When we first began working with the families, our leadership style was very "top-down." The families were not used to making good decisions for themselves, didn't know how to gain consensus and weren't very responsible about following through. As they learned new skills, got organized and began to trust one another, they started to govern themselves.
As they expanded their perspective, they began to learn about decision-making, communication and caring about more than their individual family.
In our third year, we organized a community committee which shared in our planning and executed much of the day-to-day activity. We taught them about long- and short-term planning, accounting and project management. We no longer had to evaluate work; the community committee did it, and rewarded good effort with small financial incentives each week. Finally the committee learned how to run meetings and what it means to represent others' points of view and needs.
In our fourth year, we reached our goal to work ourselves out of a job, and have the community running itself. The administration of Chacocente still attends the planning meetings and helps when necessary. But the community committee is running the project, and doing a very responsible and excellent job.