Whose idea was the white polo shirt anyways?

Lake Kivu from Bethany Hotel

One of my first assignments for USAID's Feed the Future project was a week-long trip to the Lake Kivu region near the Rwanda-DRC border. The people who live in this region boast that the lake is free of crocodiles and hippos so I had hoped to do a little swimming while there. Alas, I never got to swim. Looking at the water, however, was still enjoyable as I ate breakfast near the lake shore each morning. It was a wonderfully calm way to begin my day. This is something I lack in NYC as I am usually greeted by traffic and trash-filled streets on my morning commute. I've learned to endure (sometimes even enjoy) the chaos.

My team began the week by attending USAID CHAIN collaboration meetings and learning events in Rutsiro district. These meetings are designed to reduce overlapping services and build partnerships among USAID implementing partners ideally ensuring that services are distributed in the most efficient and equitable manner. This is particularly important in the Western Province of Rwanda where childhood stunting is the highest in the country, often upwards of 50%, and development funds are a valuable tool in the plan to eliminate malnutrition in the area. 

USAID CHAIN meeting in Rutsiro district

Following the CHAIN meetings, we began our visits to Hinga Weze beneficiaries. The goal of these visits was to check on the quality of our program's nutrition messaging which is disseminated through program trainers and community health workers. Additionally, after our site visits, we worked with Hinga Weze district staff to identify gaps and opportunities for growth in the coming year. 

Physically accessing most of our beneficiaries' communities required a rough 4 wheel drive up the never-ending hills of Rwanda. The dry season has already caused a desertification of the dirt roads turning them into gentle slopes of fine orange sand. As our convoy of very predictable white pickup trucks (plastered with giant development logos, of course) ventured through each community, we caused huge dust storms to emerge, often slowing the convoy to a crawl. I wondered how these communities felt about the orange dirt baths we were showering their homes with. Annoyed? Apathetic? Ambivalent? Also, whose idea was it to create white polo shirts for field staff uniforms? My guess is someone who hadn't been to any of these communities as my recently gifted white polos were now dyed a nice Oompa Loompa shade of orange. Finally, we would emerge in each community. We were greeted by short concrete buildings, some painted with cell phone company logos, and red dirt homes occasionally equipped with small solar panels. We repeated this process for two days, visiting multiple beneficiary communities in Rutsiro district. 

Care group SBCC nutrition session

Since I work with component 3 (nutrition) my responsibilities during this trip were focused on visiting care groups (community groups committed to improving the nutritional status of their families) in order to ensure the high quality and accuracy of Hinga Weze's SBCC nutrition messaging regarding dietary diversity, the first 1000 days of life as well the status of our kitchen garden demo plots. Visiting care groups and engaging with them is an important step in the MEL process as it ensures that the SBCC messaging developed, usually at headquarters and government offices, is properly adapted to the context of beneficiary communities. Mainly we ask, Are care groups understanding the message? Are they retaining the knowledge? Do we see beneficiaries incorporating this messaging into their lives? If the answer is no, then it signals an issue that the nutrition team must address. Maybe the messages were too reliant upon academic/scientific nutrition terms (eg. stunting) instead of everyday language. Or maybe a district trainer has misunderstood the nutrition messaging and needs to be retrained. Or it's possible that we targeted illiterate beneficiaries with language heavy posters that should have incorporated more images. Whatever the reason may be, it is important to learn these lessons while the project is still in its first year. There is so much careful planning and hard work put into developing these messages in coordination with the government of Rwanda, however, each community has diverse needs and will require diverse strategies for nutrition interventions. As a program committed to results for beneficiaries and partners, Hinga Weze strives to internalize this message in all of our programming. 

Kitchen garden demo plot in Rutsiro

During our team's visits, I was also able to observe care group cooking demonstrations which promote the use of vegetables from the kitchen gardens Hinga Weze has supported and developed within these communities. When done well, kitchen gardens can improve dietary diversity and meal frequency. Additionally, cooking demonstrations provide vital information surrounding the preparation and incorporation of new crops into family diets. These demonstrations are part of an overarching strategy to increase the effectiveness of our kitchen garden intervention and ultimately improve the nutrition status of Rwandan women of reproductive age and children 6-23 months, two groups with a heightened risk of malnutrition due to their increased nutritional needs. 

It was a privilege to visit these districts and be welcomed in by the communities Hinga Weze consistently works with. I learned an immense amount from the activities we engaged in as well as the individuals who took the time to meet with us. I am excited to use this new understanding to better inform my work at headquarters. And in case you were wondering, my once white polo shirts are still a spectacular shade of orange creamsicle post-wash. The shirts are much improved, in my opinion.