VIABLE COMMUNITY INITIATIVES

VMPM, MOST, OPOS, OFB

The complete VCI mission consists of four statements.
THE VMPM
VISION – To reach all the diverse communities of Africa with a message of hope,
seeing the defeat of poverty, disease, abuse, and violence now, and for generations
to come.
MISSION – To facilitate every community to be equipped and trained in
principles and practices that will keep them safe and healthy.
PURPOSE – To equip the community to care for their orphans and widows and
most vulnerable members (James 1:27)
METHOD – We call our method OPOS, which stands for “Outcomes, Practices
and Open Space”. During OPOS the community will define their goals, beginning
with Outcomes for Children and Basic Home Practices that are crucial and
common to all healthy communities worldwide. This is the activation phase of the
program, followed by Outcomes for Business. The community is free, as they work
together in groups, to use this methodology to solve any problem.
M.O.S.T – The Model of Successful Transformation – We aim to Shatter
Conformity, and Spark Transformation by encouraging the participants to think
differently, act differently and dream of a greater future. Every successful venture
in life begins within the heart and mind of each one of us.
TIME – Your most valuable resource, once gone, you never get it back. The way
you manage your time is one of the two most important factors in success.
ENERGY – How you focus your life work and purpose. Narrow your focus,
broaden your thinking, and act. When you are stuck in a bad place, even a wrong
decision is better than no decision. Get moving, and opportunities will keep
coming.
TERRITORY – Always expand your territory. Travel, Conversation, Listening,
Observation, Learning, Exploration; the greater your territory the deeper your life
will be.
INFLUENCE – Who you influence and who influences you will establish
relationships and a network of human capital that will either take you ahead, or
leave you behind, fulfill you or leave you empty, complete you, or diminish you.
The network of your relationships will determine the outcome of your life. This is
the second of the two most important principles of fulfilling your destiny and
become MOST.

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COMPETENCE – Finding your talent and strengthening your gifts will always
move your forward. Finding even one thing you do well and doing it better than
anyone will ensure that you prosper throughout your life. And everyone is gifted
in something!
= RESULTS in RESOURCES, and REACH
How well you manage these five principles of life will determine how far you go.
The better the management of your time and energy, territory, influence, and
competence, the greater your success will be. How far you go in life will be
determined by how well you understand and manage each of these truths.
OPOS has revolutionized and magnified the health and prosperity of
thousands of communities. Change begins with you!

The VCI Difference

“VCI is about the community transformation of power. We do not provide solutions; we
provide a platform whereby people can come together within their community to discuss and
agree what’s best for everyone and then act on what you agree to do. We equip people to
empower themselves.”
Our goal is to mobilize communities to care for their orphans & widows by raising their
standards of living using their own resources. We facilitate initiatives that are rooted entirely
in the ideas and resources of the community using a program we call Outcomes, Practices and
Open Space; OPOS.
The Empowerment Principle
We can enable our children to become responsible empowered adults. That is the natural course
of healthy human development. But no one can enable an adult to become empowered. All of
your adult empowerment comes from within each of us. YOU CANNOT TREAT ADULTS
LIKE CHILDREN. The child brain is a twenty-year journey of development and organic change.
The structure of the brain literally changes as you grow into adulthood. Then it is locked down.
Yet, all the genetics and capacities are there! At VCI we recognize that vulnerable adult
populations, from the widows and orphans we serve, to others challenged by poverty and
disease, mental health, and a spectrum of abuse, all who are adults must be treated as adults.
Adults solve problems from scratch. Children need leading into a solution. Adults need to find
the solution within themselves and among their peer group, with some wise guidance. A wise
guide only does two things. Listen’s carefully and asks questions.
A person is empowered when they can make choices on their own that determine what their
next steps will be. The more choices you are free to make on your own, the more empowered
you are. The choices you make can have a positive result or a negative result. The very first
step of empowerment is to understand that you are responsible for your own life outcomes.
At VCI we show you how to initiate programs that you decide are best for you, your family, and
your community in ways that make the most sense for you and result in positive permanent
change. Using this guidebook, you will discover how to initiate programs that you design using
resources already available in your community.
OPOS is about getting healthy and starting on ways to make money to support projects that come
out of your meetings. A second initiative that works the same way is about getting wealthy.

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OFB, Outcomes for Business is a business training program where you can learn the skills of
sustaining a business.
EVERYONE IS WELCOME, ANYONE CAN ATTEND, ANYONE CAN LEAD OR
FOLLOW, ANYONE CAN STAY OR LEAVE. OPOS IS UNIQUE!
WE BELIEVE

1. YOU know what is best for their community.

2. Together with others who attend you will decide what your goals are, and make a list of
points that let you know when you have succeeded.

3. You and your fellow members will create solutions, step by step, that will help you reach
your goals.

4. You must begin right now, with what you have, and not wait for someone to come and
provide funding or other resources to get going.

O.P.O.S.
OUTCOMES PRACTICES AND OPEN SPACE
This guidebook is about how to develop goals and new habits that will always improve your life
and the lives of your family members, and your neighbors. There are two parts to this guidebook,
Outcomes for Children, and Basic Home Practices. The first part helps us to focus on the primary
needs in your community that will impact it for generations to come. The purpose and goal of the
community is to raise healthy empowered children, breaking the cycle of poverty, disease, and
abuse that has plagued the Sub Sahara for hundreds of years. The second part of this guidebook,
Basic Home Practices is a ramp to building a successful and empowered person, family, and
community. It begins with the least expensive and fundamentally simple things you can do and
ramps up to a full program of education and economic security.
Outcomes for Children: Our goal together is that every child will be safe, healthy, living in a
loving home, attending school, and have a good reputation. These are simple universal desires
that all loving parents have for their children. These five goals for our children represent the five
most important needs in human development. No matter if you are poor or wealthy, if our
children grow into adulthood with these needs fulfilled, then they have a much better chance to
be successful in life.
Basic Home Practices are the things you can do to insure the Outcomes. In all communities the
fundamental practices are Sanitation, Nutrition, Health Care, Education, and Economic Security.
Open Space is an unbound discussion around these topics led by a facilitator who mainly will
ask questions and may give examples or guide the group as needed. The OPOS discussions lead
to breakout sessions where small groups can discuss what they will do with the information they
have received. Anyone who shows up are the right people, and whatever happens is the right
thing. A person can stay or go as they wish, and anyone is free to leave one group and join
another when groups meet for discussion.
As OPOS has evolved over the years the same method has been used to expand ideas in any area
as the person, family, and community grows in prosperity and advances in their world view.

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Outcomes are simply the things you want to achieve. Practices are the things you do to achieve
the outcomes. Open Space is the method we use to organize our thoughts.
As an adult you have these same basic needs as your children, but it is much easier to raise
healthy children than to fix broken adults, and by focusing on our children we transform
ourselves. Also, adults cannot be treated like children. The course of a child’s advance to
adulthood is a course of gradually releasing the child to make responsible decisions and become
self-motivated and responsible. One cannot treat adults like children. No matter how distraught,
adults must own and initiate change within themselves, and bear the cost and responsibility
themselves together with their local peer community, and with resources they have on hand. This
means that sometimes the steps will be very small, but small steps can lead to a great future!
Using this guidebook, you will accomplish three things that all together using this tool we call
OPOS:
1. You will begin to build a better life for your children by setting goals that you can
accomplish together. Outcomes for Children is an outline of what all parents want for
their children.
2. You will start new daily practices that will increase your safety, health, and learn a new
way to learn. You will write your own program called Basic Home Practices.
3. Being safer and healthier and better educated is wonderful, but this program will teach
you how to acquire wealth and sustain a better life for you and your family. This program
is called Outcomes for Business.
This guidebook provides a pathway for you to begin taking simple steps that will greatly increase
your chances of building financial security by managing money and helping you establish
universal principles that always lead to greater wealth. OPOS is not a class you take; it is a
lifestyle you can adopt.
For any type of change to work you must challenge your fundamental beliefs, define new
behavior, and act differently than you have acted in the past. Change begins with you, and only
works when it is your idea, and when you decide to do something different.
This guidebook is a roadmap that you can follow that will always improve your life. The steps
outlined here work 100% of the time for those who follow them wholeheartedly. They fail 100%
of the time for those who don’t.
In order to grab ahold of something new, you must let go of something. It is in our nature to hang
on desperately to the things we have and the habits we live with, no matter what our station in
life, and those things keep us in the same place all the time. In order to do something, you have
never done before, you must begin a new journey.
HOW TO FACILITATE AN OPOS OUTREACH
THERE ARE THREE PARTS:
1. As a facilitator you must allow enough time for each part of the program to become adopted
by the participants into their own words and culture. At best each part should be given a day
of interactive meetings. Any time all three parts are not fully understood and acted out by the
community, it will fail. It is better to wait for a group that will sacrifice their time to commit
to a full OPOS, than to compromise and fail.
· Part One; Outcomes for Children: A roadmap defining clear goals for children that are
defined by the participants using the VCI Guidelines included in this guidebook. We start
with goals for children because we have learned that if you improve the lot of the
children in your community first, the whole community will be lifted up.

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 · Part Two; Basic Home Practices: This is a roadmap to the storehouse of important
practices and ideas that you will use to achieve the goals you have established for your
children.

· Part Three; Open Space is a method the participants will employ to take immediate
steps to begin an action plan developed entirely by them using resources they already
have on hand.

OPEN SPACE IS THE KEY TO ALL VCI PROGRAMS. Open Space means that the
participants are in charge of the meeting. The one conducting the meeting (the Facilitator) is not
in charge of the results and is not a traditional teacher.

Only the community is responsible for what happens in VCI training, and only the community
can create a result. The only job of the facilitator is to ask questions around the framework of
ideas that we have discovered lead to lasting growth and thriving communities. The job of the
facilitator is to keep the ideas of the participants flowing and organized, and to stay on task with
the subject as outlined in this guidebook. Open Space should happen throughout the training.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS: The facilitator may pause the meeting at any time have small groups
breakout to discuss one idea or several ideas and report back. Breakout sessions whereby small
groups can discuss how to best define terms or make lists of things that are important to them
ensure that the group owns the process. The facilitator’s job is only to organize the ideas of the
audience and ensure that all the Outcomes and Practices are covered and defined by the
participants. The more questions the facilitator asks based on the information in this guidebook
and the less teaching the facilitator does, the more likely the VCI program is to work. The job of
the Facilitator is to stimulate discussion and allow the community wisdom to work. Each
community has the best solutions for its own challenges. No one on the outside knows them as
well as they know themselves.

Open Space should be used throughout the program as much as possible, not just on the final
day. But once the participants have designed their own community outcomes and practices
around the VCI principles, they will have a final full day of open space sessions where they will
breakout into small groups and decide what they will do.

The Facilitator’s Guide to Open Space

What is success? As a facilitator you are successful if you have caused the participants to
energetically take charge of the meeting with wide-open discussions and debate around the five
outcomes for children and five basic home practices. As a facilitator your job is only to manage
the discussion, if things are going the way they should, then your job is exciting and easy. If you
are struggling to control the audience, then you may not be the right person to facilitate.
IN FACT THE BEST OPOS RESULTS COME WHEN THE FACILITATOR ONLY
ASKS QUESTIONS AND NEVER GIVES AN ANSWER.
Facilitate means literally “to make things easier”. Your job as a facilitator is not teaching or
preaching. A facilitator is simply acting as a guide and organizer of the ideas of the community.
As a facilitator you are there to draw a map from point A to point B. How the journey goes is up
to the participants.

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VCI PROVIDES A BASIC SKELETON OF IDEAS, A GUIDELINE. THE COMMUNITY
WILL ADD THE REST OF THE BODY TO MAKE A COMPLETE PROGRAM.
We start with Outcomes for Children (The “O” in OPOS) designed as ways to care for children
under the age of five years. We do this because children under the age of five in Africa have the
highest death rate in the world. They are also the least likely to get an education among the
world’s children, the most likely to be abused, and the most likely to end up in orphanages even
though virtually all have extended family who could take them in. When we lift up the most
vulnerable members of our community the whole community is lifted. The bible says that true
worship in the sight of God is this; to care for, visit and inspect widows and orphans in their
distress, and to remain unstained by the world”. This is VCI’s true mission. The group will start
by defining what it means for every child in their village to be safe, healthy, living in a loving
home, attending school, and to have a good reputation.
In order to achieve these outcomes, we have to decide what practices we need to do together as a
community. Basic Home Practices is the “P” in OPOS. You can think of OPOS as a way to set
goals (Outcomes), define the tools you need to meet your goals (Practices), and a practical way
to collaborate freely with each other to initiate projects that will improve your life (Open Space).
In the second part of the OPOS program the community will define five practices that are
essential for them to build a healthy community. The five practices are sanitation, nutrition,
health care, education, and economic security.
Open Space is and way to meet to discuss our goals and desires and to organize ourselves and
define how we will achieve the goals we set. Success is when the meeting results in actions that
lead to positive change.
VCI programs always have this same three part method, no matter what the topic, or how much
time we have. This first OPOS needs three days to work successfully. Groups that cannot
commit at least four hours a day for two days and one day of at least six hours for Open Space
are not candidates for our initial program.
As a Facilitator you will guide discussions around certain questions that keep things on track.
Once you have a group assembled choose volunteers from the participants who will write down
the proceedings, and others who will put key ideas up on a “sticky wall” or some other media
that is easy for all to see. Avoid the use of electronics; keep the audience interacting and engaged
in the conversation. That way the whole group can see how they are creating their own program
by working together. During the meetings you may call breakout sessions where the attendees
break into small groups for more detailed discussions. The small groups will appoint a
spokesperson who will report their conclusions when the main group comes back together.
At the end of the first two parts of the program (Outcomes and Practices) everyone will meet
together one last time to decide what to do next by breaking up into self-created small groups.
This is the group’s first exposure to understanding that they are truly in charge of their own
future.
The Facilitator will explain how Open Space works, and help the group organize this first
experience. During this time the attendees will learn how they can self-organize small group
meetings from now on. They will learn that anyone can go to any meeting and anyone is free to
leave a meeting and go to another meeting. This is called “The law of two feet!” They will
breakout into small group sessions and anyone can attend a meeting that is of interest to them, or
they can call a meeting of their own. Once the meeting begins a few questions have to be
answered;
1. Why are we here in this meeting?

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 2. Who will speak for us when we report to the main group?
3. What will I do to help myself?
4. What will I do to help my family?
5. What will I do to help my community?
6. Who will I join with to do this work?
7. When will we begin?
8. What is the first thing we will do?
Each meeting will last an hour or so, but they can keep meeting on the same subject if they want
to. The groups will report back after a few meetings and the all the attendees will listen and
comment on the report of the one chosen to speak for the group. Everyone should be able to
answer the questions by the end of the seminar; everyone has at least one thing they can do. You
can get involved in as many projects as you can manage.

