Leadership: Organizing Village Development Councils (VDCs)
FF-VDP prioritizes leadership development training to build on the capacity of women, men, youth, children and elderly who are willing to participate in the Village Development Councils. VDCs are also organized into at least five separate sub-committees: Education, Healthcare, Household Care, Earnings and Finance and Values & Ethics. FF0-VDP focuses on the eight skills of VDC functioning: 1. Identifying bottlenecks and Prioritizing issues, 2. Spotting projects and programs, 3. Prioritizing them, 4. Planning and Scheduling them, 5. Networking and leveraging for resource mobilization, 6) Implementing, 7. Impact-progress reporting, 8. Evaluating for learning and modification.
VDC members are empowered to mobilize their own resources, effectively plan and utilize government and other resources for addressing key bottlenecks. In the long term, VDCs shall have knowledge, networks, and resources to leverage funds from government agencies, other national and international NGOs, and other private sector donors.
The focus is on ensuring no one is left out, that everyone has access to the basic needs of education, healthcare, household care, sustainable livelihoods, and cultural life. When these needs are met and the whole village is committed to helping the vulnerable families, the village truly becomes self-reliant and inclusive.
