Today we conducted the community needs assessment for the men’s work
force, or otherwise known as the ‘youth’ as they consist of men age
16-49. Since they were working on an addition to a teacher’s house it
made sense to meet in a classroom. We arrived and the teacher wasn’t
informed of the decision but it wasn’t really a big deal as it was a
good excuse to leave early. Before going, though, devotion had to be
held. They sang an English praise and worship song, followed it up
with a prayer, and then skeedattled. The men came in and I explained
the matrix scoring system. It didn’t compute as Samalu had to break
in and explain what we where doing. I think he also promoted his
preferred projects in the process. Regardless, they caught on and the
scoring proceeded nicely.

I really enjoy the community needs matrix ranking process promoted by
the Peace Corps. It is one of the few processes that is simple and
makes sense that we’ve learned during our stint so far. It also is
very democratic and transparent, which is always good when filtering
through the village politics.