Acronyms
IGA – Income Generating Activities
KII- Key Informant Interview
FGD- Focus Group Discussion
List of Appendices
Appendix A – Interview guide for community members
Appendix B – Interview guide for wereda government officials
Appendix C – Focus Group Discussion (FGD) guide for the community members (male and female separately)
Appendix D – Observation Checklist
Appendix E – Group Action plan
Appendix F – list of assessment participants
1. Executive Summary
2. Purpose of the Community
The purpose of the assessment was aimed at exploring existing community resources/capacities, Strength and Asset, and their needs so as to submit the findings to school of social work and concerned government offices. 3. Methodology
4.1. Data collection Instruments
In order to learn about the Ankorcha community we collected both primary and secondary data. Primary Data was collected through key informant interview, Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and observation. Whereas, secondary data collected form Women, children, and youth Affairs and Health offices of Woreda 10. 3.1.1. Key informant interview: To get in-depth information, semi-structured interview was conducted with woreda administration official who is assigned for Ankorcha community, a person from micro enterprise who is responsible for Group formation and IGA introduction in the area, Idir leaders (Individuals who lead a community association organized for community self-help), and community elders who are residents of the area for a long time. 3.1.2. Focus Group Discussion (FGD) - Two groups, male and female, comprising 13 members each, were selected to discuss on the questions formulated. 3.1.3. Observation: we conducted observation by walking in most parts/ villages of Ankorcha in two groups. The observation we made was assisted by checklist prepared ahead. During the process, we took pictures of some of the community’s resources, assets and building blocks. 3.1.4. Document review: Periodical reports in wereda 10 offices that inform about the Ankorcha community profile and development efforts were reviewed by the from the GIS found in the wereda administration office.
3. The Assessment Procedure
4.1. Action plan and Division of roles
From the very commencement, we have held a meeting with the group members on how to carry out the community assessment. At this point a group leader and a treasury were appointed. Then we proceed to the preparation of an action plan that clearly depicts all the activities which should take place throughout the assessment process. The action plan depicts what should be done, who should do what and when it should be done. At this point, group members contributed some amount of money and given to the treasury so that the members could spend it for their expenses such as transportation, photocopy, lunch and others throughout the assessment. At the end of our discussion, each member was given the assignment to identify a community for investigation and come up with justification for considering that specific community for the next meeting. The following day, we identified our target population and made a thorough discussion on how to proceed to the next step.
4.2. Pre assessment field visit
After completing the action plan and other prior activities, three individuals were given the responsibility to carry out a pre assessment visit to the site where the target population is located. Those group members then made the field visit, met government officials, held discussions which helped to get entry information and made all the arrangements for the upcoming meeting which would be held with the key informants, community leaders, residents and others who were thought to be providing essential information about the community under consideration. During the same day they succeeded in reviewing some documents such as annual reports, ‘one to five’ network and the woreda profile. Based on the information gathered from the pre assessment visit, method of data collection were chosen and data gathering tools for Key Informant Interview, FGD and observation questionnaires were developed by two of the group members and thorough discussion was made on it the following day. After making all the required improvements and elaborations on the data collection tools, we identified resources/facilities we required such as photo camera and other utilities for undertaking the assessment. Then all the group members moved to the site for the actual data collection.
4.3. Conducting the assessment
Following finalizing the questionnaires for each of the above data collection methods/assessment tools and other prior activities, the members moved to Woreda 10 administration located in Yeka Sub city where Ankorcha is found.
Through greater cooperation from the woreda administration, children youth and women Affairs officers of the woreda, we traveled to Ankorcha as per our schedule and met the ketena representatives, who in turn facilitated conditions for the assessment by contacting us with different Ankorcha community representatives. We undertook data collection for three consecutive days (April 2 - 4, 2014) through the three methods indicated above.
