Sensemaking local solutions and voices in Zambia
Tiffany Chalmers, SouthSouthNorth
A journey with the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) programme Zambia - February 2023
Between 15th February and 2nd March, the VCA Zambia Alliance took a journey together to visit the VCA projects. The aim of this ‘roadshow’ was to showcase the work being done and hear from the community beneficiaries of the programme. The group travelled alongside national media representatives and other partners to the 10 project districts, including Lusaka, Chongwe, Rufunsa, Luangwa, Chikankata, Chirundu, Siavonga, Kafue, and Itezhi Tezhi.
The roadshow had the following key objectives:
- Deepening the Alliance’s understanding of the implementation of the VCA work in the districts;
- Strengthening the learning, knowledge brokering and knowledge management in VCA Zambia;
- Providing a platform to hear from community voices and identify local solutions to be scaled out and up;
- Showcasing the work of the VCA through communications and media.
Through this journey, the VCA Alliance collaboratively engaged through experiential learning and sensemaking. Hearing directly from beneficiaries and seeing their needs, challenges and solutions allowed the Alliance to understand the context better and identify further areas of intervention. The programme is in its third year of implementation and has made significant progress for the target communities thus far. However, the team is ramping up progress and action to ensure that we reach the intended outcomes and impact of the VCA programme by 2025 and beyond.
Tiffany Chalmers of SouthSouthNorth tells the story of the journey to some of the project sites.