Choice Humanitarian-Mexico: Ethnographic Evaluation

Problem

Choice Humanitarian is a capacity building organization that seeks to develop skills and leadership in the villages it supports. Two of their supported villages in rural Mexico had been receiving support through a goat loan program for over 8 years. An infusion of $250,000.00 (USD) via a grant sought by villagers to build goat cheese factories brought increased scrutiny and concern for the villages dependency on Choice and it’s regional leadership. My team of 3 ethnographic evaluators was tasked with determining the greatest factors in its dependency and potential for future self-sustainability.

Method

Myself and a fellow Ethnographer transcribing notes from a semi-structured interview recording.

We began our research with semi-structured interviews administered to one representative of available homes in each community (~30 total). Because the regional leader was wary of our involvement, we used our initial contact with villagers to build rapport with the overall community and learn of the overall impact of the goat cheese businesses. We also interviewed the members of both village businesses with a custom inventory derived from development evaluation frameworks. The inventory centered on leadership, business, and culture. By living in the communities during the week we were able to supplement interviews with strong community relationships, observations of daily business operations and greater access to of the regional leader’s data and records. To validate themes emerging from interview synthesis, and observations we formed focus groups and led participatory research sessions to elicit responses to our identified factors and to gain rich insight into reasons for village dynamics, operations and mindsets.

Left: Me helping make queso fresco. Middle: Huaricho business leadership after a focus group. Right: Me learning how the water was distributed to goat stables.

Result

At the conclusion of our two month ethnography we reported on the future of the village businesses. Through a thorough report we recommended specific support, and future participatory development in the areas of communication (conflict resolution), business practice and strategy (record keeping and sales), and village mentality (gender, age discrimination and nepotism).