Liangshan Health and Development Project of Norwegian Missionary Alliance – Final Evaluation Report

Background:
Since 1999, NMA supported implementing the integrated “Liangshan Health and Development Project” in Yanyuan County, Sichuan Province, the content of which included such activities as schooling aid project, Ta’erti Village Leprosy Patent Recuperate and Community Development Project. The project activities started from Ta’erti Village, and gradually expanded the scope. Up to the end of 2011, the project covered 9 villages and 2 schools in seven towns and townships in Yanyuan County

Purpose/objective:
The evaluation is aiming to give a conclusion on the project, i.e whether the project has achieved the project objectives in accordance with the project plan.

The purposes of the evaluation are i) to summarize the success and failure of the project; ii) to find out the impact of the project to the beneficiaries, project sites and local partners, and iii) to provide sustainability recommendations for local partners and governments.

Methodology: In the evaluation, we mainly adopted participatory investigation and analysis approach, and invited community leaders, key figures, male villagers’ representatives and female villagers’ representatives to participate in evaluation. We took sustainable livelihood of the community as the main theoretical framework, selected critical indicators related to the project activities, and assisted the project beneficiary groups in analyzing and discussing all aspects of project effects and impacts.

Key findings:

Community Development Projects: the project activities implemented in the nine communities included building roads, bridges, clinics, schools and water ponds in the community, planting walnuts and medicinal herbs, as well as training on agricultural technologies. Most components played great roles in solving the specific difficulties of the community, such as access to potable water, seeing doctors, access to transportation and improving farmers’ incomes. Some projects had significant impacts, such as the integrated development component at Erdaogou, and the potable water component at Beishan. However, the projects were sparsely spread out with poor synergy, and also lack of design for sustainable development. Therefore, the projects were insufficient in community capacity building and social assets construction. The community projects were generally close to the “blood-transmitting” means of poverty alleviation, i.e., mainly relying on outsiders to help solving the difficulties of the communities, with poor sustainability. However, the new project location of Erdaogou made great progress in project design and means of implementation, promoted improvement of the farmers’ autonomous development awareness and reinforced their abilities to autonomously organize the projects, which laid a solid foundation for sustainable development. On the other hand, the impacts of the community projects were limited to the communities, with limited impacts on the government, the society and the PMO.

Ta’erti Rehabilitation Project: Ta’erti Village was formerly a special area that the government collected leprosy patients for treatments. The outsiders were afraid of and discriminated against the leprosy patients even if they had been cured, and refused to associate with them. As a result, the children could not have access to education, and the community also lacked of development opportunities. The NMA project started from improving all kinds of resources and rights, so that a group of people who had been isolated due to leprosy could have access to all kinds of resources or rights, become a normal community, and gradually join the normal society. The project enhanced awareness with the government to change policies, restored and established the society’s acceptance of the local people and the villagers’ self-confidence, and it was a very successful project. Simultaneously, reinforcement of the achievements to date need further supports from the government.

Girls, Orphaned and Handicapped Child School Aiding Project: This part of the project activity was mainly to financially support the deaf and dumb children’s class at Yanyuan County’s Primary School for Minority Nationalities and financially support girls from poor families to go to senior middle school. The project focused on the most disadvantageous orphaned and handicapped children and the most difficult senior middle school stage of poor girl students, which is highly oriented in project design. The project implementation effects were well accepted by the government, the school, the students and their parents. Fortunately, the project promoted the establishment of Yanyuan County Special Education Center, and also linked with the “state schooling aid” policy of the state for the poor senior middle school students. The government policies and actions provided guarantee for sustainable operation of the project in future.

Recommendations:

1. Erdaogou Community was a new village of immigrants, with rather poor conditions in all aspects. However, they had certain ground for autonomous development, community organization also need to be further reinforced through the project. It is suggested that NMA should continue supporting the Erdaogou Community Development Project, so that it could have abilities and conditions for autonomous sustainable development.

2. Presently, the education and community development issue of Ta’erti Village have been preliminarily solved. However, the livelihood of widowed elderly people and orphans of leprosy patients is still a big issue in the community. It is suggested to help constructing “Community Service Center for Orphaned and Handicapped People”, and rely on the community to help these special groups of people solve the problem of means of livelihood.

3. Influenced by the project, Yanyuan Government constructed a building as the Special Education Center, which will enroll handicapped children from Yanyuan and neighboring counties. However, they presently have but two special education teachers, which could not possibly satisfy the needs once the center starts to enroll students. However, the number of special education teachers trained in the government system is too limited to meet the social needs, it is very hard for such a poor county as Yanyuan to hire special education teachers. It is suggested that NMA should help the Special Education Center to train a few special education teachers by means of entrusted training as teachers for the Special Education Center.

Comments from the organisation, if any:.
Mission Alliance has taken the recommendations from this evaluation report into account. The report has provided some useful insights and recommendations.