The Sticky Wall

Sticky wall is a great way to organize the ideas of OPOS facilitation. The sticky wall shown here
is made from nylon tent material and sprayed with a tacky adhesive that allows paper to be
“stuck” in place, but still easily removed or moved around as ideas emerge from the participants.
Any way you can effectively organize ideas that the community will implement is OK. It is the
results, measured over time that counts! To begin the facilitator will place the first Outcome on
the wall and ask the audience “what does it mean when we say a child is “safe” in our village,
and what word, best expresses that thought? Likewise, the group defines each Outcome and
Indicator. By the end of the day the villagers have written their own Outcomes for Children
program in their own language. The Home Practices are presented in the second part of the
OPOS in the same way, so the community has defined what practices will best help them meet

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the outcomes they have chosen to achieve in the lives of their children. The sticky wall can be
used to organize the Open Space meetings as well, as shown here. The sticky wall promotes
audience interaction, holds everyone’s attention and demonstrates to the community that they are
the ones responsible for the decisions and actions that emerge from the facilitation.

The Community Guide to Transformation

Overview
In presenting OPOS the facilitator will ask questions and have volunteers record the answers and
decisions the group agrees to. Every member of the community is welcome to join in the
discussion and every member is allowed to speak freely. The program works best if you dedicate
three days, one day to each part, but it can be condensed for time.

· Day 1: Ask the participants what the ideal situation is for their children. What does it
mean for every child to be safe, healthy, living in a loving home, attending school, and
behaving well? The facilitator will only ask questions and gives examples. The
participants will define all the terms, and decide how to develop ways to improve the
lives of all the children in their community.

· Day 2: The participants will define the meaning of the five essential needs of all healthy
communities, and how to measure what you need in your own home and community. The
goal is to develop practices around each of these needs. The facilitator will discuss with
the participants how the basics of sanitation, nutrition, health care, education, and
economic security work together to insure the community will be healthy.

· Day 3: Participants will talk about programs they will develop, resources they can bring
together, and actions they can take to improve their lives right now.

Outcomes for Children

Our goal is that every child should be:
1. Safe

2. Healthy

3. Living in a loving home

4. Going to school and learning

5. Have a good reputation in the Community

The following questions are designed to help stimulate discussions and stay on topic on day one,
Outcomes for Children.
· Safety

o What does it mean for a child to be cared for and protected?

o How are some children abused or exploited in our community?

o How can children help to keep themselves safe?

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 · Health

o How can you tell if a child is free from illness?

o How can you tell if a child is happy with life?

o How can we know if our children are involved in alcohol, tobacco, and other
drugs?

o How can we protect our children from becoming sexually active?

o What are some nutritious foods children can eat every day?

o What are the basic necessities of life that every child needs?

· Living at home

o How would you describe a safe and nurturing home?

o How can we help a child get along with everyone at home?

· Attending school

o Why is it important for a child to attend school?

o How can we help our children obey the rules in school?

o What does it mean for a child to be successful in school?

o How can we help our children succeed in school?

o What activities should children be participating in together at school?

o What activities should children be participating in at home?

o What does it mean to get along with others at home and in school?

· Behaving well

o Are our children obeying the laws?

o Does anyone here have a problem with a child at home or in the community?

o Describe the term “behaving well in the community”.

o Do some of our children have friends who behave badly?

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 o What are some things children can do to help in the community?

Basic Home Practices

To create stability, community members are asked to commit to using the resources they have
on-hand to implement the five core practices that are essential to all healthy communities and
necessary for children to thrive.
1. Sanitation

2. Nutrition

3. Health Care

4. Education

5. Economic Security

The following questions are designed to help stimulate discussions and stay on topic on day one,
Outcomes for Children.
· Sanitation

o What is safe water? Does everyone in your household drink safe water only?

o Is everyone in your household drinking safe water?

o Does every house have a hand washing station equipped with soap?

o Has everyone in your household bathed recently with soap and safe water?

o What does “clean” mean?

o Is all the clothing and bedding clean? (washed and dried in the sun, free of
insects)

o Is your home clean inside and outside?

o Is the floor clean? (swept, free of debris, items are neatly stored)

o Is the sleeping area clean?

o Is the cooking area clean? (free of old food, dishes and utensils are clean)

o Does every household have a toilet? Is the toilet area clean?

o Is the area in and around your home free of feces?

o Is your food stored safely? (What are some safe way’s to store food?)
· Nutrition

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 o Name every vegetable and fruit that is available in your community.

o Is everyone in your household eating a variety of vegetables and fruits?

o Why should children eat before the adults at mealtime?

o What is malnutrition?

o Do you know how to prevent malnutrition?

o What are some ways to prepare food correctly and safely?

o Why is it important to prepare food in a safe way?

· Health Care

o Why is hand washing important? Does everyone in your home regularly wash
their hands with safe water and soap?

o How do we treat and prevent lice, scabies, or other insects in your home?

o Why is it important to let fresh air into your home to clear out smoke?

o What are some ways to prevent the spread of illness in your home?

o What are some ways to store food safely and properly?

o Does everyone sleep in a bed that is dry and off the ground?

o Is every bed protected by a window screen or treated bed net?

o Does everyone in your home know how to identify serious illnesses?

o What are some ways you can prevent serious illness?

· What can you do before you go to the doctor if you are sick? (Get rest, drink lots
and lots of safe water, eat mild foods and broths, get fresh air, keep your body
clean).

· Education

o Does every school-age child in your home attend school every school day?

o Are you able to pay school fees and costs?

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 o How can everyone in your home help your children succeed in school?

o How can you be sure that babies and very young children in your household learn
something every day?

o How can adults and older people in your household learn something every day?

o How can everyone become a learner?

· Economic Security

o Does everyone in your home have a task that helps support the household?

o What are some tasks that you do to support your household?

o What are some ways your children can help when they are very young?

o What are some ways secondary age children can help?

o How does your spouse help support your household?

o What are some things you could improve in your home?

o Do you have backup support to get through an emergency?

o Name some ways you can increase your income.

o What kinds of business will work in your community?

o Do businesses work better when small groups work together?

o What rules can a small group business make that will protect the products and
income from needy or greedy family members?

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 Outcomes for Children
David Gray and David Glenwinkel

How can we ensure that all children are safe, healthy, living in a loving home, attending school,
and behaving well? Applying Outcomes for Children as described in the following pages will
help you determine whether or not the child’s family needs outside assistance to achieve these
Outcomes. Outside help can be anything from encouragement and transparency to the
community coming together with the resources necessary to solve the problem.
In this section we will walk through a series of questions you can ask that will help you
understand what is happening in a child’s life. The questions reveal truths, called indicators. An
indicator is something you can see that helps you understand what is going on. Observing
indicators will help you think through ways that you and other caring people can support families
and children.
Outcomes for Children will help you to:

· Understand and help with all the child’s needs: Outcomes for Children will help you
view the whole life circumstances of a child by looking at how all of the above items fit
together. You must look at the whole set of a child’s strengths and needs, and explore
ways to help families achieve all of the desired Outcomes.

· Work to achieve outcomes: Outcomes define what you want to achieve. Outcomes for
Children do not tell you which service you should provide for a specific child. Instead,
they paint a picture that tells you what all children and families need and are supposed to
achieve. Only you, working together with family and friends and neighbors can decide
what specific actions you will take together to achieve those outcomes. Sometimes we
need help. Outcomes and practices help us organize our ideas and identify our needs so
we can help each other win long term success in our goals and dreams for ourselves and
our children.

No Set Answers
You have to figure out on your own what action makes the most sense for each child and
family in your community. This guidebook helps you decide what needs to be done by
helping you think of things you can try. Once you get going, it will help you determine
whether or not what you are doing is working.

What is an Indicator?
An indicator is something you can see and discuss that will help you understand how a child is
doing. By posing a question you are forced to discuss the answer and understand what it means
and what you will do. Healthy Child Indicators are a guideline for success and will tell you what
is strong about a child, and what challenges must be met. It is simple, look at the indicator, and
look at your child. Is the life of your child matching up with healthy child indicators? You will
explore four things:

· What each indicator means to you and to others in your community?

· What does each indicator “look like”? That is, what things or behavior will you look for
to know if an indicator is true or not true?

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 · During the seminar you will learn what can you do with the resources and people you
have around you today to help families achieve successful outcomes for their children.

· You will begin to think about what resources and supports you will have to find or
develop in your community, to help families achieve and sustain the outcomes on their
own. The first step is to focus on what you can do to help a child immediately. Do not
wait for something or someone to solve the problem for you.

Getting Started As a Facilitator

OPOS begins with you! As a facilitator begin by reading through this guide one section at a time,
thinking about each indicator, and then discussing your own ideas in your own words with fellow
trainees. As a facilitator you must be part of a team that is working on OPOS in your own homes
and families together. Hold some practice facilitations, and participate as a trainee with
experienced facilitators. In the meetings write down the best ideas and begin by becoming an
example of a VCI Family. If VCI Outcomes and Practices are true in your own life, you will
become a powerful example to others. If they are not true in your own life, then you cannot be a
VCI coordinator.
Your first goal as a new facilitator is to come to a common understanding with other VCI leaders
about what outcomes and indicators mean, and what our indicators look like in the life of a child
and his or her family, beginning with your own. Some people may see things in different ways
and everyone does not have to agree on every point, but we all have to agree to present the
material in the same way.
The differences in the way we see things will make the work we do together better than anything
we could do alone. As a facilitator you will often be bringing together groups of people from
different backgrounds and with different perspectives and your best roll is to see them become
willing to work together as they help their children achieve these outcomes. VCI Initiatives
across Africa have been successful in getting people to set aside their personal and religious
differences in order to raise healthy children in peaceful communities.

Understanding and Using the Indicators

There are about 20 indicators for your OPOS participants to define. An indicator is an event,
situation, or observation that demonstrates how well something is working, or how well someone
is doing. As a tool for parents and caregivers, indicators point to how well a child is doing, or
whether the child needs help.
There is a section in this guidebook called “The Outcomes Tracker, Telling the Truth,
Finding Strengths, Overcoming Challenges” This section provides a simple way to measure
how a child is doing and expose areas of need, as well as announce areas of success. All of
assessments are only tools to help us make things better, not to judge or criticize how things are.
Small groups are formed to encourage successes, and lend a hand when challenges come. In the
best circumstances parents or caregivers will learn and use a scoring system to help them raise
children who will grow and prosper throughout life. Scoring is not for VCI, scoring is a way for
the family and community to objectively understand how they can always be supporting
successful outcomes.
The best results of facilitations is when your OPOS ends with a community forming small
groups together to take action and add their experience and abilities to help children and families
in their community, starting with their own children. Sometimes we need expert help. Getting
expert help is part of the job of the OPOS group. In many communities there are professional

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service providers who can help in specific ways that are waiting to be asked, and are often
willing to volunteer. But understand that no one has to be a professional to work with kids and
families. Healthy people come from healthy families, and healthy families are the foundation of
healthy communities. When the families are broken a healthy community can’t emerge, and
when the community is broken a healthy family can’t emerge. For many decades organizations
have focused either on the individual and family, or on the whole community. With the absence
of good governance neither approach can work. At VCI we begin in the middle by building small
groups from within the community to work together to reestablish the principles that allow
healthy families to emerge and healthy communities to grow. Small self-initiated groups can
reach into families and reach out into the community, and healing can begin.

Outside Assistance
VCI is about helping people take responsibility for their future. This is most often successful
when help comes first from within the family and second from collaborations within the
community. Success is dependent on taking actions on the full set of outcomes and indicators.
Many communities are impacted by outside assistance. If a community is receiving outside
assistance the OPOS groups must be determined to hold to the truths that all five healthy
community practices must be built up, and only they can insure that this will happen. As owners
of the community groups must command a voice in how they will collaborate with outside help
and still achieve long term successful and sustainable results in both their desired Outcomes and
Basic Practices.
If a family is receiving outside assistance from a donor organization they are free to practice the
VCI OPOS as they work toward independence.
Our experience in thousands of communities is that those communities that do not currently
receive outside support are most likely to succeed. Always focus your time and energy where
you are most likely to succeed.

Understanding OPOS in the Home

Following are some examples of what the Outcomes for Children mean, and some sample
questions OPOS participants can use to determine how a child is doing. Remember, these are
things the community must do, these are tasks to be learned by the participants of OPOS.
As a VCI Facilitator getting involved in individual family matters will quickly consume all of
your time and energy, and you will find in the long run that such problems are not often solved.
This is one very important reason it is so important to take the time to complete the OPOS in all
of its three parts. The participants MUST learn that the solutions to all the problems in their
community are their responsibility. Anything less that the full buy-in of the participants is likely
to turn into an endless energy draining series of perpetual challenges wherein you, as the
facilitator are expected to mediate problems. You are not a mediator; you are a facilitator of
small group collaborations. When faced with individual and family problems just respond with a
simple question to the one bringing the complaint; “how will you solve that problem?”

Outcome #1: Safety

All children deserve to be safe in their homes, and in their communities. The best way to find out
whether or not a child is safe is to look at what is going on in a family, especially the things that
the adults in the home are doing to ensure that child’s safety. A safe child is:
1. Cared for and protected.
2. Not being abused or exploited.

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3. Keeping herself or himself safe.
Let’s walk through these indicators one at a time.
1. Cared for and protected: At its most basic level, caring for and protecting children means:
· Are the children getting enough to eat?

· Are they getting nutritious food on a regular basis?

· Do the children have the clothing they need?

· Is this home safe for children? (Safe in their environment, Safe from people who may
present a danger?)

· Are the children being helped to grow and learn?

· Who is looking out for the children? How are the helper’s doing?

· Are the children shown love and affection?

There are many other ways to care for and protect a child. Think about some of the other things
people might do to take care of and protect a child, and make a list.

Is a child being cared for and protected?

The best way to get a family to make good changes in caring for their children is to ask them
how they can improve, and how fellow VCI members in the community can help them.
Discovering whether or not a child is cared for and protected might entail looking for certain
kinds of behavior or things in the child’s home. For example, if caring for a child means
someone must feed them, you could look to see if there is enough food in the home. You could
also find out what kinds of clothing or shoes the child has, watch for ways the adults in the home
protect children from dangerous objects like sharp knives or hot stoves, and look for ways in
which adults show love to the child in the way they act and talk.
Write down some other things or behavior you might look for that would indicate that a child is
being cared for and protected if you visited a family in their home.
The purpose in asking questions and looking at what’s going on in a family is to help them care
for and protect their children. We are not snooping around to find things wrong. We are trying to
find ways to support the family to make things better. Stay positive and act like a good neighbor.
Treat people like you would like to be treated if someone was visiting your home to see how
your children are doing.
Adults often do a very good job caring for and protecting their children on their own, but
sometimes they have a hard time and they might need help. Our goal is to achieve the five
outcomes for children in a way that the family can manage.
It is important to respect the family and remember that they are probably doing the best they can.
You might have some really good ideas about different things a family could try, and it may be
tempting to suggest things they should do; however, there may be things going on that you don’t
understand and your good ideas could just add to the pressure they are under, and make things
harder for them instead of helping.