4.4. Data organization and analysis
The next task was organization of the data. We discussed on findings of the collected data as a group and carried out data organization and analysis individually as we found it convenient. Each of the group members came up with the analysis the other day we met. This session greatly helped us to make a through reflection on what each of us had done, on the basis of which we made further collective enrichment and agreed upon what the whole final document content would look like. Two of the group members were assigned for the preparation of the final assessment report. Then the final draft of the document was distributed to each member for further comment and editing. After the group met for last time and reviewed the document and incorporated all comments, the document was finalized and made ready in hard and soft copy for submission. 4. Limitations of the Assessment
This assessment has not come to an end without any challenges faced. Primarily; availability of limited sources of secondary data made it challenging to illustrate a comprehensive and accurate picture of the Ankorcha community. Most of the available sources lack specific information of the community as it deals with Woreda 10 as a whole.
Another major hindering factor while conducting this assessment was the bad weather condition i.e. rain which halt our field visit twice and forced us to make revision on our schedule and revisit the place for an additional day.
Besides; it was difficult to meet some government officials due to their busy schedule of the day-to-day activities and meeting sessions. However; the group has waited till the officials are ready for discussions and facilitate further contact with the community.
Despite these limitations, we hope this assessment will serve as a valuable tool for service providers in identifying means to better work with Ankorcha community.
5. Findings
6.1. Background 6.1.1. Historical profile of the community
According to one of the key informant A, the native residents were the Oromo ethnic group farmers who used to cultivate wheat, barley, ‘gesho’, beans and who also used to rear cattle and sheep. As per the information we gathered from one of the key informant B, during the Hailessilasie regime, most part of ‘Ankorcha’ was owned by landlords. There were Peasants who used to plough the land and pay tribute for the land lords. Lately, because of the response to the popular “land for the tiller” movement, the Derg regime transferred the land to the peasants.
When we take a look at the settlement pattern at Ankorcha, during the 1950s, there were merchants who came from wollo and shewa for merchandizing cattle who used the place as a destination and shelter for themselves and their herd. The expansion of trade around ‘Shoal Gebeya’ as a new cattle market allowed those merchants become permanent residents and the first place was named ‘Amarochu’ or ‘Wollo Sefer’ within Ankorcha.
As time passed, the settlement pattern become more rapid given different factors like the growth of urbanization in Addis Ababa which resulted in the high cost of land and house construction and such pressures forced people to move to Ancorcha where they were able to buy a stride of land for not more than 3 – 4 birr in 1990’s.
Regarding the place’s name, there were two assertions. One of the key informant forwarded that the place ‘Ankorcha’ has its name from two oromifa words ‘Anna’ which means region and ‘qochha’ which means tortoise, which indicates the gradual development and expansion taking place by then. Yet, the other key informants asserted that ‘Ankorcha’ means ‘decent people’ and the place was named afterwards. 6.1.2. Community and Leadership Structure
Anchorcha is one of the 11 Ketenas of Woreda 10 in Yeka Sub city of Addis Ababa City Administration. It is mountainous area with ragged surface and where connecting roads are hardly found. Since the road is covered neither with asphalt nor with gravel, movement of people is extremely difficult during the rainy season.
The community has established various committees and has organized structures that are responsible for carrying out their own specific tasks. For instance; in keeping the security of the village, the community contributes birr 10 monthly per household and hired securities who jointly work with community policing structures outside the community. Besides, the community elders, ‘shemagiliwoch’ have special role like settling disputes and arranging traditional marriage.
On the other hand, the community has established developmental committee which functions in the development endeavors of the area. The development committee facilitates collaboration among members for common developmental agenda. For instance, by contributing birr 1500 per household and their own man power, the community has managed to build a concrete bridge which was formerly made of wood and couldn’t pass track or heavy load.
Figure: the old bride made of wood (left), the new bridge made of concrete (right)
In addition, the community has managed to install electricity through collaborative effort of its members. Needless to mention, members of the community contributed birr 1,300per household for installing electricity. Apart from financial contribution, members of the community from the children to the older have contributed their labor and skill. By the same token, a gravel road which covers around 3 kms is constructed by the financial, material, technical, labor contribution of Ankorcha community. Members of the community without support from any external agency stood at the forefront in constructing the road which didn’t enter vehicle before.
Figure: Anchorcha community members constructing road
Furthermore, the community has initially extracted underground water and channeled it to different villages for its members. Later, the community’s effort is supported by the government through constructing water filter and water points at different villages of the community.
