“I’m trying to work myself out of a job,” says the director of the Angus Gillis Foundation, Diana Hornby. This is not what you would expect to hear from an organisation’s director or from a winner of the 2010 South Africa’s Most Influential Women award, but as our conversation continues, it makes perfect sense.
“I’m trying to work myself out of a job,” says the director of the Angus Gillis Foundation, Diana Hornby. This is not what you would expect to hear from an organisation’s director or from a winner of the 2010 South Africa’s Most Influential Women award, but as our conversation continues, it makes perfect sense.
Hornby’s business is community development and welfare. Working her way out of a job simply means that the community where development is being done arrives at the stage where they no longer need her help, or anyone else from outside the community.
“They [the community]must drive development and we must facilitate it,” Hornby says. The idea here is that, unlike traditional notions of development, which chiefly play rescuer to the helpless community, the developmental process is a conduit of empowerment for a community that defines its own needs.
It’s difficult to keep Hornby’s attention on the award as she excitedly talks about the successes of some of the communities.
Steering the conversation back to the prize, she says, “It’s a huge surprise… I didn’t tell anyone because I thought it would go away.”
Hornby won the award in the Welfare and Related community services category hosted by CEO Communications.
“It’s a nice acknowledgement for the team,” she says, without which she would not be able to do the work at the foundation.
She coolly shifts the focus back to the work at hand, saying; “The real prize is seeing the courage of the women in the village.”
Listening to a community is paramount says Hornby. A clear understanding of what a community regards as necessary areas for development is important, as is the utilisation of the existing social structures.
This asset-based approach to development is the focus of Hornby’s team. In this way the community defines the terms of the relationship, and they “unlock the potential” within themselves.