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It is rarely helpful to tell someone what he or she should do, especially when they are struggling.
Put yourself in their position and think about how open you would be to some stranger telling
you how to take care of your kids. Instead of telling a family what they should do, ask them what
they want and what you might do to help them. For example, ask a family having trouble caring
for their child, “Is there anything small I can do to help you take off some of the pressure?” If
they accept your help, do your best to honor their request. If they say they don’t need or want
help, honor that too in a friendly way. Always help people who want help, don’t struggle with
people who will not change, and don’t insist they do things that they can’t or won’t do. If a child
is truly in danger discuss together how the community can help, you may contact local
authorities or respected community pastors or teachers to see if they can help.
Letting the family know we care is sometimes the best way we can help. They may be more
willing to ask for help to care for and protect their children once we have demonstrated our care,
concern, and respect for the family.
2. Not being abused or exploited
Being safe also means that a child is not being abused or exploited. There are different kinds of
abuse, all of which are hurtful to a child:

· Physical: How much discipline is too much? What is the difference between discipline
and abuse? Adults sometimes use too much physical force to discipline or punish a child.
This causes physical injury that leaves bruises or serious wounds.

· Sexual: Are the children in every home safe from sexual predators? What are some
things adults can do to insure their children are not victims of sexual abuse?

· Emotional: What is emotional abuse? When is it appropriate to scold a child? What is

the difference between scolding and berating a child? Adults sometimes threaten children
or say things that hurt their feelings and make them feel bad about themselves. Berating a
child often happens when an adult is angry or upset and want’s to inflict emotional pain
on a child. Scolding is an appropriate message confronting a child who is behaving badly.

Abuse of any kind is unacceptable. Outsiders sometimes have to intervene in a family to stop or
prevent a child from being abused. Loving discipline and correction is not abuse. Talk together
about what the differences are between discipline and abuse.
If you think a child is being abused: If you observe an injury to a child that could have been
caused by abuse, you must ask someone who is familiar with child abuse to come and check the
child. Child abuse is complicated to deal with. If you suspect abuse, it is important to ask for
help rather than try to handle it on your own. The worst thing is to ignore it or pretend that it isn’t
happening.
What is exploitation? There are different kinds of exploitation. Sometimes adults treat children
like servants, make them do things that an adult should be doing, and/or make them do things
children shouldn’t do. As with child abuse, if you think someone is exploiting a child, you must
ask someone who is familiar with child abuse to come and check the child’s situation. You are an
advocate for children who cannot speak for themselves, always seek help if you suspect
exploitation or abuse. But remember we also must be willing to reach out to families without
being judgmental if we’re going to help them find positive ways to keep their children safe.
3. Keeping herself or himself safe

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What are some ways children can keep themselves safe? Children, especially older children,
make choices about the situations they place themselves into. It is important that they keep
themselves safe. One good way to determine whether or not a child is safe is to look at how the
child takes care of herself or himself. Are they keeping themselves out of situations where they
could be injured? Are they staying away from behavior that could harm them?
Think about your own childhood, are there some things you did as a child that you hope your
children will not do? Think about situations or behaviors that could be harmful or hurtful to a
child, and think about ways that children might keep themselves safe. Write down some of the
dangers that children face.
What behaviors you might tell you whether or not a child is keeping herself or himself safe?
Are you, as an adult, keeping yourself safe? It’s one thing for adults to protect children. It’s
another thing for children to protect themselves. As they grow older children need to learn to
take care of themselves. The way they learn to do this is by looking at the adults around them. If
adults are modeling safe behavior, then it is more likely that children will do the same. What
examples can you list of safe adult behavior?
This is one area where concerned people can have enormous positive influence on children—we
can help by taking good care of ourselves as an example to other families and children. Based on
what we’ve talked about so far, what are two or three simple and easy things you could do to
help a family keep their children safe?
What are some other resources or services you might need to develop in your community to help
families keep their children safe?
Compare your list of things you could do and resources you would need to the things and
resources other people have written on their lists. When you put all of your lists together, you
will discover that there are lots of things you can do together to help families keep their children
safe.

Outcome #2: Health

All children deserve to be healthy. Think about your own children and others you know, and ask
these simple questions; is the child:
· Free of illness?
· Happy with life?
· Free of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs?
· Not having sexual relationships?
· Eating nutritious food every day?
· Receiving the basic necessities of daily life?
4. Free of illness and cared for when ill?
Freedom from illness is one key indicator of a child’s health. Childhood illness can include many
different health problems from a simple cold to a life-threatening disease. It can range from
infection to injury and from malnutrition to obesity. It can involve physical, dental, vision,
emotional, or mental problems. This indicator focuses on wellness; it does not distinguish
between one illness and another. The whole point is that a child should not be experiencing any
untreated health problem.

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Some symptoms of childhood illness can be easily observed by almost anyone; however,
deciding whether or not a child is free of illness may require an examination by a health
professional. Unfortunately, professional health care is not always available. A child may live in
a remote area where there is no medical care, or the cost of care may put it beyond the reach of
the child and family.
Children can experience life-threatening illnesses or injuries that require immediate medical
attention. It is important to learn how to identify urgent medical needs so as to be able to help the
family take immediate action to protect their child’s health in a medical emergency.
What does a healthy child look like? Write down some things or behaviors you might look for
that would tell you whether or not a child is free of illness.
Do you know the basic steps you can take prevent illnesses in children? Take some time to list
the things you know every child needs to stay healthy.
What are a few things you might do to decide if a child needs immediate professional health
care? How can you help a child and family get access to medical care when it is needed?
What are some things you can do for your child when they are ill?
How can you learn more about health awareness? Do you understand how to assess the
seriousness of a fever? Do you understand the importance of hydration with safe water? Do you
know how to insure your child has a balance of electrolytes? (Small amounts of salt and other
minerals). Do you understand how to keep a child cooler when it is hot and warm when it is
cold? Do you know the signs of malnutrition? How do you know when it is time to take a child
to the doctor?
5. Happy with life
One of the simplest indicators of a child’s health and well-being is whether or not the child is
happy with life. Happiness is something anyone can see in a child; its absence may be equally
easy to see. What are some indications that a child is happy?
Children often display their feelings about the situation or circumstances they are in. If they are
in a good situation, they show it through happiness. If they are in a difficult situation, they may
show it through sadness, anger, or misbehavior. Some children in unhappy situations hide their
feelings altogether.
Children who feel safe, believe they are valued, and have good relationships with the adults
around them usually experience a depth of happiness that can get them through tough times.
Resilience, the ability of children to bounce back from adversity, is a powerful force in every
child’s life.
Children sometimes experience profound loss or trauma that takes away their happiness. The
death of a parent or a traumatic experience is not easily overcome, and a child who has
experience such trauma needs consistent love and support to recover. It is important to keep a
child engaged in positive and productive activities, experience love and hope, and a sense of
purpose all the time. One very important way we can help children be healthy is by simply being
available to them on their terms, helping them be safe, and letting them know that they matter to
us.
What are some ways you might help a child and a family regain happiness that helps children get
through difficult times?
What are some ways you could help a child who is already happy with life stay happy and
healthy in spite of the difficulties that may come along?

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6. Free of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs
Children’s bodies need to be free of toxic substances that inhibit brain development, or that cause
physical or emotional problems, in order to grow and develop into healthy adults. Alcohol,
tobacco, and other illicit drugs all cause significant physical and emotional harm to growing and
developing children and youth. There is absolutely no positive place in a child’s life for
substance use. This includes direct use by children and youth, as well as secondhand exposure to
substance use by others around them.
The best approach to keeping kids away from harmful substances is prevention, either by making
alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs difficult to get, or by helping children decide on their own not
to use them. Children need to see positive results of good behavior. Name some ways adults and
peers can reward children who abstain from drug and alcohol abuse. Children who feel safe,
have good relationships with caring adults, and believe they are a valuable member of their
family and community are less likely to get involved in unhealthy or harmful activities like
substance use.
It is very important to let children know that you expect them to remain free of alcohol, tobacco,
and other drugs. Adults are a key part of setting those expectations. Children are always
comparing the things adults say with the things adults do. Children copy adult behavior. List
some things you can do to insure that you are a good example to the children in your home and
community.
What are some behaviors or things that would show you whether or not a child was free of
alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, including secondhand exposure?
What are some ways in which you might help a child make healthy choices about substance use?
What are some ways in which you could help families keep their children free of substance use
and exposure?
7. Not sexually active (the child not having sex with another person)
Sex is a wonderful and positive part of adult life, especially for people who have developed the
ability to form healthy committed relationships; however, there is no place in healthy child
development for children or youth to participate in sexual relationships. There is much evidence
that children and youth who are sexually active are also experiencing problems in school, at
home, and out in the community. Sexual activity is a strong indicator of other significant
problems. Children who are not sexually active are more likely to be experiencing positive things
in all other areas of their lives.
The risk of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases makes sexual activity a health-
and life-threatening behavior. What are some ways you can encourage your children to remain
sexually safe? Early pregnancy reduces the future options for young parents who may have to cut
short their education in order to raise a child. Children of teen parents are more likely to grow up
poor, be less healthy, and experience developmental problems that affect them throughout their
life.
The most straightforward approach is to try to prevent children and youth from becoming
sexually active. Prevention might mean keeping track of where children are and what they’re
doing. It may mean giving them positive opportunities to do other things. People are more likely
to practice decisions they make for themselves. Safe sexual practices can also include helping
children decide on their own to postpone sex until they reach adulthood and are ready for a
committed relationship.

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Education, family planning, and birth control are other things that can help prevent sexually
transmitted disease and unwanted pregnancy. What are some ideas that you can discuss that can
protect children from STD’s? What ways can you protect a child who succumbs to the
temptation to experiment with sex?
We have already touched on the sensitive subject of child sexual abuse. This is a topic that many
people find very difficult to deal with, but we need to recognize that a tragically high number of
boys and girls are sexually abused, and acknowledge our responsibility to be strong advocates
for children who may be unable to defend themselves.
If we encounter a situation where we believe that an adult is having any type of sexual
relationship with a child, we must report this to someone in authority who is familiar with child
abuse. Reporting suspected sexual abuse may ruin our relationship with the family, but we are
obligated to intervene to protect the child.
What does “Not sexually active” look like? Write down some things or behaviors you might look
for that would tell you whether or not a child or youth is sexually active?
What are some of the ways in which you might encourage a child or youth who is not sexually
active to postpone sex until they reach adulthood?
What are some of the ways in which you could help a family deal positively with a child who is
sexually active?
What are some of the materials, education, or services you might be able to help the family of a
sexually active child obtain in order to protect the child from sexually transmitted diseases, and
reduce or eliminate the problems associated with an unwanted pregnancy?
8. Eating nutritious food every day
A nutritious daily diet is an absolutely essential component of the healthy development of every
child. The basics of good child nutrition are simple: Children need a balanced diet from a variety
of food groups including grains, vegetables, fruit, milk, and meat. Eating different colors of
vegetables several times a week will provide a child with the essential minerals and vitamins
necessary for good health.
Children also need different foods at different stages of development, and different communities
may have access to different types of food. The cost of food may be prohibitive for some
families. Culture and tradition may dictate the kinds of foods that families eat. Some children are
allergic to certain kinds of food. It may take some time to determine what types of food are
available, and appropriate for the children and families in your community.
It is important for you to learn about nutrition for children in different age groups, so that you
can determine whether or not a child is eating well enough to support their current stage of
development. Nutritional information specific to the community you are in is available through
local health educators, health publications, and the Internet. Pay close attention to cultural factors
in family eating; religion and tradition may have a strong influence on diet. Be aware of the cost
of food, since a family cannot sustain a diet they cannot afford. Kitchen Gardens are rapidly
becoming an economic and effective way to provide a full range of nutrition. What is a kitchen
garden? Your government may have information that you can obtain on new ways to grow
healthy and inexpensive food.
Breastfed babies have better health outcomes in both healthy development and reduced illness. A
breastfeeding mother must eat a nutritious diet in order to produce enough breast milk for her
child while maintaining her own health in order to care for her child in every other way. But, an
HIV positive mother will infect her baby if she breastfeeds. All new mothers should be tested

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before their child is born. Antiretroviral drugs can prevent the transmission of HIV to a child
from the mother at birth. What can you do to insure that information and drugs are available in
your community.
Helping ensure good child nutrition may require you to help families access the resources they
need to deal with the damage and developmental problems caused by vitamin and mineral
deficiency. How can you find out what kinds of vitamins and minerals are needed? What are
good natural sources of such vitamins? Are you an example to the children of healthy eating
habits?
Helping the community develop its food capacity is an important role we can perform to insure
that families provide nutritious food to their children every day. This could involve:

· Improving food distribution, especially to families that cannot afford high-priced food.

· Educating local people about the importance of good nutrition.

· Helping local people grow and raise different types of food in new and innovative ways.

