Sector: Nutrition
Organization: Peace Corps
PD Practitioner: Peace Corps Volunteer
Location: Guinea
“I was in one health center one day and nothing they did made sense, it was a combination of motivation and misunderstanding. I was starting to get visibly frustrated and then I remembered positive deviance. I thought to myself, “Wait a minute, instead of continuing to tell them how they are doing it wrong, why don’t I take them and show them someone who is doing it right?” Someone who is on their level, i.e., someone who has had the same training, receives the same salary, and has the same demands placed on them every day. There is one health center worker, Madame Cherif, who is exceptional. She is enthusiastic, she does everything correctly, she gives nutritional advice to women that come to the health center and she always goes the extra mile even if it is out of her way. I took the two health center staff that did not understand protocol to see Madame Cherif in action. It worked out wonderfully! I avoided being discouraged with the staff, the staff learned a whole lot and Madame Cherif felt a huge sense of pride in her work.”
Sector: Nutrition
Organization: Peace Corps
PD Practitioner: Peace Corps Volunteer
“Finally, using the Positive Deviance approach can be highly rewarding for a volunteer. During my service, I have worked both with supplementary feeding programs and the PD/Hearth approach. I enjoy my work with the supplementary feeding programs and I do think that the supplementary feeding programs help in the moment, the more amount of time that a child is healthy in her development years is important. However, it is my work with PD/Hearth that makes me really proud of my service. I know that through my PD/Hearth work I left something truly lasting: knowledge, knowledge that built upon what already existed. There were many mothers who were really proud after the Hearth, they could see the change it made in their child and they knew they (and their local ingredients!) made it happen. I am certain that those same mothers are passing on that knowledge to other mothers and it makes me happy to know that our (The community members who made the Hearth happen, CRS staff, and myself) work continues.”