ABCD-Training-of-Trainers-Tools-July-2013

leaders and movements that bring people together are often viewed as a threat, which has resulted in
attempts to undermine them.
In addition to finding a safe and neutral place for people to come together, there were four factors that
allowed a more genuine type of shared leadership to emerge in a less threatening way. First, they
explained, “Everyone put their money where their mouth was. Talk is cheap. If I’m sweating next to you
and we share a sachet of water – that’s human. People had to tough it out. They had to go through this
process together.” This idea of “sweat equity” has been central to SoleyLevé’s philosophy: the belief that
it is the process of doing something concrete for yourself that is transformational in and of itself, and
that only personal investment can lead to genuine ownership. The street-cleaning groups, for instance,
have now in certain areas, become watchdogs for the ongoing cleanliness of their neighborhoods.
A second factor was the power of focusing on people’s strengths and what they have to contribute. This
slowly broke down factional divisions without having to address it head-on necessarily. Although it took
a lot of talking, it was about redirecting the negative energy into something positive. As one person
explained, “Everything I need is in Cité Soleil, but not necessarily in my own house. I knew that he could
sing…and he knew that I had the shovels. So we called on each other.”
Third, the leadership that emerged was diverse and informal. Yes, there were founding members but
they all admitted that there were just as many “quiet leaders” who contributed as much or more:
“sometimes it’s not the loudest voices that stick,” they explained.
This last point about formally organizing is important. While there are advantages to formalizing, this
group refused to do it on principle. SoleyLevé did not have an office, a political affiliation, a board, a
project or program, membership or directorship. “This makes it awkward, but we are a philosophy.
People can take from it what they want. I’m sure some people still think we are about street cleaning …
and that’s fine, but we are about the spirit of konbit.”
This unified philosophy has also helped them to engage with external actors from a position of strength,
which has not always been the case. In the past, relationships with outside actors have sometimes been
strained, and as a result, Cité Soleil has often been referred to as the “graveyard of good intentions:”
NGOs often come in, see the garbage, go back to their offices and design a sanitation program. They
come back and start paying people to clean up the streets. Then people throw garbage back on the
street and work slower so they earn more money. Money can rob us of our dignity. One time we cleaned
up the streets, and an outside organization came in and put up a sign taking ownership and credibility
away from us.
As a result of these experiences, the word “NGO” has lost credibility in many circles and the “baseline
assumption about NGOs”, as it was described, “is the expectation that something is going to go wrong.”
So what kind of partnership are these young people looking for?
Outsiders cannot want it more than the community. The minute they walk in with their log frame, we
know they want it more than us. We stop trusting. This log frame is the way the donor sees it, not us.
Sometimes we move slowly, and sometimes we surge. We don’t trust anything fast. It has never worked
in the past.
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