Building Relationship, Building Trust from Rural Ghana to Afghanistan!

Atia entered the court yard of the house and sat under the tree. After a few minutes, Assibi brought a calabash of water and offered it to Atia.  Atia drank the water and sat the calabash down at the foot of the stool he was sitting on. Then the greetings started between himself and his host, Mr. Tony. Greetings in the city might focus on a quick “hi”… “how are you?” and a quick “goodbye” but in rural Namoo in Bongo District of northern most part of Ghana, it meant a long and comprehensive greetings that asked about the house, the wives, the children, the crops, the animals and so on. After the greetings were done, there was a short silence while both men looked around. Then Atia, resumed the conversation, this time focusing on his mission to Mr. Tony’s house. He was there to ask his host to help with his son’s school fees, which Mr. Tony obliged.

One of the most important lesson I learned living with Mr. Tony in Namoo, was how to approach rural population. While in the urban areas you can come and go as you please, in rural areas around the world, it’s all about establishing relationship and explaining ones’ mission clearly and sticking to that mission! Rural folks tend to be suspicious of outsiders and building trust is difficult and even more difficult is rebuilding a relationship when that trust is broken.

So it was that when I got to rural Afghanistan, I visited many villages, representing the diverse tribes of the area. Each village, I went to, I introduced myself, my position and what my mission was in their area. I said I was there to work with them and asked for their protection. My mission stayed consistent with both mine and their collective interest. Had they for a second doubted my reason for being in their community, it would have compromised the effectiveness of our program, which would harm both us the donor and them, the beneficiaries.

Today more than ever the success of any development organization doing work in smaller towns and rural communities depends on its ability to build relationship with the population. While many donors are coming up with ways to use technology to monitor their programming and interact with the beneficiary. The truth is that nothing beats the human interaction, just ask the communities that have been around for thousands of years!