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3-11
Funding
Most training courses we know about depend on funding from sources outside
the area being served. The amount of outside funding varies greatly from program to
program. As a general rule, the more modest the funding, the more appropriate
the training.
The struggle to manage with very limited outside funding can be a valuable
learning experience for those involved in a training program. It helps bring the
program closer to the reality of the people it serves, and closer to the community as
a whole.
For example, a community-based training program in Nuevo Leon, Mexico was
begun with very little money. The students and instructors started by building their
own mud-brick training center with the help of local villagers.
Later, when outside funding was stopped, the staff and students began raising
goats and other animals, and opened a small butcher shop. Their struggle to survive
economically brought the community and the health program closer together. When
we visited, we were struck by the close, caring relationships between people in the
village and participants in the training program.
Outside funding often means outside control. Therefore, it is usually wise to
allow no more than half the funding for a health or development activity to
come from outside the area served. If at least half the funding is provided locally,
there is more of a chance that control of the program will also be local. Then, in a very
real way, the program will belong to the people.
In Project Piaxtla, Mexico, each village that sends a student to the training
course is encouraged to pay half of his or her living expenses during training.
Other programs in Central America organize villagers to help with their health
worker’s farming or other work while he is away at training. This helps the village
feel more responsibility for its health worker. And it helps the health worker feel
more responsible to his village.