Such developmental initiatives of the community were given recognition from the concerned government agencies. To this end, in 2014 the community was awarded a cup for its self initiated and sustained developmental achievements. The community is seen as a model for others seeing to its self initiated development and remarkable results.
Figure: Award given for Ankorcha community for its self initiated developmental results 6.1.3. Demographic characteristic of the community
The Ankorcha community is composed of residents of different ethnic groups predominantly Oromo, Amhara, and Gamo who relocated from ‘Sihro Meda’ area in search of cheaper house rent and plot of land. Though it was difficult to get accurate data, the population of woreda 10 is estimated to be around 38,549 of which 19,644 are male and the remaining 18,905 are female dwellers. Yet the same source indicates that currently there are more than 571 households in ‘Anchorcha’ who lead life as permanent residents.
Orthodox Christianity, Protestant, and Muslim religions are the three predominant religions in Anchorcha community. With regard to other variables namely; age category, educational background, disability and health status, the group was unable to find reliable information.
6.1. Economic Characteristics 6.2.1. Community’s Means of Income
The Occupation, Income and saving means of ‘Ankorcha’ community members are mainly generated from an engagement in daily labor work, ( lesagni, masonry, carpentry work the like) and agricultural crop production (teff, bean, wheat barely etc). Young members of the community engaged in activities such as, work in garages, and working in factories that are found outside the community as carter.
Figure showing plough land and daily laborer of the community
Furthermore, some women community members sell `Tela`, `Hareke` and prepare `Shiro`, `Berebere`, `Ambasha` , selling animal wastes like `kubet`, Informal means of income like weaving, firewood such as collecting leaves of the tree from jungle as a means of income generating mechanisms. There are also people we rent house for newcomers. For instance, we saw very little muddy houses that is rented for birr cost 250- 400 birr per month. Figure: 4.showing petty trade` leaf of the tree collectors, sell `tella`in `Ankorcha` community
Apart from the above, some `Ankorcha` community members uses donkey as means of incomes through donkey rent, giving transportation service in construction area and `wefcho bet`, fetching water for individual and deviling to community members using donkey
Figure showing donkey transport service in `Ankorcha` community Even though, the above explanation seemed helpful to meet the basic needs of community members, they are still depending on `hand to mouth` livelihood experience. Despite the fact that Ethiopia is experiencing an accelerating rate of cost of living, most community members are elders (aged) whose income is only daily laborer and students who are dependent on their families.
Figure showing animal diary and children kindergarten school in`Ankorcha` community
6.2. Public Service Characteristics
Social development is practiced across of broad range of sectors, i.e., public and private institutions and organizations that seek to promote "the common good" through the provision of highly specialized services and other activities (Richard,1998). According to our observation, Ankorcha community has a problem of infrastructure development like roads, health center, school, clean drinking water, grain mill and recreational centers and so forth.
6.3.2. Transportation
There is no public and private transportation service in the community. This is mainly due to lack of transportation route which enables vehicles to access the community. The community mainly uses traditional means of transportation – like donkey and man labor for the transportation of fire wood, fetching water and for the transportation of grains. The shortage of transportation and well-constructed roads with in Ankorcha make life difficult for residents during the winter period, especially for elderly, pregnant women, disabled people and children. The residents must travel a minimum of 30 minutes to reach the final destination of public taxis outside Ankorcha (participants of FGD, March 03, 2014). To address the transportation problem and solve the problem of mobility While crossing the river towards the Taxi destination mainly during winter the community constructed a bridge which connects the southern part of Ankorcha with the main roads to Koteba by their full participation and contribution through their labor, cost, and skill (Key Informant A, March 03, 2014). 6.3.3. Education and Health Services Education and health facilities are other problems residents of Ankocha are encountered with. There is only one privately owned Kindergarten school in Ankorcha. Due to the economic problem and access of education in the area most children of the Ankorcha start attending school lately at around the age of 11. Because they need to travel long distances, cross dense forests and unable to escape from the potential risks in the way to school like rape and Hyena (participants of FGD, March 03,2014).
