Our story
The Community Life Competence Process is rooted in the experience of many actors. Our discovering of human capacity started with AIDS.
How learning from what happened in Phayao Province, Thailand led to the idea of AIDS Competence
Phayao is a province of some 500,000 people in the north of Thailand.
In 1992, 18% of 21 year-old men were HIV positive in Northern Thailand. We know this because all 21 year-old men had to do an HIV test during their military service. Today, the prevalence rate is less than 1%.
During 1997-1998, Jean-Louis Lamboray worked with the AIDS Action Centre in Phayao in order to understand how these remarkable results had been achieved.
Jean-Louis Lamboray explains what he learned from his experience in Phayao. | The results of the study are described in the report "HIV and health care reform in Phayao: from crisis to opportunity"(UNAIDS Best Practice Collection, April 2000). The main points of the report are: 1. Effective responses to HIV are people driven, not commodity driven. 2. The key is the process of ownership of the issue, whereby people take action appropriate to their own context. And progress is not confined to a particular country. In Uganda and Brasil, you can observe similar trends. |
The AIDS Education Programme (AEP) led by Usa Duongsaa and Dusit Duangsa played an important role by stimulating communities in Thailand to take ownership of the issue of HIV. AEP used the AIC method (Appreciation, Influence, Control) which led to the idea of the common vision as a step of the Community Life Competence process.
The experience of The Salvation Army contributed to the current idea of SALT and the vision of Human Capacity for Response
Ian and Alison Campbell have worked for more than 20 years with The Salvation Army on the HIV response. Ian developed the first home care programme in Zambia. Home care stimulated many communities to respond in terms of care and prevention. Ian is one of the first who emphasized the link between care and prevention.
Community counseling was complemented by national and international facilitation team development. The ‘transferable concepts’ of care, community, change, and hope were the foundation for transfer to facilitation teams in 41 countries over 18 years. The teams share the same belief in Human Capacity to Respond (HCR) and accompany communities by working in team.
The current concept of SALT has been developed in part from the experience of The Salvation Army, as well as from the AIDS Education Programme quoted above. The Constellation carries the SALT approach forward together with partners like the Affirm Facilitation Associates, which Ian and Alison coordinate, supporting faith linked responses to HIV.
The experience of British Petroleum led to the idea of the self-assessment
In 2003, Geoff Parcell, seconded by British Petroleum (BP) to work with UNAIDS/UNITAR, helped to develop a self-assessment on HIV. The framework was developped and successfully tested in xx countries.
With support from Geoff, the Constellation integrated Knowledge Management tools into the Community Life Competence Process: the self-assessment, the river diagram, the stairs diagram, the after-action-review, the knowledge fair, peer assist, knowledge asset.
It is about Life
Five years after its foundation, the Constellation discovered that where communities have dealt effectively with a specific life concern like HIV or malaria, people are competent to deal with other life issues as well.
"Facing the issue of HIV forced us to organize ourselves. We feel confident that we can deal with any other issue in the future," explains Khun Sumalee from Ban Pang Lao in Thailand. Communities become 'Life' Competent.