Last week our team held the first of six community meetings for our new alternative social assistance program. The meeting was the official start to bringing together our beneficiaries, five young single mothers, with our team leaders. The session marked the beginning to building an empowering relationship with our beneficiaries and shaping how the program will best support everyone.
The first meeting was a loose introductory process, with the aim to simply bring our beneficiaries together, build relationships, and discuss everyone’s hopes for the program ahead. In preparation, we created a situational analysis tool, in the form of a tree diagram to create an interactive mind map to facilitate discussion. During the meeting the women came accompanied by some of their children which we welcomed for ease and flexibility in an attempt to best accommodate their schedules and needs. The meeting began with pleasantries and general conversation; it then moved into one of our team members explaining the general structure for the next 6 months and Harapan Fian’s hopes in providing this social assistance. Following this, a collaborative effort was made to create the ‘meeting rules’, outlining everyone’s expectations from fellow members and practical boundaries that will assist group members to best benefit from the shared space. This allowed for members to better acquaint themselves with each other and begin to build a safe and respectful environment. The rules included ensuring everyone attends each meeting, assigning roles to members such as facilitator and notetaker, and creating privacy boundaries.
The meeting then delved into why members needed this program, and how our alternative social assistance may support them in achieving goals. This is where our visual aid, ‘Pohon Harapan’ (Hope Tree) played a role, as women took turns to write down the function that our social assistance may offer them and their goals. These goals ranged from short-term achievements such as providing snack money to kids to long-term goals of paying rent and debts, obtaining stable work, accessing adequate schooling for kids, assisting them in speech challenges, and living together with their kids. Through this process many of the women were able to express their hopes for stability and work towards obtaining their rights for themselves and their families, emphasising how small financial assistance creates the first step. This was instrumental in allowing the team to better understand the barriers each woman is facing, and their priorities for themselves and their family. These conversations about each of the women’s goals were carried out, and after the monthly financial assistance, Rp 250000 ($15 USD), was given and the session was complete.
Our team has viewed this initial meet as a success, observing how each beneficiary was able to clearly outline their goals and how this program might best support them in achieving them. As the aim for this meeting was simply to focus on relationship building and goal setting, more structure in the beginning of the session was provided to catalyse this. In order to create an effective social assistance program, we must acknowledge the intersectional vulnerabilities each mother faces in both systemic barriers and social discrimination. This meeting provided imperative insight into how we as facilitators can best utilise our resources to allow for optimal support. Moving forward, we wish to maintain the flexible nature of our program to best support and empower our beneficiaries. Working towards creating a personalised plan to best align with each mother’s unique needs.
Harapan Fian’s alternative social assistance program will take place over 6 months, working to empower and support 5 single mothers aged 24 – 31-years-old with school aged children. The aim of this program is to provide financial assistance to those that are ineligible for the government’s Bansos assistance, whilst building financial literacy and long-term independence. This program is rooted in the importance of relationship-based support, prioritising building confidence, resilience and social connectedness.
Harapan Fian is immensely grateful to our donors for their continued support which makes this instrumental program possible. At this early and critical stage of our alternative social assistance, and throughout the program we look forward to sharing more updates as we strive to empower the families we are working alongside.