Quality isn't just doing 'something'

"Oh wow, it is incredible. I couldn't recognize it!" This could be the reaction to a change from mediocre to superb. A change in quality.

Time and again we run into differing views of what is needed for children here in Peru. It is as if some people are satisfied with a status quo of conditions. If we can give them a roof over their head and some sort of food in their mouths, then we are doing a good job, is the argument. It doesn't matter that there is no formal training in the areas such as hygiene and skills development, no goal setting in education, an environment that is constantly dirty and messy. For some that apparently is a good enough job to do for these kids. It seems that there simply is no understanding for doing a better than average job. It is as if the kids don't deserve it for they don't know any better anyway and therefore mediocre will do.

At Por una vida digna para los niños del Perú (Toward a Dignified Life for the Children of Peru) we strongly disagree. Food is not enough. A varied and nutritious diet is. A roof over the head is not enough. A proper bed in a nicely painted, decorated and clean room is. Daily training, learning and certain routines in life are important, too. That is why we chose our long and akward name. This is what we believe in. We believe that no matter where these children came from, they are valuable and absolutely worthy of the best we can do for them. Mediocre won't do for us.

One of our key words when we talk with people is quality. Quality of life, quality in life, quality environment, quality nutrition. But how do we define quality? Consulting a dictionary you are likely to find that it defines quality as ”superiority of kind” and ”Degree or grade of excellence.” Now apply this to the life of a child that grows up either in poverty or in an orphanage away form his/her parents. Is it ok that we provide something good in one area, but leave the rest unchanged? Let us imagine that we put in a new playground for the small children, but we do not bother to look at cleanliness, order in the daily routines, health in general, the food or the condition of the home. Now the kids have a place to play, but their lives are unhealthy chaos. Have we provided quality in their situation. Absolutely not! We have given them a few minutes of joy the days they get to play on the playground, but no matter how expensive that playground is, it still does not give them an overall improvement in life.

In other words improving life in one area does not improve life much in itself. A little sharply one could say that we have really only exposed the size of the problem. Or, we have pushed the problem on to the next item that need to be dealt with. In reality, providing quality of life for these children we need to adapt what in business terms is called the Toyota Model. Very briefly the model deals with quality improvement in process and says that you must make improvements of equal quality in the entire chain of process to have accomplished improvement at all. Or, removing a bottleneck in one area of production only really just pushes the bottleneck to another area in the production line.

So, if we go in and improve food only for the children, but their education, cleanliness and environment is left untouched, we really have not done what we should to improve the quality of life itself. What is needed, according to the Toyota Model, is that we look at everything in the lives of these children in order to actually change their situation for the better.

I suppose we could just have called our orgnaisation Dignified. That word is like superglued to quality. The two are inseparable. We want even the poorest of kids to have a dignified life. Therefore we cannot go in and just do a quick fix type of job. We need to examine the situation we enter into and from there start giving advise and provide help in the areas needed. Nothing less will do the job of providing a dignified life for the children of Peru.