What are some of the ways in which you might better prepare yourself to help communities and
families feed their children nutritious food every day?
What are some other resources or agencies you could partner with to help your community
develop its food capacity?
9. Receiving the basic necessities of daily life
Material necessities: Caring for a child means making sure they have the clothing they need,
and a safe place to live. What are some other material or physical basic necessities of daily life
that the children in your community need to be healthy?
What are some of the ways in which you might help families provide the basic material or
physical things their children need?
Access to Health Care: Family health is vital to the future but paying fees to doctors, clinics or
hospitals can quickly wipe out the life savings of a family and put them deeply in debt. It is vital
for us to learn together when a family member needs professional medical care and what we can
do at home for someone who is ill before going to the clinic. We also need to learn to be wise
about professional medical care and work together to insure that health care professionals are
being truthful about the needs of the patient. Some VCI members who are familiar with health
systems may volunteer as patient advocates, for example, and we should all be sharing
knowledge on disease prevention and transmission.
Another problem in some villages is that access to health care may be blocked by political,
religious, or tribal differences. If a clan group, political party, or religious leader is blocking
access then the VCI community should meet together and discuss ways to solve the problem.
Immunizations: Many of the most dangerous childhood illnesses can be prevented through
vaccination and immunization; however, parents sometimes have difficulty maintaining their
children’s immunizations. It is important to help families understand that childhood
immunizations are a basic necessity of daily life, and that children whose immunizations are not
up to date are very vulnerable to life-threatening illness.
Love and nurture: Perhaps the thing children need most of all is someone who will love and
care for them every day. Emotional health is as important as physical health. It is up to the adults

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involved in a child’s life to provide the positive emotional support that all children need in order
to make all of the physical support they provide complete. Attention is sometimes the most
important thing we can give to a child. This usually does not take much effort on our part beyond
stopping whatever else we’re doing and focusing completely on the child, even if it’s only for a
few minutes. We need to tell our children every day that we love them. We also need to spend
time with them every day on their terms doing something that they want us to do.
Outcome #3: Living in a Loving Home
All children deserve a home to live in where they can be loved and cared for. Every child should
be:
· Living in a safe and nurturing home where children are loved.
· Getting along with everyone at home.
Let’s discuss both of these indicators.
10. Living in a safe and nurturing home
Nurturing means providing all of the support that a child needs to grow and thrive and do well. It
involves emotional support, love, encouragement, and providing the basic material things we’ve
already discussed.
What are some behaviors and things you would look for in a child’s home that would tell you
whether or not a family is nurturing their child?
Children need food, shelter and clothing, medical care within a loving home. There is no
substitute for raising a child into a healthy, happy and productive adult.
What are some of the things you might look for in a home to determine whether or not it is
adequate to meet the child’s and the family’s needs?
What are some of the things you might do to either prevent a family from losing their home or
help them find another place to live?
What can you do with in your community to help children and families get adequate and
affordable housing? What does a basic adequate home look like?
Is the home clean? Is the home secure? Is there a dry place for each person to sleep that is off the
ground and free of insects and filth? Are there adequate blankets to keep everyone warm? Is the
food stored properly? Is the home safe at night? Are neighbors looking after each other?
Sometimes the only way to protect a child from parental misconduct may be to remove the child
from her or his home. Removing a child from their home can be devastating for both the child
and the family. If it becomes necessary to remove a child, it is essential that every effort and
resource be made available to the child and family to correct the problems, restore safety to
everyone, and return the child home as soon as it is safe and healthy to do so. One very important
way caring people can help children who have been removed from their home is to help them
find a safe and nurturing permanent home. This may be one of the most difficult tasks we face. If
the VC members believe a child is in danger and should be removed the members must
immediately notify the local authorities, and cooperate with them. When this happens VCI
members become advocates for both the child and the family.
11. Getting along with everyone at home
Most families work out ways to get along with one another, including ways to resolve
disagreements and conflict. It is normal for people to have different expectations that sometimes
make it difficult to get along, especially when they live together every day. One very good way

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to determine whether or not a child is doing well is to look at the family’s ability to work out
their differences and find ways to get along with one another.
What are some things you might look for in a family to determine whether or not a child is
getting along with everyone at home?
What are some ways in which you might help a family work out ways to get along with one
another?
Some families have so much conflict that they need outside help to learn better ways of getting
along. What are some other resources in your community that you might partner with to help
children and families develop better ways to get along with one another?

Outcome #4: Attending School and Learning

Every child deserves an education. It is in the best interest of the whole community to make sure
that every child learns everything they need to succeed, support themselves, and contribute to
their community.
For children to get the education they need, they must be:
· Attending school
· Obeying school rules
· Succeeding in school
· Participating in activities with other children
· Getting along with everyone at school
12. Attending school
The number one challenge we have found in the realm of education is that parents often do not
support or encourage their children to attend school and do well. Often children are needed to
work in the fields and help support the family. Sending children to school means sacrificing
something important today for a future that is not always well understood by parents. Your first
mission in this area is to help parents understand why education is so important. The second is to
help them understand how to work with teachers and school officials to maximize their
children’s education.
Why is it important for a child to attend school?
What is the point of getting an adequate education?
How will sending children to school benefit the parents? Deep inside every parent is a desire for
their children to do well and prosper. Many parents just don’t understand the potential that is
unleashed in a child when lifelong learning becomes a habit.
School may be a public or private school, or it may be a home school; the place doesn’t always
matter. What matters is that the child is in a structured learning environment that can meet all of
her or his learning needs at every stage of their development.
There are many barriers that can prevent kids from attending school or from learning. What are
some barriers to education in your community?
What do children need to attend school? Name three things you can do for your children to help
them stay in school.
What are some of the things you might look for in a child’s home and at school to determine
whether or not a child is attending school, learning, and is doing well in school?

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13. Obeying school rules
School is often the place where children learn to get along in their community. In addition to
learning academic subjects, children learn the basic rules of courtesy, how to cooperate with
others, how to discipline themselves and follow instructions, and respect for authority. A child’s
ability and willingness to obey school rules is often an early indicator of how they will behave
later in life. If they learn to follow the rules in school, then they will be more likely to follow the
rules in the community.
What would participants look for to determine whether or not a child is obeying school rules?
What might participants do to help a family help their children obey school rules?
How can parents and teachers work together to insure children are doing well in school?
14. Succeeding in school
The grades children receive in the subjects they study are often the measure of success in school.
What are some other ways in which you might determine whether or not a child is succeeding in
school?
Family support is one of the most important things children need in order to succeed in school.
Parents need to show their children that education is important. They can do this by getting their
children to school every day on time and ready to learn, and by making sure that children have
the time and place they need to complete their homework. Children need to eat good food before
school, and during school in order to do well. What other things can you do to insure your child
is successful in school?
Families sometimes need extra support to help their children succeed in school. What are some
things participants might do to help parents support their children’s school success?
Some children have learning disabilities that prevent them from learning the way other children
learn. What are some learning disabilities? What are some of the things you might look for to
determine whether or not a child is experiencing a learning disability? How can you help a child
who has a learning disability?
The school may need help working with a child. The child’s parents may need help working with
the school, to create a learning situation that will meet the child’s needs. What other community
resources might you be able to partner with in order to help a child, the child’s parents, and the
child’s school to create a learning environment for a child with a learning disability?
15. Participating in activities with other children
Children who participate in activities with other children do better academically and socially.
Education isn’t just learning facts. It is also about learning and working together with others,
having fun being a member of a team, and accomplishing something great. That’s the part of
going to school that prepares children to be successful members of their community.
What are some of the things you might look for to determine whether or not a child is
participating in activities with other children?
Helping find or develop adult-led activities for children is one of the best ways we can support
children, families, and the community. What are some of the ways in which you might find or
help develop activities for kids in your community? Sports? Music? Dance? Explorers? Learning
games?

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16. Getting along with everyone at school
Looking at a child’s relationships with other students and with their teachers is a good way to
evaluate how well they are doing in school. How can you tell when a child is getting along with
other children in school?
It is healthy for children to disagree and to get over their disagreements and go back to being
friends. School is one place where children develop relationship skills that will help them
throughout their life. What are some types of relationship skills? Leadership? Cooperation?
Team participation? Helping others? Teaching younger children? How can you promote positive
relationship skills?
What are some of the things you might look for to determine whether or not a child is getting
along with everyone at school?
If a child is not getting along well with others at school, what are some things you can do to
help?

Outcome #5: Have a good Reputation; Behaving Well

Every child needs to be responsible to themselves, their family, and their community in order to
stay out of trouble. Several key indicators of a child’s behavior in the community are:

· Obeying all laws.

· Behaving well in the community.
· Friends are behaving well.
· Helping others in the community.
17. Obeying all laws
Parents and other adults who know the family often ignore signs of trouble in the lives of
children. Pretending you don’t see a problem, or pretending you have no control over the
problem will only make it worse.
Children and youth who break the law are usually having problems in other areas of their life.
They may be angry and acting out, experiencing emotional problems that they can’t control, or
may simply be choosing to do something they know is wrong.
It is important for families and community members to stop the child’s law breaking, find out
what is going on, and correct the child in the way that is most likely to both protect the
community and move the child back to obeying the law.
What are some of the ways in which you could find out whether or not a child is obeying all
laws?
What are some of the ways in which you might help a family help their child obey the law?
What are some organizations or people you might partner with in your community to help
children obey the law?
18. Behaving well in the community
We’re all expected to behave well in our community—not only to obey the law, but also to treat
everyone and everything in our community with respect.

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Sometimes children behave poorly by being disrespectful toward people or property or creating
disturbances, or by disobeying their parents. Misbehavior is sometimes an indicator of problems
in other areas, and sometimes it is a predictor of bigger problems in the future.
The way adults treat each other teaches children how to behave in the community. Community
behavior is one area where adults can have a powerful positive influence on children. We can
demonstrate the kinds of good behavior we expect from children and praise kids when we see
them behaving well. And we can speak out when we see kids doing unacceptable things.
Children may not always appreciate our praise or our criticism, but it can have a positive effect
on how they act. Always praise a child for good behavior and always be open about behavior you
do not approve of.
What are some things you might look for to determine whether or not a child is behaving well in
the community?
What are some ways you might help families help their children behave well?
What are some ways you might help children and youth show respect for your community?
What are some things you can do yourself to help your children or the children who are related to
you do better?
19. Friends are behaving well
One good indicator of how well a child is doing out in the community is the behavior of his or
her friends. It is important that children learn how to choose and keep friends who will make it
easier for everyone to behave well.
What are some ways you might determine whether or not a child’s friends are behaving well?
What are some ways you might help a family pay attention to their child’s friends, and help their
child choose friends who are behaving well in the community?
20. Helping others in the community
There are many opportunities for children to help others in their community—they can do small
chores that help older people, or they can look out for younger children, or they can help clean
up the community. You can instruct and encourage your children to help others, and even give
them small assignments in helping senior family members who need assistance or
encouragement. The more children feel that they are valuable to the community, the better off
they will be. One important contribution we can make to our community is to find meaningful
ways for children to contribute.
What are some ways a child can help others in the community?

Summary
Working with a small group of fellow participants, summarize what you have learned so far.
1. What are the Five Outcomes for Children?
2. What are indicators?
3. What action are you going to take now in your own family?
4. What action are you going to take with your group?

Write a brief summary of what this program means to you:

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 Basic Home Practices
David Glenwinkel and Joseph Warwari
The VCI program is focused on what you can do within your own community to make a
difference right now with your existing resources. VCI recognizes that in today’s world we
cannot impact corrupt governance; we do not have the capacity provide any of the infrastructures
good governments should provide. Networks of good roads, electricity, water and health care are
in the provenance of national, regional, and local government and in much of Africa these
governments have elected to neglect these basic necessities. Non-governmental organizations
help perpetuate the problem by providing a patchwork of disorganized systems just to the extent
that governments are excused from their neglect.

VCI provides a framework of ideas that anyone can do within their local community with
whatever resources they have. The results have been remarkable and are a living example of how
creative and hardworking people can overcome challenges they previously thought were
impossible.

About Basic Home Practices

What is a community? We are created to work together. When people identify a vision and
collaborate nothing is impossible. All great causes are a result of great collaborations.
Basic Home Practices are about helping yourself and helping others as you build your
community and your place in the community. In the simplest terms, a community is a place
where people live and work together to create positive lives for themselves and everyone else. A
community can be an orphanage, a village, a school, a slum or developing area or any setting
where people choose to work together. Community includes the place you live, and everyone
else who lives there, and all of the things all of you do. We don’t leave anyone out because a
strong community recognizes everyone. Everyone has a place, everyone matters, and everyone
contributes in her or his own way.
There are five essential categories that we call basic home practices that are necessary for any
person, family, or community to do in order to be healthy and successful.

· Sanitation

o Understand how to create safe water, and always have a supply of safe water.

o Wash your hands before every meal, before working around food, and always
after leaving the toilet, and whenever you are working with the sick.

o Keep yourself, your family, and your home clean. Bathe with soap and clean
water; wash the clothing, and clean the house regularly.

o Clean up all trash and any animal or human feces in and around the house.

· Nutrition

o Get a variety of foods and eat a more balanced diet (both you and the child).

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 o Get vitamins and supplements if you can.

o You may need to ask others to help you get food and vitamins.

· Health care

o Disinfect the drinking, cooking, and bath water (discuss safe water)

o End fecal exposure by washing everyone’s hands often

o Begin correcting health exposure problems in the home.

o Get rid of lice and scabies.

o Let fresh air into the home to clear out smoke and disease

o Store food properly.

o Keep contagious people away from others.

o Sleep on clean beds that are off the ground.

o Get treated bed nets for everyone in the home.

o Learn self-health assessment, and work together to understand when you need
doctor. Advocate for transparency in the medical community.

· Education

o Make sure the children go to school, and are doing well.

o Reinforce the importance of education.

o Ask the child’s teachers how you can help the child succeed in school. This may
mean getting adult education for yourself or other adults in your family.

o Learn as much as you can about the child’s school program and ask the child what
type of job or career he or she wants to have.

o Encourage the child to seek all the education necessary to fulfill her or his goals.
· Economic Security
o Find an age-appropriate job or task for everyone in the home to contribute to the
economic security of the household. Small children can do household chores that
free up adults to do more difficult tasks or to work outside the home to earn
money.

o Develop your own work or job skills, including getting additional education and

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 training to fulfill your own goals.

Getting Out of Crisis

In this chapter, we will explore the basic steps you can take to end the crisis threatening you or
your family, stabilize the situation in your home, begin to restore your wellbeing, and strengthen
yourself, your family and everyone around you. These are practical things you can begin doing
immediately, even if you have no money, special resources, or outside help.

Practices Create Outcomes

Outcomes are the things we want for ourselves and our children. Practices are things we can do
to achieve our chosen outcomes. The most important thing to remember when working with
people and families is that all the practices must be followed in order to achieve all the outcomes.
None of the practices can be left out. You must work on all of the practices with your whole
family and/or your whole support system. Household development involves everyone who lives
in your home. There is a role for everyone from the youngest to the oldest to help strengthen you
and your family. Your challenge is to find something for everyone to do that will contribute to
the desired outcomes. If one of the practices fails, the others will become much weaker and will
also fail over time.

The Big Picture

Developing and strengthening your entire household requires looking at the big picture and
taking all of the steps to achieve all of the outcomes. No one thing will solve every problem you
face. There are many tasks facing you and your family. VCI’s mission is to help you develop
whole adults and whole children in a whole family that is part of a whole community. Whole
means being a healthy, happy, productive, and prosperous member of a team.

Discussion
The following questions are both for you as an individual and your family or other people you
rely on for material, emotional, and spiritual support. No matter what your circumstances these
five basic practices represent the path to a healthier and more prosperous life.

Remember, to be successful you must work on all the practices all the time!
1. Sanitation
Many people never think about the importance of safe water, clean bodies, clean homes, and safe
food. But without these basic steps in sanitation, you, your household, and even your community
will never be able to achieve the many good things you all want.
Sanitation is one of the most important services that a community can provide. Without
fundamental resources like safe water and sewage removal, people will always be exposed to
serious health hazards and diseases that keep them sick. Poor sanitation means that you or
someone in your household will always be sick and no one will experience the level of health
and wellbeing that is only possible with safe water and good sanitation. In order to restore
yourself and everyone in your household to good health, you must begin by solving the basic
problems of unsafe water and poor sanitation. Diseases are transmitted because of our practices,
not because we are fated to become ill.
Is everyone in your household drinking safe water?

