of per diems in a previous blog post. With the former volunteer, every time someone in the community helped with the Heart Project they received daily per diem. Providing per diem when there is all weekend training makes sense. Paying the nutritionist per diem to weigh children in the community (i.e., her job) does not. The expectation that I would continue providing per diem has been challenging and very frustrating to break. Not only do my coworkers see no incentive to work on the project; but also I am once again seen as inferior to the previous volunteer because she gave them money and I do not.

Luckily, my counterpart is an incredible woman who cares about the children in her community. After lots of grunting and eye rolling, we settled on me buying her a drink and brochettes (delicious barbequed goat meat) at the beginning and end of each Hearth course.  

The fundamental problem with providing so much to the Hearth Project, however, is that by giving almost all the cooking supplies to mothers (not to mention the chickens), the core objective of the course is defeated. Oil, soy flour, and dried fish are available locally, but more expensive than the beans and nutrition-less sweet potatoes that poor families feed their children everyday. By requiring mothers to bring ingredients to the class, parents realize that they are able to provide for themselves and that the slightly higher cost is worth it when their children are healthy. When I provide the ingredients, mothers understand what foods help their children grow but still think it’s impossible to do without assistance.

These are issues I am working on. For starters, my counterpart and I are going back to the villages where Hearth classes have already been conducted (some already a whole year back) and seeing whether or not mothers have retained the information learned and children are healthy. Through monitoring and evaluation I hope to help my counterpart and other health staff members understand the downfalls of simple handouts and the importance of sustainability. Stay tuned!

Jeannette, who began the Hearth Program crying every time
she saw me and ended up my best friend