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Our volunteers > Lesley's story

In the Gambia, where 59% of the population live on less than a dollar a day, VSO works alongside local organisations that help disadvantaged people to make a living. Wuli and Sanda Development Agency (WASDA) is one such organisation. It supports women’s agricultural groups by enabling them to grow more crops to sell at the market and take home to feed their families. Once, WASDA was low profile and struggling. Thanks to the commitment of its staff and support from VSO volunteer Lesley Chapman, it is now well respected and thriving.

Wuli and Sanda Development Agency (WASDA) is a community-based membership organisation supporting women’s agricultural groups in eastern Gambia.

‘Working with WASDA was one of the most amazing, satisfying and challenging things I've ever done,’ says management professional and VSO volunteer Lesley Chapman. ‘I enjoyed it enormously, mainly due to the fantastic people at WASDA, VSO and in the villages we worked with.’

When Lesley first arrived at WASDA, she found committed and enthusiastic staff who were lacking the business skills to run their organisation effectively. ‘Their record keeping was poor and they didn’t have much understanding of working with Western organisations,’ Lesley remembers.

Her approach was to spend time with staff and help them to see how they could make improvements. ‘We established rules for professional behaviour at work, put in filing systems, and looked at planning and effective meeting management,’ Lesley describes. ‘Soon my colleagues were creating agendas, writing minutes for all their meetings and not wondering off in the middle of them – this was a huge step.’

Reaping the rewards in the office
Positive change happened quickly. WASDA’s accountant Fajanko Ceesay says: ‘Before, I could not even write a receipt, but now I’m able to keep income and expenditure records. I feel we’re in control of our own accounts. It makes me smile when I’m sitting in my own office, writing my own report. I never thought this day would come.’

Kebba Sillah, WASDA’s Secretary General, agrees with Fajanko: ‘I did not think I would even see a computer, let alone operate one, and even save my documents on a memory stick.’

Praise from donors
Lesley describes Kebba Sillah as a ‘very intelligent, credible and persuasive man, who never went to school. We worked together to increase his confidence in dealing with educated, international development professionals and on creating a more professional image for the organisation.’ It worked! ‘During my time there, Kebba changed the perception of WASDA in the NGO community from that of a small, local farmers’ group to a major development player in the area.’

Key players in international development have noticed the changes too. WASDA’s financial and narrative reporting became so good that it received praise from one of its international partners. ‘ActionAid told us that no other partner organisation in the Gambia has answered their questions about a specific project so quickly and accurately,’ says Lesley.

Meetings worth going to!
Members soon began to benefit from the new, improved WASDA. For starters, they now have a great incentive for attending their Annual General Meeting. ‘When I arrived, WASDA was holding AGMs, but they were very dry,’ Lesley recalls. ‘Staff read from flip charts written in English, despite the general assembly not speaking it, and people often fell asleep.

‘In contrast, the last AGM we held was great fun. Staff prepared a drama about the issues they were facing working with donors, drew pictures to represent their work, and involved the general assembly in the whole process. The meeting buzzed as people got involved in the drama, drummed, sang and for the first time could review the reports themselves and ask questions. The staff did an amazing job.’

The women farmers speak up
Significant change can also be found out in the field. Due to the better support offered by WASDA, the women’s groups have better yields from their farms. That means more food for their families. Their confidence and status in the community have increased too.

‘One of WASDA’s programmes focused on empowering the women to look at their lives and come up with their own solutions,’ describes Lesley. ‘In one village women had a nice garden going, but the fencing needed repairing. Fencing is men’s work. When the women asked for help, the men asked for money, because they knew the women sold their produce at the market.

‘The women discussed this issue and analysed how their gardening benefited everyone in the village including the men: increased nutrition, less money spent on buying food in, income used for children’s school fees. So they called a village meeting – unprecedented for women to do that – spoke at the meeting – again, very unusual – and the whole village decided to support the garden. This was a huge win for the women both in terms of the garden and their voice within the community.’

The future looks bright
WASDA continues to go from strength to strength. Its increased professionalism has led to new relationships with large international donors and it has grown in size from two staff members to six. As a result, more women’s groups are receiving support, which means more women are better equipped to make a good living. And that means they can feed their families and send their children to school.