There is also a gap of health institution in the community. The nearest Health center is the Woreda 10 Health center which takes more than 30 minutes from Ankorcha. According to the information we got from key informant (Key informant D, March 03, 2014) they usually use human labor to carry the sick and pregnant woman to the Woreda 10 health center. We have observed the start of the health extension program in the area. There is a good start in some households in the sanitation, hygiene and garbage collection. However, FGD discussants (March 03, 2014) indicated that health extension workers visited the community rarely due to the distance from the health center and they come mainly for health campaigns. 6.3.4. Voluntary Agencies and availability of services Governmental, private and voluntary service delivery agencies are not found at Ankorcha. According to the key informant from the woreda Administration (Key Informant B, March 02, 2014) Rapid International, Children Growth Connection, Ethiopian Orthodox church, Families and Children foundation, and worldwide orphan foundation are currently working with woreda 10 Administration and the Ankorcha community also benefited from these voluntary agencies but not addressing the majority of resident problems at Ankorcha. Children Cross Connection supported 16 donkeys for the poor women who engaged in fire wood collection. According to one of the beneficiaries from the community her husband was dead and she live in a rented house with three children and life was very challenging for her. After she got a Donkey from Children Cross Connection, she generates additional income by increasing the amount of fire wood collected and fetching water for residents. Her daily income becomes more than doubled from birr 25 per day, her life condition also progressed and her two children started attending school and having meal three times a day (Key Informant C, March 02, 2014).
In general, from our observation and collected data the basic public services like health, education, water and sanitation, and road are very minimal in the community. In this regard, the assistance provided by both governmental and non governmental agencies is far from being sufficient. 6.3. Community asset map and building blocks
In Ankorecha Community there are assets found in individual, associational, institutional and the broader community level. Through interview, document review, focus group discussion and observation, we understand the community has various assets. Asset mapping helps us to identify the community’s asset. As cited in Wassie, Melese and Dessalgn (2012), Asset map is developed to describe major community assets.
While we develop Ankorecha community asset map, we put the gift of individuals at the center of the map; citizen’s association next to the gifts of the individuals; and at the periphery of the community’s asset map is the local institutions. In doing so, Assets of the Ankorecha community can be conceptualized in three building blocks: primary building blocks, secondary building blocks and potential building blocks. 6.4.5. Primary building blocks of Ankorecha community
In this block, individual assets; personal income in which most of the community members are daily laborers that had income; the gift of labeled peoples of engaged in weaving, painter, carpenters, masonry; home based enterprise in which most women have the knowledge and skill of preparing local alcohol (tela, teje and areki), scrambled injera, baking injera; and indigenous knowledge and skill of farm tool construction, construction of housing are some of the primary building blocks
Gifted labeled people (weaver) while he is weaving
In this primary building block there are also Citizens association, physical asset and institutions. Citizens association like small financial associations (Iqub, Community saving and credit association ); Individual Farming land, private forest, extractable underground water, arable and grazing land, Construction Stone, and Idir, Church, Ekub, shops, liquor house, and cattle.
Cattles and trees as assets of Ankorecha community under primary building blocks 6.4.6. Secondary Building Blocks
As Ankorecha community is far from the urban and very semi urban area , there are not enough government institutions like school, health post, hospital, civil society organizations, private companies and other institutions. We found government owned forestry, kindergarten school, and police station
Forestry owned by the government found in Ankorecha community 6.4.7. Potential Building Blocks
In this building block, there are assets which could be accessible, available and helpful for the development of Ankorecha community. Schools, Health center, Woreda Administration offices found in the Wored 10 Yeka sub city, bank, small and micro finance enterprise, police station, Government sector offices, Consumers association, 02 public market, construction sites like sunshine, Ayat, and grain meal are some of the potential building blocks of Ankorecha community assets. Voluntary agencies which have no office in the community like Rapid International, Children Growth connection which supported donkey, worldwide Orphan Foundation , Ethiopia Orthodox Church – Families and Children Organization that supported medical , scholastic and livelihood for OVC are some of the potential assets .This civil society organization are delivering service. However, they had no office.