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Safe water means water that is free of harmful things. Drinking unsafe water is the most common
way people around the world get sick. The easiest way to prevent water-borne illness is to make
sure water is safe before you use it. What is the difference between clean water and safe water?
Water is essential to life, but water that is contaminated with bacteria or germs is a source of
serious illness or even death. Even water that looks clean because it doesn’t have dirty materials
floating in it may be contaminated with harmful organisms or chemicals too small to see or taste
that make it unsafe to drink. People who drink dirty or contaminated water will always be sick,
usually with diarrhea, weakness, tiredness, fever, and pain.
Most of this sickness will go away simply by drinking and washing and cooking with safe water.
If you get water from a safe source like a protected well or a treated water system, your water
may be safe enough to drink without extra treatment, but you must test it to be sure. But if you
get water from a river or an open spring or a polluted well or some other unprotected place, you
must disinfect your water to make it safe before you drink it. Water from an unprotected source
must be disinfected before you drink it or cook with it or bathe with it, otherwise the organisms
in the water will spread disease to everyone in your household.
Water can be disinfected in many ways such as boiling, chemical treatment, or filtering, or
exposure to sunlight. If boiling is not possible, and chemicals are not available, solar water
disinfection may be the simplest way to change unsafe water into safe drinking water. All you
need to do is fill a clear plastic 1 or 2 liter bottle 2/3 full with water and lay it in the hot sun all
day. You can also collect rainwater in safe ways.
Has everyone in your household bathed recently with soap and safe water?
When people’s bodies are dirty, they are vulnerable to many health problems such as skin
diseases, intestinal problems, and the depression and discouragement that come from just not
feeling clean. Giving everyone in your household a bath is a good place to begin improving
sanitation in your household. It may seem silly or simplistic, but just getting your skin and hair
washed with safe water and soap can be very soothing in addition to removing bacteria from
your skin.
Where safe water is plentiful, some people bathe every day. But if this is not possible, it is
important to bathe at least once a week. Children can get dirty quickly and they may need to
bathe more often.
Is all of the clothing and bedding clean?
Once a person is clean, it is important to get dressed in clean clothing and sleep in clean bedding.
Otherwise, the old bacteria that were washed off will return from dirty clothing and bedding. The
best way to clean clothing and bedding is with safe water and soap. Setting clothing and bedding
outside to dry in bright sunlight is also an important step in the cleaning process.
After a person gets a bath, they should put on clean clothing. Bedding can go a little longer
between cleaning, although spreading it out in bright sunlight or shaking and beating bedding are
easy ways to keep bedding clean between washings.
Is your home clean inside and outside?
There are many different kinds of homes around the world that are made from many different
materials, all of which require cleaning. You probably know how to clean your home; the
challenge is to clean it often enough to prevent insects or disease from building up. The most
important household cleaning task is to remove all trash and old food because these are breeding
grounds for insects and bacteria that can make you and your family sick.

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Is the floor clean?
There is a way to clean whatever type of floor you have in your home. If your home has a dirt
floor, there is a proper way to clean it. If your home has rugs or carpet, it is especially important
to clean out dirt and other things that work their way into the material.
Small children who sit or crawl on the floor are especially vulnerable to the mold and bacteria
and worm larvae that can build up on the floor. Keeping the floor clean will help keep you and
your children healthy and well.
Is the sleeping area clean?
Along with washing and airing out the bedding, it is important to clean up trash and clutter in the
sleeping area. Again, the goal is to get rid of insects and bacteria that spread illness and disease.
Is the cooking area clean?
For everyone in your household to be healthy and well, you need to eat clean food that is
properly cooked. This means keeping the cooking area clean. Scraps of old food are a breeding
ground for bacteria and insects that cause and spread illness. Keeping the cooking area clean will
prevent the spread of illness and disease through food poisoning.
Is the toilet area clean?
Human feces contain dangerous germs and bacteria that cause severe illness or even death from
typhoid, cholera, and dysentery, especially among young children. It is important that you keep
the toilet area clean. There are many different types of toilets in the world and there are ways to
clean all of them. It may be necessary to clean the toilet at your home every day.
Is the area in and around your home free of feces?
Sometimes human or animal feces exist out in the open, in or around the place where you live.
These feces are extremely dangerous because they spread harmful illness and disease. It is
essential to make sure that there are no feces in or around your home as you clean it. This may
require cleaning up and burying human and animal waste in a safe place where no one will be
exposed to it.
It is also important to keep human waste away from any water source such as a well, spring, or
water faucet. If feces get into your water supply, everyone in your household will be exposed
again and again to all the dangerous diseases that are spread through contact with human feces.
Is your food stored safely?
It is important to prevent food from being contaminated by old rotting food or other filth in the
home. Every household can and should have a safe place where food is stored. Wherever you
live, there is a right way to store food to keep you safe from food poisoning. To protect yourself
and your family, follow your community’s rules for properly storing and cooking food.
2. Nutrition
Nutrition is an essential practice for you, your family, and your community. The human body
runs on food and water. With the right combination of nutritious food and safe water, people can
stay healthy. This is especially true for children, who need good food to grow and who must
have a healthy diet to help their growing brain develop as they get older. The better everyone in
your household eats, the better you and your community will be.
If you, your family, and especially your children don’t eat a balanced diet from a variety of foods
with extra vitamins for the children, you will not have the energy and strength and good health to

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live the fullest lives possible. Good nutrition is very important to staying healthy, strong, and
smart.
Think about the following questions and begin doing the things we suggest here to improve the
quality and variety of the foods you and your family eat.
Is everyone in your household eating a variety of foods?
There is no single food that contains everything a person needs to be healthy. Every different
type of food has a different combination of nutrients in it, and people—especially children—
need to eat a variety of foods to get all the nutrients they need to grow and thrive.
You may need to learn about the different food groups and the amount of food from each group
that you and your family should eat every day to stay healthy. There are as many different ways
to group foods as there are communities, but most foods can be grouped in the following
categories:

· Vegetables

· Fruits.

· Starches, staples, cereals and grains.

· Legumes (foods that grow inside pods) and nuts.

· Food from animals, milk, meat and proteins.

· Fats and oils.

Look for foods in your community that fit into the different food groups and organize your
household meals to eat a balanced diet. Everyone needs to eat a variety of foods. Eat at least one
food from every food group at least once a day.
It is sometimes difficult for people to get the full variety of foods they need. Some foods might
not be available, they might be too expensive, or people might be too ill or troubled to grow them
or shop for them. You may need to ask someone for help getting the variety of foods you need.
You may also be able to help another person or another family obtain the variety of foods they
need. Remember that helping others and asking others for help is what building your community
is all about.
Do children eat before the adults eat at mealtime?
In some cultures, children are expected to wait until the adults have finished eating before they
are allowed to eat. If there is a shortage of food in your household, this can mean that your
children aren’t getting enough food or that they aren’t getting enough of the right foods they
need to grow and thrive.
Children’s growing bodies and brains have the greatest need for a complete and nutritious diet,
and they should be allowed to eat before the adults. Otherwise, they might not get enough of the
right foods they need to grow up healthy, strong, and smart. Children don’t eat as much as adults,
so there should be enough food left over for older people after the children have eaten. If there
isn’t enough left for everyone else after the children eat, then you and your family will need to
get more food for your household.

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Do the children in your household take vitamins and minerals every day?
Even the best food may not contain all the essential vitamins and minerals that children need to
grow and that sick people need to recover from illness. Vitamin and mineral supplements are
probably available somewhere in your community. One challenge will be to get them for
yourself and your family.
It is important to take the correct vitamins in the correct amounts you need every day. Taking too
many vitamins at one time may make a person sick instead of helping them grow or get well.
Do you know the signs of malnutrition?
If a member of your household, especially a child, does not eat enough of the right foods, they
can become malnourished. The signs and symptoms of malnutrition in children include:

· Weight loss and a thin appearance.

· Failure to grow.

· Failure to sit or walk or talk or learn.

· A big stomach with thin arms and legs.

· Dull or thin hair or copper colored hair.

· Too tired or weak to work or play or study.

· Dry skin or skin sores, especially in the mouth.

· Frequent illness.

If a child in your household has some or all of these signs and symptoms, they should be
examined by a medical care provider. If your child is malnourished, your family will need to
improve their diet.
Breastfeeding is the best way to prevent malnutrition among children under two years of age. It
is very important for a mother who is breastfeeding to eat a good diet herself in order to stay
healthy and able to care for her baby.
Malnutrition in children will limit development of their bodies and their brains, which will affect
them for the rest of their lives. One of the best gifts you can give to your children is a good
balanced diet every day.
Does everyone in your household know how to prepare food correctly and safely?
The safest food to eat is either food that has been fully cooked and served hot, or fresh food that
has been properly cleaned with safe water. If food is stored too long, bacteria will grow and
anyone who eats this spoiled food will become sick from it.
Every community has ways to properly prepare food. It is important to follow the positive
traditions and practices in your community that keep your food safe. Your whole household will
benefit from food that is cooked correctly and served safely.
Does everyone in your household drink safe water only?

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As we discussed in the earlier section on sanitation, safe water helps people stay healthy and
strong. Unsafe water makes people sick and weak. It may require extra effort to get safe water or
to disinfect unsafe water, but the advantages are well worth the effort because the risk of illness
from drinking unsafe water is very high.
It is very important not to drink unsafe water. A person who drinks safe water most of the time
but still drinks unsafe water now and then will still be exposed to all the dangerous diseases that
are spread through unsafe water. Help everyone you live with understand the danger of drinking
even a small amount of unsafe water.
3. Health Care
The most common illnesses can usually be prevented easily. Drinking safe water, washing your
hands often, and carefully preparing food will prevent half of all diarrheal problems. Bed nets
and a clean sleeping area will prevent malaria and many respiratory and skin problems. A
smoke-free home is a healthier home. Good nutrition with vitamin supplements will prevent
malnutrition and help people stay healthy. It is also important to recognize serious health
problems quickly in order to get out-side health care quickly.
If everyone in your home follows these simple health care practices, you will all be healthier and
everything else in your lives will get better, too.
If anyone in your household needs help with health care, ask someone in your community to help
you. Asking for help and offering help to others builds your community and strengthens your
resource and support system
Health care is a key resource that people in every community depend on. Illness or injury can be
devastating without access to health care. Without health care to help the person recover, one
thing can lead to another and place the whole household in crisis. Think about what happens
when one person in your household gets sick:

· Someone has to take care of the sick person.

· The sick person can’t work or contribute.

· A child may have to stay home from school to provide care.

Even if health care is available, it may cost so much that you and your family may have to go
without other important things in order to pay for treatment.
There are many helpful forms of health care that people in any household can provide on their
own, especially in preventing health problems before they occur. Let’s talk about some of the
key health care practices that you can do with no outside help. Again, please think about the
following questions honestly and begin doing the things we suggest to improve health care in
your household.
Does everyone in your home regularly wash their hands with safe water and soap?
Some of the most common illnesses are the easiest to prevent just by improving basic home
hygiene. If everyone in your household washed their hands with soap and safe water before
cooking or eating, half of the illness in your home would end.
Most everyday illnesses are caused by bacteria and germs that are spread by unwashed hands,
especially when someone uses the toilet or wipes their nose and then cooks or serves food or eats
without washing their hands. Even touching your own unwashed hands to your face can make

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you sick. If everyone washed their hands with safe water and soap, your household’s health
would improve immediately.
Keep safe water and soap where everyone can use them, and encourage one another to wash your
hands. If you see someone not washing their hands when they should, remind them to do it for
the good of the household.

Is anyone in your home infected with lice, scabies, or other insects?

Children are especially vulnerable to tiny insects like lice, scabies, and chiggers that cause huge
health problems and skin disease. These pests can usually be eliminated from a home with some
hard work, thorough cleaning, and the right medicine. At the first sign of infestation, start
cleaning and treating everyone in the household.
Prevention is the best strategy for lice and scabies and other annoying insects. Keeping your
home and bedding clean will help prevent infestation.
You can see here how the Basic Home Practices work together, with sanitation solving health
care problems. All of the Basic Home Practices are connected, which is why we work on all of
them together.
Do you let fresh air into your home to clear out smoke?
In many communities, people cook on open hearths that fill the home with smoke. Some people
smoke tobacco inside the home, exposing everyone who lives there to the dangers of second-
hand tobacco smoke. Smoke is a main cause of many respiratory illnesses like asthma that harm
everyone’s health. Household smoke is bad for everyone in the home, especially children.
One way to eliminate smoke is to simply open the doors and windows to let fresh air in to blow
out the smoke. If possible, find a way to move the cooking fire outside the living area of your
home.
Get any tobacco smokers to smoke outside. Even better, get them to stop smoking since that is
the source of many serious health problems that harm people. Families without smokers are
healthier than families that smoke. Also, people who stop buying tobacco have more money for
themselves and their family.
Are sick people infecting others in your home?
Many everyday illnesses are passed from one person to another. Sometimes an illness like
diarrhea or a cold can get passed around and around the home. Whenever one person gets sick,
that person and everyone in the household should make sure that they don’t pass on their illness
to anyone else.
The simplest way to stop the spread of illness in your home is for everyone to wash their hands
often. It may be necessary for a contagious sick person to stay away from other people—
especially children— until they get better.
Do you store food safely and properly?
Eating bad food is a main cause of household illness. Making sure that all food is stored properly
is a simple way to prevent food-borne illness. This involves keeping food dry and in a closed
container where animals and other pests cannot get into it. We talked about storing food safely
under the sanitation practice; this is another example of how one practice affects another.

