By early 2025, the organization's founding committee, originally just five people managing everything from the footbridge repairs to the earliest table banking group, was stretched thin trying to coordinate what had grown into five distinct, active program areas.
We ran our first open call for volunteer program officers, one per major program area, education, environment, women's economic empowerment, health, and infrastructure, seeking residents with either relevant professional experience or simply a demonstrated track record of showing up consistently to our activities over the previous year.
Five program officers were selected from a pool of fourteen applicants, through informal interviews conducted by the founding committee, with a deliberate emphasis on finding people already embedded in the relevant community, teachers, savings group treasurers, and health workers, rather than recruiting from outside Gituamba.
“I had been volunteering informally with the table banking groups for two years before this role existed. Being formally recognized as the women's empowerment program officer just gave a name to work I was already doing, and it means decisions now move faster because there is a clear point person.”
— Program officer, women's economic empowerment
This restructuring, modest as it sounds, meaningfully improved how quickly the organization could respond to opportunities and problems alike, decisions that once required convening the full founding committee can now often be made by the relevant program officer directly, with founding members focused on overall strategy and external partnerships.
We plan to formalize this structure further at future Annual General Meetings as the organization continues to grow.
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