Secondary Building Blocks: * government owned forestry, * kindergarten school and * police station which is owned by the community
Primary Building Blocks: * personal income -daily laborers income; * the gift of labeled peoples of engaged ( weaving, painter, carpenters, masonry) * home based enterprise -most women have the knowledge and skill of preparing local alcohol (tela, teje and areki), scrambled injera, baking injera * indigenous knowledge and skill od farm tool construction, construction of housing * Citizens association, physical asset and institutions. Citizens association like small financial associations (Iqub, Community saving and credit association ) * Individual Farming land * private forest, extractable underground water, * arable and grazing land, Construction Stone, and Idir, Church, Ekub, shops, liquor house * Cattle.
Community asset maps
Ankorecha community Asset
Potential Building Blocks: * Voluntary agencies like Rapid International, Children Growth connection, worldwide Orphan Foundation , Ethiopia Orthodox Church * Nearby woreda’s Schools, Health center, Woreda Administration offices, bank, small and micro finance enterprise, police station, * Other Government sector offices, Consumers association, 02 public market, * construction sites like sunshine, Ayat, and * grain meal
6. Ankorecha Community Needs
The community has lots of both basic and strategic needs. The following are the major needs identified according to their priority through interview and focus group discussion.
Road: infrastructure like road in Ankorecha community is the prioritized needs .the community is isolated from the main city and the government administration is even far from the community. This is due to mainly the absence of road. The community is not easily communicated with others due to the difficult roads. There is no asphalt road. Due to this, farmers are not able to sell their products to urban communities.
Roads (left) and bridge (right) constructed by the community
The Ankorecha community have also pure water needs ( they fetched 2 jerikan water per 3 days), educational needs (no primary and secondary schools due to this Children are forced to travel more than 2 KM to get school), clinics, health posts and other health care institutions. Broken water point (left) and girls fetching water from river Ankorecha community needs 7. Discussion
The community in Ankorcha, like other community members around Addis Ababa, has its own specific culture, life style, social and economic characters. The assessment group, with full involvement of the community members in the area, has tried to collect the detail information on the overall status of the community to inform those concerned bodies that are deemed to have stake in their future development and wellbeing.
The settlement of the community in the area has started long years ago without the knowledge of the government simply by purchasing a plot of land from individuals, who owned large size of it. Since then, the settlers don’t have any legal land tenure or certificate recognized by the government. As the result, most of the community members have still reservation on their property ownership and waiting for the rumors around the government officials to be practical and get their legal entity. However, the area is still under the supervision of the wereda administration office and the government is getting frequent information on their development endeavors through the assigned person by the management in the Administration. The government has also installed electric power station for all community members but the question here is why the legal recognition was not given to their land tenure and village plan if they accepted their official demand to have the electric power.
As the assessment group made a transect walk around the village, it has observed the types and condition of houses in which the dwellers are living in today. Most of the houses are constructed with eucalyptus tree and mud and all of them are with small ceiling height. Even in some cases the community members are living in plastic roofed small houses which can simply be affected by the rainy weather condition. This shows a bit that how the community members are living with weak economic background.
To overcome their economic problem, the communities in the area are used to generate their income by means of selling leaf of eucalyptus tree in which they sell it for birr 25 to 30 a sack. On the other hand, the government has protected the members from the nearby forest, full of eucalyptus tree, not to get into and collect their leaf in which they used to it before. The reason is unknown but simply kept by the government. This has declined their usual income and increased their labour expenditure by searching for it in far places. In addition, these community members are well known by their construction skills in which most of them are employed in large construction sites outside their village. And this skill has enabled them to support members who are in need of house construction/maintenance and community development plan besides using as a means to generate income. To further strengthen their economic power, the government has also tried to support a few group of youth through lending money and entrepreneurship training. But the support was not consistent and as a result some of the established groups with different IGAs were went die except few alive. Moreover, one of the NGOs working in the area with limited capacity has supported those most vulnerable individual women by giving a donkey assuming that they can generate income by renting to the neighbors who are in need. However, as of the discussion we had with the beneficiaries, most of them were sold the donkeys as they were unable to cover their forage. This shows that the support was deficiency driven/diseased approach and which was not initiated or chosen by the full participation of the community. Furthermore, a few members of the community used to sell local alcohol drinks, ‘enjera’, loaf of bread, and engaged in small farming, weaving and shop businesses. This can be one of the indicators for the efforts of the community which shows that they are still struggling to have their better life in the area.
