Reflections

Arnstein's (1969) ladder of participation reserves its highest rung to citizen control where all the decisions of a community development project are relegated to the community itself. With this in mind, we decided to involve MMS staff through the earliest stages of discussion; this is when the community there voiced an opinion to scale up the project -- i.e. to install a more expensive water filteration system capable of dispensing both hot and cold water. The original plan for the project envisioned the installation of a simple, relatively cheap water filteration system but this was modified to attempt to incorporate the community's expecations of the project.

The MMS staff, including its leadership, pledged support during the following meetings and through involvemnet of the MMS recreational club (MRC), it was decided that all staff would show their support for the project by voluntarily donating 1-day's salary to the cause. To better facilitate this process and employ more effective citizen participation, we delegated some of the key tasks to an individual staff. Due to conflicts with time, proper monitoring of the delegated work was not undertane.

Office politics came into the play at this point and by the 13th week of the project, the support for the filteration system had somewhat waned. Perhaps this effect could have been remedied through better, more inclusive and exhaustive awareness campaigns, including the on-site conduction of a water sample analysis. Due to the heavily ingrained stigma of drinking tap water (even when filtered through a standard filteration manchine), people were still expressing reluctance to give up their established pattern of consuming water from PET bottles.

In hindsight, the community expectations should have been better managed, bearing in mind technical, financial and time restrictions. Delegation of authority should have been better monitored and communication with all stakeholders should be open at all times. Additionally, more time must be dedicated to effecting behaviour change, especially when dealing with matters with attached social stigmas.