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Does everyone sleep in a bed that is dry and off the ground?
People who sleep on bare or wet ground are exposed to germs, insects, and molds that cause
respiratory illness, skin disease, and other health problems. These health problems are easily
prevented by sleeping on dry beds that are off the ground.
If people in your community prefer to sleep on the floor, get or make everyone a thick and
waterproof sleeping mat that will prevent things on the floor from harming you while you sleep.
Is every bed covered by a treated bed net?
In areas affected by malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases, everyone in the household
should sleep under a bed net that has been treated with insecticide. The treated bed net will not
only protect the person sleeping under it, it will also kill any mosquitoes that touch it, thereby
reducing the number of mosquitoes in the area.
If you cannot afford bed nets for every member of your household, look for a local program that
gives away bed nets for free. Organizations around the world are working to prevent malaria and
other mosquito-related diseases by giving people bed nets. All they ask is that you keep them and
use them, which is one important health care practice you and everyone in your home can do on
your own.
Does everyone in your home know how to identify serious illnesses?
There are many types of health care that you can practice on your own. There are also situations
where you need outside help from a medical care provider or a traditional healer in your
community. It is important that everyone in your household learns to recognize illnesses and
injuries that require outside health care.
Most diseases have symptoms or warning signs that tell you that a person is ill and needs
treatment. You should learn how to identify the most troublesome illnesses including
dehydration, malnutrition, malaria, asthma, diarrhea, and other diseases that happen where you
live. All of these illnesses are preventable and may be easily treated if you identify them early
and get outside health care quickly.
When someone in your home needs outside health care, the sooner you recognize the need and
get the person to that outside care, the better everyone in your home and community will be.
It also is important that everyone in your home gets a regular examination by a medical care
provider who checks your general health, your height and weight, your eyesight and hearing,
your teeth, and your overall well-being. Children may need check-ups more often than adults,
but everyone should get checked from time to time.
Does everyone in your home know how to prevent serious illnesses?
We have talked about the power of prevention, that a lot of problems can be solved before they
ever happen. Sanitation, nutrition, and health care all fit together when you make the effort to
prevent common problems that happen in households.
You can do many things on your own to prevent health problems or to treat them early before
they require outside health care; however, when someone in your home needs outside health
care, it is important to identify the signs and symptoms of serious illness or injury quickly so that
they can get outside medical help as soon as possible.
4. Education

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Education opens the door to a bright, happy future for children and adults and communities.
Education prepares children for life in their community. It is also a way for adults to gain the
knowledge and skills they need to stay successful in a rapidly changing world.
Most people think about school and education programs as things that happen outside the home,
but it is an important practice that people can work on themselves, both to support school
programs and to foster a commitment to life-long learning for every member of the household.
The following questions and activities will help children and adults get the education they need
to strengthen themselves and their family and improve their ties with the rest of their community.
Does every school-age child in your home attend school every school day?
To get a complete education, children must attend school on time every school day—there is
simply no other way to keep up with their classmates. Unfortunately, many things can happen in
households that prevent children from attending school. It is important to identify and solve the
various problems that keep children away from school. Let’s talk about some of these barriers to
education.
Sometimes children don’t get enough support or encouragement from their families to go to
school. A child may:

· Have to stay home to take care of a family member.

· Go to work instead of school in order to earn money for the household.

· Stay home from school because of illness.

· Have caused trouble at school and is no longer allowed to attend.

· Be too poor to pay school fees and costs.

· Be too hungry to go to school.

· Be a girl who is menstruating and is not be allowed to attend school.

· Become pregnant and drop out of school.

Every one of these problems has a solution. Some solutions are easy and other solutions are more
difficult. For example, if someone in your home needs extra care, perhaps a neighbor or friend
can help out during school hours so all of your children can attend school. If your family needs
an extra worker, perhaps the work can take place outside of school hours. If your child misses
school due to illness, someone can bring their schoolwork home for them to work on so they
don’t fall behind. There is always a way to solve any attendance problem if you are willing to put
in the extra effort to allow all of your children to attend school every school day.
Many attendance problems occur because the adults don’t value education and don’t encourage
the children to succeed in school. In the long run, lack of parental support for a child’s education
will undermine the success of the whole family. Without a good education, the younger
generation will not be prepared for work out in the community and they won’t be as successful in
supporting the family. It is in the best interest of your family to help every child in your

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household get a good education, even if it means that the adults in the home have to do more
work until your children grow up and finish school.
Education is a very important practice. It is just as important as sanitation, nutrition, and health
care because it improves your life in the community and contributes to your family’s economic
security. A person without a good education will have economic problems instead of economic
security.
Education depends on all the other Basic Home Practices and all the other practices depend on
education. Again, all of the practices work together and you must work on every practice so that
you and your family can succeed and thrive.
Do you need help to pay school fees and costs?
If lack of money is the barrier to your child’s school attendance, you might need to either ask for
financial help or find a way to earn additional money to pay for school costs. There may be a
local fund in your community that can help pay school fees and costs so your children can attend
school.
It might be very difficult for you to ask for help, but education is essential. Once your children
complete their education, they can pay back the community by helping some other family pay
school fees and/or using their education to help the community. People all around the world get
financial help to pay for their education by agreeing to work in their own community after they
finish school. This is an honorable way to pay back an education debt. It is also an excellent way
to help build your community.
Does everyone in your home help your children succeed in school?
Children need a lot of help and support from their family in order to succeed in school. They
need:

· A quiet place to study.

· Help completing their homework.

· Enough good food and sleep so they can pay attention in class.

· Help getting up in the morning and getting ready for school.

· Help deciding what they want to be when they grow up.

· Encouragement to keep working toward their educational goals.

Sometimes parents don’t have the knowledge or training to help their children with their
homework, especially if the parent grew up during a time when education wasn’t available.
Perhaps an older child in your family or a neighbor child can help your child with school work
you don’t understand. Sometimes your child’s teacher can help you find a tutor for your child.
There is always the opportunity to finish your own education. It might take a lot of work and a
long time to finish, but many adults go back to school themselves to finish their basic education
or to learn new skills that can help them in adult life.
Do the babies and very young children in your household learn something every day?

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From the moment they are born, children need to be stimulated with new sights, sounds, and
sensations so that their brain will grow and develop. Every child needs daily stimulation,
nutritious food, love and nurture, and someone who will talk to them or sing to them or read to
them or show them how things in the home work.
Even if they are too young to walk or talk themselves, babies and young children learn by
hearing and watching other people around them. They also learn by trying new things; something
as simple as holding a safe object in their hands will help your child’s brain develop and grow.
The sooner your child begins to learn, the better your child will grow.
Do the adults and older people in your household learn something every day?
Adults and people of all ages also need to learn new things every day. The world is an enormous
place and no one will ever learn everything about it. There is always another important new thing
to learn. Everyone benefits when people value education as a process of life-long learning.
Think of all the reasons for learning throughout your lifetime:

· You can learn new skills to get a better job or to get better at the job you have.

· You can improve your reading skills in order to keep up with all the news and
information about your community and the rest of the world.

· You can learn new things in order to help your children or grandchildren make good
choices in a rapidly changing world.

· You can get answers to questions you’ve always wondered about.

· You can be a role model for others in your community who will see your interest in life-
long learning and be motivated to keep learning themselves.

Whatever your reasons, education is an essential practice. You, your family and your community
will benefit from everything you learn.
5. Economic Security
All of the Basic Home Practices work together. None can be left out because they all depend on
each other. Economic security depends on having strong household practices in sanitation,
nutrition, health care, and education. All of these practices depend on a household’s economic
security.
As before, please think carefully about the following questions, answer them honestly, and try
the things we recommend. We believe these steps will improve your economic security.
Does everyone in your home have a task that helps support the household?
There are many tasks that need to be done around your home in addition to the work you do to
earn a living and support yourself or your family. When everyone works together to complete
these tasks, the main workers and earners in the home can concentrate on what they do best:
earning a living for the household.
Everyone in your home from the youngest person to the oldest should have a task they can do
that contributes to your economic security and that gives every person a place and a voice. Think
about all the small tasks we’ve been talking about like cleaning, shopping, cooking, making
water safe, and helping with homework. All of these need to be done every day to strengthen

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your whole family, to keep everyone strong, and to make it easier for you to go to work, grow
food, sell something, or do whatever it is you do to support everyone in your home.
Even a child who is too young or an adult who is too old to go out and earn money can
contribute to your household’s economic security by working on the other Basic Home Practices.
Whether their job involves earning money, growing food, keeping the household clean, or
freeing up someone else for an economic task, there is a way for everyone in your home to
contribute. All those jobs working together will improve your household’s economic security.
Sometimes people and families make partnerships to help one another with tasks like cooking,
child care, cleaning, or transportation. These arrangements are what community is all about:
people helping people get through the good times and bad times that come in life. These ties to
your community lay the foundation for economic security for you and your family.
Sometimes people exist from hand to mouth, barely getting by with the few resources and
supports they have. Even so, it is still possible to set some money aside to help in an emergency.
As difficult as it might sound when you are barely getting by, saving money for the future is
possible, even if only in tiny amounts.
Perhaps you can set a little money aside from time to time just in case someone gets sick and
needs outside health care, or something breaks down and you have to replace it. Having a little
savings set aside can help you get through the next crisis that always seems to be coming down
the road. Or perhaps there’s something your home needs that you can’t afford right now but
which you could afford by saving for a few months.
One measure of the strength of a family is its ability to get through a crisis without falling apart.
Your family or your household can strengthen itself by building relationships with trusted friends
and neighbors and by setting aside a little savings.
Do you have ways to increase your income?
As you recover from hardship and disaster, it becomes more and more possible to improve your
economic situation. Things stabilize and you have more time and energy to look ahead to the
future and to make plans for yourself and the people you love and care for. You might think
about getting a job or a better job or getting more education, or maybe even just having more
time to do the things you have always done to support yourself and your loved ones.
Once the other Basic Home Practices are working in your home, you can start doing new things
that will increase your economic security, even things that might take you a long time to
accomplish.
Here is probably the central question for everything we’ve been talking about in this guidebook:
What can you do right now with the resources you have and the people you know to increase
your economic security?

· Is there a job that you can do better than anyone else?

· Is there a way you could grow more food to sell or trade for the things you need?

· Is there something you could make that a lot of people want, something you could make
better than anyone else in your community?

As things begin to stabilize in your life and you begin to experience the benefits of all the other
Basic home Practices, it might be time to move toward your dreams, hopes, and some of the

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things you want for yourself and your family. It is wise to live one day at a time and move
forward one step at a time… but now that you are getting out of the crisis you were in, it’s okay
to think about ways to increase your income. You have invested a lot of hard work rebuilding
your own life and your family and strengthening your ties to your community. It’s good to dream
a little and to move toward some of the good things in life that you and the people you live with
deserve.
There is a role for every member of your household in building up your economic security. It is
important to make partnerships with other people and families to help one another, especially in
times of crisis. Save a little money as often as you can. Look ahead to the future, think about
something you’ve always wanted to do, and then begin moving toward it.

The Bridge from Household to Community

VCI bridges the needs of a person to the influence power of the community they live in. The
bridge is created by building effective small groups who can tap into the resources of the
community and reach into the home of the family. The ideas presented here suggest ways in
which people and families can help themselves. It is also about ways you can ask for help when
you need it and offer help to others when they need it.
Everyone in your community will benefit from reaching out to one another and helping one
another in any you can, even if you don’t have enough to provide for yourself or your own
children, and especially if you don’t have enough. The Basic Home Practices are things that
anyone can do, whether or not they have enough to meet the needs of their own family. These are
things you can do for yourself and for your neighbors, and that they can do for you. Anything
you do, no matter how small, will make a difference for you, your family, and your community.
Some communities have so many problems that everyone is struggling just to meet their basic
needs. It is in these communities that people most need to work together and help one another
because community is where people live and work together to create positive lives for
themselves and everyone else. The Basic Home Practices are all about building community using
an approach that is as simple as you, me, and everyone else working together to take care of
ourselves, our families, and everyone around us who we care about and depend on.

The Child Outcomes Tracker

Telling the Truth, Finding Strengths, Overcoming Challenges
David Gray and David Glenwinkel
Why should you keep track of how your children are doing? Tracking, scoring, or assessing,
whatever you may choose to call it is first and foremost a way for parents and caregivers to better
help children. Tracking outcomes is a way to truthfully measure how things have improved and
where there is more room for improvement. Assessing children also reveals how they are doing,
and may reveal series needs that would not have been exposed any other way. It is a tool for the
family and community.
Tracking can also help VCI. Many programs in Africa make great claims of success, but most
programs are not truly measured in any way that demonstrates in the long run if they are working

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or not. People tell great stories of changed lives but all the signs indicate that conditions are
actually getting worse everywhere. We want to know truthfully how our ideas are working. At
VCI we are constantly seeking to assess and improve our work together, and the best way we can
do that is to truthfully measure the results.
Here are a few guidelines for assessing how your children are doing.
The better you know a child the more accurate your observations will be. By asking a few simple
questions about each one of the 20 indicators you can determine in what ways child is strong,
and in what ways a child needs help.
1. Is the child in crisis and needs help from outside the family right now?
2. Does the child need help, but the child is not in crisis?
3. Is the child making progress but still needs some help?
4. Is the child doing pretty well, but still needs some help to keep going.
5. Has the child achieved success sustaining the indicator and no longer needs help with this
indicator?
Don’t be discouraged if you see needs in children you can’t meet. Remember VCI is a team.
Always be willing to ask others to help a child when you can’t. Be the voice of the child! You
can give points for success and develop a score or grade for each child:
SCORING
· 5 points: The statement is true for this child with no outside help to the family.
· 4 points: The statement is true for this child with outside help to the family.
· 3 points: The statement is not true for this child but the family is getting outside help.
· 2 points: The statement is not true for this child and the family is not getting outside help.
· 1 point: The statement is not true and the family needs outside help right now.

The basic form is included here below for your private use, or you may choose to use it to keep a
long term confidential record on each child.

OUTCOMES FOR CHILDREN CHILD SURVEY

Child’s name: _________________Observation Date: ____________________
Form filled out by: ___________________Program: ______________________
Child’s date of birth or estimated age: ____________ Gender: Male____ Female____
Mark the score for how the child is doing on this scoring date for each statement.
SAFE (5 4 3 2 1)
1. Cared for and protected. Crisis ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ Good!
2. Not being abused or exploited. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

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3. Keeping herself or himself safe. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
HEALTHY ( 5 4 3 2 1 )
4. Free of illness. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
5. Happy with life. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
6. Free of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
7. Not sexually involved. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
8. Eating nutritious food every day. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
9. Receiving the basic necessities of daily life. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
AT HOME ( 5 4 3 2 1 )
10. Living in a safe and nurturing home. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
11. Getting along with everyone at home. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
IN SCHOOL ( 5 4 3 2 1 )
12. Attending school. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
13. Obeying school rules. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
14. Succeeding in school. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
15. Participating in activities with other children. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
16. Getting along with everyone at school. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
BEHAVING WELL ( 5 4 3 2 1 )
17. Obeying all laws. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
18. Behaving well in the community. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
19. Friends are behaving well. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
20. Helping others in the community. ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Outcomes for Business, Africa

An Enterprise Solution for Sustainable Compassion Programs
David Steiner, David Glenwinkel, Phillips Elisha
What is your job as a facilitator?
You will help the attendees define their common goals as a community
You will help them define and understand key principles of business success
You will work with them to understand and narrow the opportunities for new businesses
You will help facilitate the establishment of successful business practices
Participants will form groups and start new businesses

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During Phase I, Outcomes for Business, and Phase II, Basic Business Practices you can keep the
group together or you can have breakout sessions where they can divide themselves into small
groups to answer questions, make lists, or assess ideas.