When we see other public services in the area, the village is totally manifested by the absence of health institutions, schools, safe drinking water and difficult road transportation. But here the commitment of the community is very much appreciated in which they have involved to overcome or mitigate the problem of water and road transport through subscription of money and skill labour contributions. And hence, they have built water reservoir and bridge by their skill and money with limited support from government. For this reason the government has also awarded a cup to the community for their efforts made to change their situation. As of the team observation, the community has still this strong spirit to further contribute their assets and change their life to a better condition. However, some of the water points have declined their water drops and observed that this has also a problem from the source/spring as well. People are now using pond water and in some cases they are totally owned by a few individuals that really makes the access very limited. The distance to reach the schools coupled with the difficult road is heavily shouldered on the community and still it is an outstanding problem in the area. Specially, during the rainy season, the school children are suffering a lot from the road and spend much of their time and labour to walk.
With regard to health services, there are some limited outreach services undertaken by health extension workers from the wereda health office. But this has been done during different campaign or event days. And they are not happy by the service rendered to them. Otherwise, the village people are getting the health services walking for around 20 minutes’ far from their village. This may limit or reduce the quality of services they are getting and affect the health of children and their families.
The social connections among the members through different Idirs/associations made the community to have strong social ties resulted in strong collaboration to support each other and solve different problems faced individuals in the area.
8. Conclusion
The support from the government to Ankorcha community is very limited but the community initiation to involve in different development works has forced and attracted the attention of government to think about their future plans and started to enhance their collaboration with the members. True development can be obtained through active involvement of the community at all levels in all steps of development. This is what the group has observed in Ankorcha. Their commitment and close social connections among the members enabled the village people to come together and think about their future plans. However, this potential capacity of the community is not efficiently used by the government to change the life of the people residing in the area.
Their legal entity to the property owned so far is another head-ach for the community in which it requires prompt response from the government. This may affect their existing participation in government and community development plan.
The road to and from the village while working their daily businesses including schooling program for children has found to be difficult and this is too awful specially at the rainy season. But the effort has been made by the community to mitigate the problem although it requires additional effort from the government. The social services like education and health is far reaching to be accessed by the community which really takes their time and consuming their labour. This has resulted in weak relation with the services which ultimately also affect the quality of works in the institutions since their participation is very much limited.
The effort to gain economic empowerment among the members is encouraging in which many of them are engaged in locally affordable businesses in addition to selling their construction skills outside their village. However, these efforts seem to be supported by the professionals in the wereda to be more skillful and well organized so as to sustain the results.
The assessment report has clearly identified that the Ankorcha community members are now in felt need of better road, safe drinking water, schools and health institute in their locality and are still a question to the local government.
Finally, it is concluded that if the interaction between the community and government is well organized and enhanced, the available resources further will be explored, utilized and better development opportunity will be created in the area that will alter totally the existing situation. 9. Recommendations
To overcome the problems, efficiently use the community strengths, and bring sustainable development within the community, the assessment group has recommended the following actions to be taken by different stakeholders and which have to be supported by frequent supervision: * Strongly explore the strengths/asset of the community which have been displayed by few practices and design appropriate plan for efficient utilization so as to bring sustainable development within the community. * Create strong link between the community and the nearby social institutions to maximize the outreach programs and improve level of awareness on the importance of services * Consult different government and nongovernmental institutions to exert their efforts to solve the road problem which has been identified as the most difficult problem challenging the community. * The support to established IGA group has to be consistent and explore additional alternatives to reach other vulnerable groups to empower them economically. * The ownership of properties like; land and houses have to be recognized and legally certified by the government to ensure its sustainability and avoid their reservation. * The nearby government water office has to look in to the existing water sanitation and utilization to avoid water born diseases and install sustainable water points in the area. * The establishment of schools and health institutes within the community will improve their wellbeing and strengths which also satisfy the needs of the community. Therefore, NGOs and government have to be encouraged to intervene in the area.
Reference:
-Richard J.E.1998.Developmental social work: A new paradigm for a new century
Ellis, F.2000, Rural Livelihoods and Diversification in Developing Countries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
