We spent the morning showing Elder and the Ejecutor Eugenio how they build village accounts, the installations within them, and then the final household accounts within those installations. It was really incredible to be able to walk with them through each of the stove construction phases and learn and make changes according to the small but important details only they could know. We started from the point at which the solicitud or request for construction is received, continued to the required village meeting and household list compilation and moved all the way through to the end of stove construction. All of this while two of Eugenio's tecnicos who we trained on Wednesday were out at stove sites nearby collecting household data points with GPS!!!
Eugenio and Elder picked it up very quickly, while all of the steps require some reinforcing they grasped the idea of each section and saw how it related to stove construction. They understood the philosophy and depth of the system and really took ownership, asking for fields that we did not have or offering name changes to drop down lists. The few new words or concepts that cropped up, like "aldea instalaccion", while different from the current terminology "etapa" were embraced as the means toward building ordered and clean data. It was thrilling to see how excited they were about controlling the quality of incoming data and information. Each of these managers we were training saw Salesforce as a tool to make their jobs easier and facilitate their employee oversight and management.
After moving through the philosophy of the system and making some changes, we dove into report creation; the part that both realized has the power to offer the greatest ease to their specific work within salesforce. We were able to run a report and build list views that showed us the points their tecnicos in the field were collecting in real time. It was a pretty special moment to immediately review the quality of tecnico data and address (the very few) errors they made with them as they returned to the office.
Finishing at lunch time we closed the week with a very moving conversation and reflection on the week. Stevan shared how building a technology platform like this one, integrated with non-profit project work for good, had been a dream of his for several years. He expressed how the work of this team over the last week has proved not only that this kind of dream can be realized, but that its potential ripple effects can be spectacular. Having spent all the time building this system, trying to think as a tecnico/ejecutor/gerente he expressed how incredible it was to see that his efforts had been worthwhile and that his technological creation was one this Honduran team felt an ownership and possessiveness towards. I have to say, I think Stevan has been sucked into the stove world and I don't know that he or his family are going to be able to escape.... all I have to offer is bienvenidos al club (welcome to the club).
Doña Emilia, Prof. Elder, Prof. Eugenio, Darwing, and Marlon in response expressed their own excitement over the transfer of this technology. They told Stevan that he was welcome back anytime and that he should maybe be careful as they might work hard to keep him here permanently as Salesforce.com support. They also expressed the multiplying power of this system, how what they learn enables them to do their jobs better meaning more constructed and well monitored stoves; no one can deny the world is a better place with more fuel-efficient stoves. They also enforced the idea that this was not just a transfer but a two sided exchange and that their job going forward will be to perpetuate that process. They showed their readiness to assume new roles, in the early stages of this implementation that meaning specifically working as the trainers who teach their co-workers and empower them to also grasp onto this transition.
Most exciting about the conversation was the realization that in the afternoon Stevan was going to get to see what Proyecto Mirador is all about. It was the builders, supervisors, managers, and California staff's chance to show him what we have all collectively created and contributed to. After lunch Elder and I took Stevan into the plancha/parilla/cinco factory and the village of Manchaloa (a name he recognized from all of that data entry!).
After seeing the metal working, he got to see and talk to the women who own these stoves and hear them say they wouldn't "dar ni venderla," "give or sell it" for anything. In the video I ask "me daria su estufa?" (would you give me your stove) the first responds "no I wouldn't give it to you" the second says no and when I ask with please she says she wouldn't even sell it to me.
He climbed up a muddy hill to see a traditional stove hearing from the doña that while she wants a 2x3 stove, her husband will not let her have one as he thinks it won't get hot enough to cook and will change the taste of his food.
In addition to these you can see, he got to speak to a woman who was initially a skeptic but now can't say enough about how pretty her stove is and how much it means to her. Yet another woman who told us the reason she would never give me her stove was because it was hers.
He also came to understand what we meant when we talked about a roof blackened by smoke, and heavy wood consumption. Some pretty powerful stuff and a fitting end to one hell of a week.
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