A field reflection by Katie Lockyear, Communication and Project Management Specialist
This was my first trip to visit an Outreach Program as a staff member. Prior to my visit, I had worked at Outreach for a year and a half spending my time elevating the stories from our global teams about the projects and impact communities were making. This was my first time meeting the HURREDO team members. My first time meeting community leaders and members. My first time seeing the power of community-led development.
The Outreach communities are located outside of Siem Reap in northwest Cambodia near the Thailand border. After landing in Siem Reap, I quickly learned that Cambodians offer the warmest greetings, just like the welcome our group received from the HURREDO team. HURREDO is the Outreach program partner team in Cambodia who facilitates a relationship with communities in their development journey. I was inspired to find the same passion for the mission within the HURREDO team as I see each day in my coworkers in the Kansas City office.
Time Guides Transformation
During my visit, I had the chance to spend time in graduated communities. These are communities that have undergone the Outreach Development Process and have proven they have reached their development goals in total independence. The process allows community members the space to identify issues and leaders emerge to help guide solution creation. I realized how time is an overlooked resource in community-led development. Time is the most valuable asset in allowing for communities to develop and implement their own pathways out of poverty. Elene, our CEO, put it best in one of our team afternoon reflection sessions, “Community-led development cultivates the spirit and the commitment people hold in their hearts to guide their own solutions. Transformation isn’t quick aid, it’s grown over time through ownership.”
The first community-based organization we visited was RUN, a community that graduated in 2024. When we arrived, I stepped out of the van and was greeted by twelve women in lilac shirts proudly displaying their community organization logo on it. These were the community leaders.This was what ownership looked like. Li, the community president, had appeared in a video I edited just weeks earlier—and in person, she brought the same joy and passion as she led her community.
In RUN, the meeting we attended was focused on reviewing and planning to further address the issue of poor sanitation. The community had accessed materials for 43 toilets and wanted to access an additional 40 toilets. I had to rely on our translator Lee yet, I could see how organized and efficient the women were in leading the meeting. All the members’ eyes were on them. Community members of all ages were tuned into the planning process. I wondered if the kids who were there would remember these meetings when they were older or of how their community worked together to build the community they grew up in.
The second community we visited was Trapeang Svay who graduated in 2025. HURREDO facilitator, Tito had facilitated in this community. During the meeting, I could see how the members welcomed Tito back and watched how proud he was as the community members led the visit. Facilitators are an important piece in the process of the work, they are the first to engage and create trust with a community. Tito and the entire HURREDO team led with compassion and were natural relationship builders. The leaders of Trapeang Svay didn’t lead a meeting and instead put on a performance to illustrate their lives before and after the community-led development process.
It was powerful to see leaders transform their experiences into art, using it to express how they felt throughout the development process. Even though I don’t speak or understand Khmer (the official language of Cambodia), it was clear that the theme of togetherness emerged from the scenes. I could feel the power of community as I looked around the room at each member. The community of Trapeang Svay had collectively changed their lives and the difference was present on all of their faces.
A Dream Restored
A defining step in community-led development is when members identify the issues they will take ownership of and address. This approach is intentional, recognizing that every community’s needs are different. Since I found out I was going on the trip, I knew I would be visiting the dream toilets. The toilets were a part of Outreach’s 2022 Giving Tuesday campaign and not only was I able to see them in person but I used one. Prior to the Trapeang Svay community having dream toilets, many used “night toilets”. These toilets didn’t provide coverage to those using them in the daylight so many waited till the evening. There are risks to those either using a night toilet or having to resort to open defecation. An increased risk of danger of snakes, limited privacy, and potential health risks. Women are a majority of those affected by the lack of a place for sanitation, hygiene, and privacy.
When I walked into the dream toilet there was a bathing tub on my left and a toilet bowl on my right inset on the floor. I wondered how I was going to squat enough not to go on the floor or on myself. I began to think of the pregnant and elderly women I had seen in the community that day and wondered how they did this. The toilets aren’t equipped with a septic system so only natural waste can go into the dream toilet. I left the bathroom and asked the facilitator where I should put my toilet paper and she pointed to a patch of grass that was littered with different pieces of trash. It was all to be burned. This was a moment that strengthened my understanding that there is privilege in privacy, sanitation, and a sense of self worth. One community member shared with us that her dream toilet has restored so much dignity for her. The dream toilets had done much more than provided a safe space. They had removed shame from a natural process that every one of us goes through.
Beyond the Projects
I saw many successful projects. Some that had been implemented years ago and others only a few months yet it was the strength, confidence, and resilience of each person I met that gave me hope. We define success by what we can measure. The amount of money a community saved within a year or the number of houses built. Behind all of these numbers is the investment in people. It’s the success that we don’t measure that is changing the makeup of communities. Women leading for the first time, communities openly expressing their struggles with one another, and children growing up in an environment that reimagines their futures.
Poverty is a lack of choices and accessibility. It shames and isolates those who experience it.
However, that is not what I saw.
I witnessed the transformation that occurs when people are given the opportunity to choose, lead, and create their own solutions. Poverty was never the defining piece of the communities’ story. Hope, agency, and collective action were. Community-led development doesn’t rush to fix or provide solutions but listens. It fosters a space for communities to show up as they are and decide who they want to be. That is the key to building a world beyond poverty.
How to Help
If you are inspired by Katie’s reflection, you have the opportunity to invest in the power of ownership. Your support provides the most valuable resource of all: the time and facilitation needed for communities to lead their own transformation and bring their collective dreams to life.