A completely successful business always produces these outcomes:

1. Generates a Profit and creates savings
2. Has a GREAT reputation for quality, friendliness and delivery of goods and services
3. Improves the lives of the owners financially and emotionally
4. Helps the employees achieve their life goals as well as the owners
5. Improves the community standard of living by contributing to the most vulnerable
members.
Everything that is true about farming is true about business. A good farmer starts his crop by
finding good seed, preparing the soil and making sure water and other nutrients are available for
the crop. The farmer understands that there is a planting season, a growing season, a first fruit
harvest, and a main harvest. The farmer knows he must protect his crop from pests and thieves,
and family members who may want to share the crop, but didn’t share in the cost or the work. He
knows that he must set aside some funds from the sale of his crops to pay for seed and fertilizer
for the next growing season, and some of the fruits of his farm can be set aside for himself and
his family. Farming is hard work and a good farmer is constantly learning new techniques for
better results. Everything that is true about farming is true about business because farming is one
of the oldest forms of business in the world.
One important part of OFB is learning critical tools that make business more likely to succeed.
Another aspect of OFB is to encourage small groups to form during the training and collaborate
in starting new businesses, even with small beginnings, where the members can practice the
things they have learned in the training, and share wisdom from those who have experience.
During the event the role of the facilitator is to guide the discussion. The participants may form
small business startup groups during the event. To insure their success there are some guidelines
to follow:
1. There must be a known local market for the product or service the group elects to pursue.
Focus on projects where the need is greatest and the market is local, hopefully within the
village or in a territory of nearby villages.
2. The group itself must provide the initial funding or contribute the supplies necessary to
get started, no matter how small the start.
3. The group must choose a leader and spokesperson, and a secretary and gather together
members who have the most experience in the type of business they are going to start.
4. The group must build a simple plan defining what steps are necessary to move ahead, and
commit to a time period for each step. What will we do? Who will do it? When will we
meet? Who is responsible for ______.
5. The group must be flexible to re-invent the way they will move forward if they face
challenges along the way. Every problem has a solution, and the wisdom of the group is
to work together in a way that keeps them always moving toward their goal.

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This program is for those groups who have successfully sustained OPOS training for at least
several months and have demonstrated that they can successfully sustain projects that produce
income.

PHASE I: Defining and Organizing Business Principles

OUTCOMES FOR BUSINESS
1. What is a Business?
Many villagers are already involved in businesses and this event is for them. Farming is one of
the leading businesses in Africa, but many farmers don’t think of farming as a business, so it
may be that many village members who have succeeded with OPOS are qualified to discuss
taking businesses to a higher level. One great question that drives audience participation is to just
ask the group to define what it means to be in business.
2. Purpose: Why are you in business? Why do we need more businesses in our
community? What kinds of business do we want to develop?
Outcomes for Business is more flexible in its framework than OPOS. With OFB the target
audience is people who are in business already and have succeeded at some level. The attendees
are those who wish to enhance their businesses and discuss and overcome some common
challenges to operating a business in Africa.
After initiating the the
facilitator can begin to
gather information
from the audience as to
what they perceive as
the purpose of
businesses for
themselves and their
community. In this
photo you can see
some ideas forming
around specific things
the attendees see as
important to them
about owning and
operating a business.
After the group has
listed the reasons that
are important to them
for having businesses in their community they can choose a few business ideas to discuss that fit
into their purpose and the business guidelines we outlined at the beginning of this section of the
guidebook.
3. Choosing a Business; how to narrow the choices of what kinds of businesses should
be developed in the community.
Beyond their personal desires most folks who live together in a community see a bigger picture
about what their community needs to be a better place to live and grow up in. It is important to

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emphasize to the group that it is Ok to have personal motives to be in business that can be as
simple as wanting to make more money and have a better standard of living. At VCI we
recognize that in all community efforts it is important to honor the self-interests and needs of the
participants. It is hard to help the most vulnerable members of your community when you don’t
have the means to take care of yourself and your family. It is ok to use VCI training to advance
your own life! In fact the more you can grow and prosper the more you are able to help others.
The community purposes developed by the group for starting business will help define what
kinds of businesses will work best in their community. The facilitator usually starts this part by
just asking the attendees what businesses they would like to have in the village. Just write down
the suggestions and put them up on the sticky wall. Once you have a good list of businesses go
back to the list of reasons for having a business and remove the suggestions that do not fulfill the
purposes the attendees have listed. One example is that nearly every community will express the
desire for an internet café. Yet one of the purposes almost every community lists as critical is to
employ as many people as possible, especially the youth. When we look at the resources needed
to establish an internet café, and understand that it will employ only one or two people, it might
not be the best choice given the purposes the group has listed for new businesses in the
community. Identifying the purpose stimulates the group to consider deeper issues when
establishing a business.
By now the participants should have narrowed down a list of four to seven types of new
businesses that they believe will work in their community.
4. The Challenges of being in Business:
In small communities there are many barriers to being in business including availability of
capital, skills, market demand, and perhaps the biggest, lack of training and mentoring in
understanding how to run a business. You will find that many in the audience have tried and
failed to succeed in small enterprises. Have them list the things they believe have created barriers
to success. Do not try to manage what they say, just write down the statements an put them up
for discussion. Being in business is about initiation and innovation as you MUST overcome
every challenge that comes along. Tens of millions of small business owners have overcome
every obstacle your attendees will face.
Making lists helps define the scope of the challenges and opportunities and organizes the
information in a way that people can see and understand. For about the first half of the day you
will accomplish the foundation for information that will guide the rest of the seminar time.
During this first phase definitions and ideas will emerge that will help the attendees launch
successful Enterprises.
By taking the negative connotations of the challenges the audience has listed as in the example
above and finding the opposite positive terms, you can begin to create solutions immediately.
From the list above, we wrote the opposite terms, and discussed how looking at challenges a
little differently points to solutions.

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 This OFB Group listed all the
challenges to being in business and it
came out very negative! The
facilitator simply asked the audience
to define the opposite of each thing
they had listed, and then discuss how
they might bring those skills and
needs to their groups without
borrowing money or waiting for
outside help to arrive.
Every challenge is an opportunity to
solve a problem. When we combine
all the obstacles to success it can seem
overwhelming, but by listing them we
can confront the facts, and then
address each challenge one at a time
and overcome it. All success is about
three things,

1. Make the best plan you can.

2. Find good people to work with.
3. Find positive solutions to negative
situations.
4. Follow the universal rules of business
5. Persist

WHAT ARE THE UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES OF BUSINESS?

Businesses succeed when the people who run them use these five resources effectively:
1. Time – Effective use of time, your most valuable resource
2. Energy – The relentless drive to stay focused and on task
3. Influence – Your ability to bring together highly qualified people, partners, employees
and customers.
4. Competence – Your ability to lead highly qualified people or to produce an excellent
product
5. Fiscal Capacity – The resources you can gather to start, maintain and expand your
business
During Phase One you will have:

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 1. Written the definition of a business that applies to the attendees
2. Defined the purpose of businesses in your community
3. Narrowed the choices of businesses that will work best in your village
4. Listed the challenges you face in making your business successful
PHASE II: The Principles of Successful Business
BASIC BUSINESS PRACTICES
When we started the meeting we listed these universal qualities of healthy businesses:
1. Generates a Profit and creates savings
2. Has a GREAT reputation for quality, friendliness and delivery of goods and services
3. Improves the lives of the owners financially and emotionally
4. Helps the employees achieve their life goals as well as the owners
5. Improves the community standard of living by contributing to the most vulnerable
members by supporting OPOS and the expansion of VCI principles.
What does a successful business mean to you?
1. ____________________________
2. ____________________________
3. ____________________________
4. ____________________________ (Continue to List as many as you like)
What Kinds of businesses have been successful in other communities that have completed OFB?

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KEY BASIC BUSINESS PRACTICE ISSUES THAT MUST COME OUT OF THE
TRAINING
• WHY START BUSINESSES WITH SMALL GROUPS?
• UNDERSTANDING PROFITS AND SAVINGS
• UNDERSTANDING WHAT A VIABLE MARKET IS
• ADDRESSING QUALITY AND CUSTOMER SERVICE
• THE ROLE OF FUNDING IN STARTING A BUSINESS
• FORMING A CIRCLE WITH YOUR GROUP
A. WHY START BUSINESSES WITH SMALL GROUPS?
B. Certain traditions make starting a business difficult. Family members may have
immediate needs and when they find out you have money, they will expect you to
help them. In other cases family and friends may expect you to give them
products for free. Forming a small group allows you to:
§ Have a lock box managed by at least three members where funds can be
safely kept.
§ Make rules that prevents you from giving funds or free products or
services to friends or family members.
§ Hold each other accountable for promises and the fulfillment of roles.
§ Share skills and labor that one person alone may not have.
B. UNDERSTANDING PROFITS AND SAVINGS
o Income – Costs = Profit (Income minus costs equals profit)
o When you sell something you must set aside enough money to replace it.
o You must pay your laborers, rent, and other business expenses
o The remaining amount is profit
o Some profit should be set aside to grow your business
o Some profit should be shared among the members
o Some profit should be used to help the vulnerable members of your community.
C. UNDERSTANDING WHAT A VIABLE MARKET IS
D. Business is about supply and demand. If you supply something that a lot of people
want at a price they will pay, then your business will prosper. Often people choose
businesses that don’t have enough demand from customers to be sustainable
because they like the idea for the business. Be objective in how your group
assesses business opportunities. Have careful discussions about what businesses
are needed in your community, and if the community has enough members who
would be able to buy the product or service to make the business profitable.
E. Discuss existing businesses that are successful. Sometimes existing businesses are
not managing their customers well, and your group might succeed just because

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 you can take an existing type of business and do it better than those who are
already in that business. But, be sure to consider that in some cases a type of
business in your community may be too saturated. If there are ten small food
shops already in your community there may not be room for another.
F. ADDRESSING QUALITY AND CUSTOMER SERVICE
G. Customer Service means being friendly and kind to customers, reaching out to
them, delivering goods or services on time, delivering a first class product, and
taking care of complaints quickly with a good attitude is the backbone of the
world’s most successful businesses, but this skill is not widely recognized in
many African communities. Honoring your customers means they will come back
again and again, and spread the word that you have a great business.
H. THE ROLE OF FUNDING IN STARTING A BUSINESS
I. The lease important issue for a new business is money. Businesses that receive
outside funding in the form of grants have a very low rate of success. Businesses
that start with loans generally do not have any greater success rate than businesses
that do not receive funding. Businesses that are funded by the hard earned money
of the people that start them have the highest likelihood of success. Those who are
have risked their own money and are working daily in their businesses have the
most to lose and will work the hardest to make the enterprise successful.
J. FORMING A CIRCLE WITH YOUR GROUP
K. A circle is a way to self-fund your business. It may be that you have studied and
prepared to start a business that you really believe can succeed but do not have the
funds to get started. Throughout Africa small groups have begun to form
“circles”. A circle is just that, a group of people meet and form a circle so that all
the members are facing each other. They discuss the opportunity and agree to each
contribute a small amount to get something started, or to simply save money for a
time until they can start the business the group wants to begin with. Other circles
form purely for the purpose of forming a bank that accumulates funds through
dues, until they have enough money to lend to one of the members, or a group
within the group, to begin a small business. This has proven to be the most
successful form of funding for small groups in Africa today.
L. CHOOSING A BUSINESS
M. At this point the participants are ready for OPEN SPACE. From the businesses
they have listed during the Outcomes discussion, have the audience break out into
groups. Each participant can choose which business he or she is interested in and
join that group for the launching discussion.

PHASE 3: OPEN SPACE FOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Once you feel the Outcomes have been defined, and the Basic Business Practices have been
discussed and understood it is time for OPEN SPACE. During open space members will
decide on their own from the business opportunities that have been chosen by the attendees
which one they want to participate in.
1. Decide what you will do (and what you won’t do). Strategy is about making choices.

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 2. Decide who your business will serve, and focus on them intensely.
3. Decide what makes you different, and do it.
4. Manage Cash Flow (Describe a plan to manage money, set aside funds for resupply and
savings.
5. Manage Employees (if your business will have them); discuss what incentives you will
give employees to succeed.
6. Discuss how you will manage and take special care of your customers.
7. Make your business known, how will you get the word out about your business.
8. Set Goals
a. Who will be involved?
b. Who will be in charge?
c. List the members’ roles.
d. When will you start
e. How will you raise funds to get started
f. Who will keep the records?
g. How often will you meet?
Once the groups have completed their discussions around these points and questions, have them
assemble again and report a summary of their goals and next steps.

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 THE KEY TO VCI
OPEN SPACE

Open Space is very similar to meeting a group of friends and having a chat about how to solve a
problem. It is best when there is room for everyone to face each other, like you would do sitting
in your home, or out under a Mango tree hanging out with people you know. People naturally
organize around needs. Everyone, even very shy people, wants to have a voice. Having a voice in
a process is the first step to real commitment. Open Space takes the burden off the leader and
shares it with the participants. The more often people meet this way, the more people find their
best role in solving problems. The agenda runs alongside a theme. Our theme at VCI is to help
communities improve their conditions while they target helping their most vulnerable members.
Our main theme is to make sure that everyone is living in a loving home, is cared for and
protected, and is a positive and productive member of their community. We have discovered
some principles that we use as a fire starter to ignite transformation in helping communities
shatter their conformity to ideas that have kept them in poverty for many generations.

· Whoever comes are the right people.

· Whatever happens is the right thing.
· Whenever it starts it is the right time.
· When it is over, it is over.
· The law of the two feet. Anyone can come or leave at any time. Anyone can leave
a group and join another group at any time.

THE THEME -- Creation of a powerful theme statement is critical, for it will be the central
mechanism for focusing discussion and inspiring participation. The theme must be short,
powerful, and excite interest.

VCI is about the community transformation of power. During our time together you will learn
how to achieve great things by taking small steps. You will become the masters of your own
destiny.

THE GROUP -- The group must be interested and committed. Failing that, OPOS will fail. The
key ingredients are freedom to speak and ownership of responsibility. Freedom allows for
exploration and experimentation, while responsibility ensures that both will be pursued with
rigor. You can never force people to be interested or committed. People who don’t have the time
or the interest in OPOS will always fail. Don’t work with them. Open Space only works when
you let it work.

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 · Completely voluntary attendance
· Completely informed in advance about the meeting – pre meeting general outline has
been done
· The size of the group is not critical. Groups of 20 to 400 have been successful.
Remember, whoever shows up are the right people.

LEADERSHIP - Leadership in Open Space requires a style that some may find uncomfortable
and counter-intuitive. This is especially true for those who equate leadership with control,
teaching or preaching. We get into trouble when we understand leadership simply as advanced
management, and therefore, if the manager controls, the leader must control absolutely. Our
leadership style is only to keep the participants on track with the framework of OPOS. We
are not there to lead in any other capacity. Honor the process.

· It is the special function of the facilitator to raise the expectations of the group, and
heighten their sensitivity to the opportunities at hand, whatever they may be.

· Here is the most difficult and important point about leadership in Open Space. The leader
must truly trust the group to find its own way. Attempts on the part of the leader to
impose specific outcomes or agenda will destroy the process. Any person who is not fully
prepared to let go of their own detailed agenda should not lead.

· If the group takes a different direction than the VCI OPOS FRAMEWORK, that is ok,
just continue to facilitate, bless them, and understand that this is not VCI, and they are not
ready for us. Be respectful, be friendly, complete your commitment, and then move on.

· Not everyone is made for being a Conductor of Open Space, we all have different gifts.
But, since Open Space is very flexible, there are many ways to facilitate effectively, you
just have to adapt a method that works and fits your personality. You know you are
effective when you are trying to keep up with the participants. And as a matter of fact,
you should be having fun. Having fun is the key indicator that you are ready to take on a
group for real. If it isn't fun, don't do it. Maybe you should never do it, or maybe you just
need more practice. But HAVE FUN.

SPACE -- The space required is critical, but need not be elaborate or elegant. Comfort is more
important. You will need a room large enough to hold the entire group, with space to spare in
which the participants may easily move about. Tables or desks are not only unnecessary, but
will probably get in the way. Movable chairs, on the other hand, are essential.

The initial best setup to start is a circle or semi-circle with a large, blank wall somewhere in the
room. The wall should also be long enough so that the total group may stand before it, and never
be more than three to four deep. The center of the circle is empty, for after all we are talking
about Open Space.

Pre Plan for Breakout Meetings; Open Space is always the method, on all three days. To keep
people engaged and active plan to break them into small groups two or three times during the
event and have them discuss key issues and return to the meeting with their ideas, definitions,
and proposed actions.

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TIME – 8 hours is best for each part of OPOS. Six hours will work, four hours is the very
minimum, and likely will not produce the best result. You can go longer.

The integrity of the time is very important. Open Space will not work if it is interrupted. This
means that "drop-ins" should be discouraged. Those who come must be there at the beginning
and stay for the duration if at all possible. Once the process begins, it cannot be interrupted
by other events or presentations. These might come before or afterwards, but never in the
middle.

FRAMEWORK: THE BASIC STRUCTURE; A FRAMEWORK NOT AN AGENDA

Although it is true that an Open Space event has no pre-determined agenda, it must have an
overall structure or framework. Our framework is a day to discuss goals (Outcomes) a day to
discuss Practices that will achieve the Outcomes, and a day to form small groups and discuss the
first two days, and create permanent groups that will take action, and meet using open space
weekly.

OPENING -- Very informal opening works well, if the group has no prior association, the
simple device of having all the participants introduce themselves by giving their names and
telling a short story from their lives to illustrate who they are will usually do the job. Detailed
and involved "icebreaking" exercises do not seem to work very well, and more to the point,
set the wrong tone. After all, we want Open Space.

AGENDA SETTING – Set the stage for the FRAMEWORK.

OPEN SPACE -- is exactly what the words imply, open space and time for the group to do its
business. There is literally nothing here at the start.

ANNOUNCEMENTS -- A short period every morning for the group to catch up on what it is
doing, where, when, and how. No one elaborates, no speeches, just the facts, nothing but the
facts.

CELEBRATION – At the end of day two ask the participants to plan a celebration that they will
host together at the end of day three to celebrate their findings and testify to what they have
learned. It can be a meal, where those who can bring some food, or just a time of music and
dancing.

CLOSING -- We try to keep the closing simple and serious. Simple in that there are no formal
presentations and speeches. But serious, for this is the time for announcing commitments, next
steps, and observations about what the event has meant. The closing event is best conducted in
a circle with no "head table." Start anywhere, and go around the circle allowing each
participant, who wants to, the opportunity to say what was of significance and what they propose
to do. But do make it clear that nobody has to say anything. In very large groups, hearing from
everybody is obviously impossible, but two or three folks may be asked to volunteer.

FORMAL REPORTS are for the project leaders and the VCI coordinator. At the very end have a
quiet session with the new leaders to receive their reports and schedule your follow-up visit.

MEALS – If any meals are offered, they are the responsibility of the sponsoring community.

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PRINCIPLES - There are Four Principles and One Law which serve as guides to the leader
and all participants. The principles are: Whoever comes are the right people. Whatever happens
is the only thing that could have. Whenever it starts is the right time. When it is over, it is over.

The first principle – Whoever shows up are the right people. This reminds every one of the
obvious facts that those present are the only ones there. Whatever gets done will get done with
them, or not at all. There is little point, therefore in worrying about all those who should have
come, might have come, but didn't come. It is essential to concentrate on those who are there.
The experience is that, in some strange way, the group present is always the right group. If the
group decides they need experts, they can go find them later.

The second principle – Whatever happens is the right thing. This is yet another statement of
the obvious. Given the theme (job) at hand and the people in attendance, whatever happens is the
only thing that could have. It is, of course possible that the result of the gathering could be a
failure, but experience shows that such a negative result is usually the product of negative
expectations. Most often failure occurs when we change the process by cutting time or adding
formalities.

The third principle – When it starts, it’s the right time. Open Space Events do, of course,
occur in time, which means that there must be a time of beginning and a time for closure. But
everything in the middle must be allowed to run its own course. Things will start when they are
ready, and whenever they start is the right time. In fact, when the creative learning moment
arrives, it seems to create its own time, or put another way, clocks don't seem to matter much
anymore. The Open Space environment provides the nutrient setting for creative activity, and
those who would lead in that environment must keep their eye on the creative process and forget
about the clock. When "it" happens, it will happen in its own time, and scheduling a
breakthrough by the clock, is not only an exercise in futility, but it will also defeat the purpose of
Open Space.

The fourth principle, "When it is over, it is over," deep learning and creativity have their own
internal life cycle. When they come to completion, they are over. Occasionally this means that
we have to spend more time than we had planned, but more often than not, it may take less time.
Just because the session or meeting was scheduled to take a certain amount of time is no reason
to sit around and waste time after the moment has passed. When it is over, it is over.

The One Law of Open Space, we call it the Law of Two Feet. This law says that every
individual has two feet and must be prepared to use them. Responsibility for a successful
outcome in any Open Space Event resides with exactly one person -- each participant.
Individuals can make a difference and must make a difference. If that is not true in a given
situation, they, and they alone, must take responsibility to use their two feet, and move to a new
place where they can make a difference. This departure by any individual can happen after
honoring the people involved and the space they occupy. By word or gesture, indicate that you
have nothing further to contribute, wish them well, and go and do something useful.

OPENING THE SPACE -- Once you have experience you may have your own creative ways of
“Opening the Space”. This is a simple outline of how you may begin the event. By the time you
are in charge of your first event, you should have partnered with an experienced TOT (Trainer of
Trainers), and you should be familiar with how to open an OPOS event. The statements below
are suggestions, and you may use them until you don't need the script and can use your own.

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Your first effort is never critical. There is always a next time. Assume that your group is now
assembled in a circle, with a large blank wall behind them. You walk into the center and begin:

"Our theme for this gathering is _________. In the next __days, we are going to develop
our best thoughts around the issues and opportunities associated with our theme.

As we start, I want you to notice the blank wall. That is our agenda. Just out of curiosity,
how many times have you ever been to a meeting where the agenda was a completely blank
wall?

Here you begin to balance the FRAMEWORK OF VCI, with the BLANK WALL of Open
Space. We are not here to mobilize this community to care for their own widows and orphans by
increasing their standard of living using their own resources.

There are two tools used to start Open Space, called the Community Bulletin Board, and the
Village Market Place of Ideas.

"You are here to create your own program around some principles we call Outcomes and
Practices. Behind me is a blank wall that we will use as the Community Bulletin Board, and
the Village Market Place. As we travel through the day, I will ask you to identify issues and
opportunities around our theme, I will ask you to give it a short title and write that down
on the paper provided. Then stand up in front of the group, say what your issue is, and post
the paper on the wall. You may offer as many issues as you like, and if at the end of the
day, you do not see your issue on the wall, there is exactly one person to complain to;
Yourself!

The Bulletin Board (Sticky Wall): To make this work you may begin by posting the five
Outcomes for Children while explaining what they are and why we believe in them across the
top of the wall. You can post the five Basic Home Practices vertically down one side of the wall.
This is the bulletin board. During this day you will fill the bulletin board with the indicators that
the participants will define as they write their own children’s guidebook. On day two you will
post the five practices across the top of the wall, and the Outcomes vertically off to one side,
reversing the set from the previous day. During day two the participants will work with you to
define Practice Indicators writing their own toolkit for helping their children.

The Marketplace of Ideas: Off to one side you may create some space on the wall for a Market
Place of Ideas. You can post action items (things people want to do) that fit the FRAMEWORK
for the day’s theme. This allows you to acknowledge ideas but stay on task. The group can also
vote to reorganize an idea or remove it. On Day three the Ideas become the Theme of the day.
Open Space meeting ideas will be posted here along with any ideas that are already there, and
people will decide when and where to meet to create groups that will begin the work of
transforming themselves and their community.

Explain the 4 Rules and One Law: "Even though Open Space is truly open, there are some
principles and one law that we need to keep in mind. The Four Principles are:

1. Whoever shows up are the right people.

2. Whatever happens is the right thing.

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3. When it starts, it’s the right time.

4. When it is over, it is over.

The Law of Two Feet: Anyone can leave, come in, or change groups at any time.

Have paper available and marking pens and choose volunteers among the participants to record
the meeting, and others to help post notes on the sticky wall. Once ideas get flowing make sure
that everyone gets a chance express their definition, ask their question, or express their idea.
Always ask if there are any more and direct the group's attention to the wall.

We have learned that best results happen when we have a day for Outcomes and a day for
Practices. Day one and two are the spark, day three is the ignition point, when programs are
launched, and this is where a good Facilitator transitions the whole program over to the
community, ownership is transferred, and the title belongs to the participants.

"Our job today is to figure out who is going to do what, when, and where. To move that
business forward, it is time to have some small group meetings. Who has an idea they
would like to meet about?

Prior to this part of the program, the facilitator should post a list of available meeting places. Of
course the the groups can meet anywhere they feel comfortable. Across the Wall post a paper
that represents each meeting area from A – F (or as many areas as you have). Down the left side
of the wall post papers that reflect meeting times. As ideas come forth put the meeting title below
the area and next to the meeting time, until all the ideas are posted, or all the space is full.

Repeat the four principles and one law, make sure people understand they are responsible for
being in a meeting, and can respectfully leave at any time.

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Allow an hour for each meeting. Participants can decide to meet into the next hour, but that is the
limit. This is a starter point for groups to form and report back to the main event.

At this point, things are likely to get pretty noisy, and some might say chaotic. Leaders used to
having things happen in relative silence, and in strict order may get very nervous. It is all right to
be nervous, but don't try to straighten things out. THE GROUP WILL TAKE CARE OF
ITSELF. A little chaos at this point is a good and necessary thing. First of all, everybody
probably needs a stretch and some conversation. But most of all the rising noise level is a
positive indication that the group is getting to work, and good things are happening.

Let the group bubble along for a few minutes, but before long some people will start to
experience conflicts. They want to go to two different groups which are supposed to meet at the
same time. Or two different groups are scheduled to meet in the same place at the same time.
When you sense this happening, or even if you don't, stand up and get the group's attention. You
may have to raise your voice, but noise won't hurt.

"Some of you may be finding a few conflicts, but it should be easy to work out. It is called
negotiation. If you want to go to two groups meeting at the same time, find the group
leaders and see if you can get them to merge their sessions (if their topics are similar) or
change their times. If they won't do that, you will just have to make a choice and choose the
meeting you are most interested in. "From here on out -- you are on your own. As soon as
your group is ready to go meet, go to it. We'll see you all back here at ______ [Evening
News, Closing Session, whatever]."

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We find it very useful at this point for the facilitator to actually leave the room, if only for a cup
of coffee. It really makes the point, as little else could, that each individual and the total group
are now responsible for what happens. From here on out, the role of the leader will be infinitely
less visible and the critical transition from VCI outside the community to VCI becoming a
member community has begun.

The major function of the facilitator at this point is not to do certain, specific things, but rather to
sustain the atmosphere of Open Space. In most cases this involves little more than walking about
and seeing how things are going. When difficulty is encountered, it is important not to take
charge, but rather to throw responsibility back on those who need to hold it. A great way to put
responsibility back on the person or group when they propose a problem to you is to simply reply
“how will you solve that problem?”

It is not unlikely that some of the participants will find themselves slightly lost, and come to the
facilitator expecting to be told what to do. An appropriate response would be a question -- "What
would you like to do?" It may just be that some individuals' unique contribution will be made by
sitting under a tree and thinking all by themselves. The result of that thinking may show up in a
later session, or six weeks later. Open Space requires real freedom, and real responsibility.

Sometimes it happens that overly zealous participants feel that their ideas are so important or
powerful that everybody in a particular group (or even in the whole conference) should pay
attention and listen. This one has to be nipped in the bud -- carefully. The way out is not to
directly challenge the person, but rather to remind the assembled group of the Law of Two Feet.
If everybody truly wants to listen, they should do that. But if that is not their desire, they have
two feet which they should use. There is no need to argue and shout, just thank the group and
leave. Egomaniacs quickly get the picture when everybody leaves.

Conclusion

VCI was founded on the idea it is smart to approach every problem assuming that nothing we
see, or are told, or led to believe, is true. Our job is to find true principles and then find true
methods that work with them. In our VCI world truths when properly applied lead to positive
transformation at the end of the day, even if the idea might be a little scary at first. Truth doesn’t
always win out, that’s the truth! Often it doesn’t. But lies always fail in the end, or perhaps more
accurately, lies always bind us to a lesser result, always keep us incomplete, or separate, and
often enslave us. Lies never free us. In the real world lies can look a lot like the truth, and even
seem like not only the best way to do things, but the only way to do things. Both truth and lies
are investments we make in our future. Both pay compound interest. We often justify engaging
in lies by defining things we want as things we need, which allow us to excuse ourselves from
responsibility. We reap what we sew. In all kindness humankind has turned poverty into an
industry by buying into a lie that guarantees that it will not only be perpetual, but returns more
wealth to the rich than it delivers to the poor.

Sew truth.

David Glenwinkel

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