Community-Led, Inclusive, Data-Driven Development.
A principles-driven approach, co-created by Salanga, that systematically positions communities to define, measure, and lead their own development journey.
Communities strengthen accountability to their own aspirations and collectively defined indicators of success, while institutions become more responsive and transparent.
By embedding iterative reflection and adaptation cycles at community level, Colmeal enables continuous course correction — strengthening resilience in volatile environments.
When communities own the agenda and the evidence, motivation and collective action persist after external funding ends, increasing the likelihood of sustained outcomes.
Download the Colmeal Poster outlining Colmeal’s core value, principles and process.
For me, Colmeal is a new approach to community programming where the community identify their own problems and devise their own solutions. In Colmeal, the communities design indicators, monitor, and evaluate. It’s a great approach that is worth venturing into.
I think Colmeal will work in project communities because of the way it has so far been embraced. Communities are quickly grasping the concepts and volunteering to serve their fellow communities.
I’m grateful for the learning experience I get from participating in the committee. I wish there is always a meeting. I learn and somehow forget my problems in a meaningful way.
Before the first training for the Colmeal committee, my worry is more about how can I participate. What if I can’t answer their question or I will be asked to present in front of many people? How will my co-members react? But when I facilitated, I realized that I can do it and it was not that hard at all.
For me, the success of Colmeal depends on the cooperation of the entire community.
I am overwhelmed with joy to be a member of the [Community Management Committee]. I came with a lot of stress over several issues in my life that I lacked solutions to. However, after the training I feel more empowered with the knowledge on how to address some issues and am ready to transfer the knowledge to my community members when am fully trained. Colmeal has helped us to identify common issues in our community and how to address these challenges.
Colmeal is a true bottom-up development programing aimed at engaging the community to participate in the development of their area with the community being in the forefront. […] COLMEAL is more sustainable since the local structure is comprised of all category of people from the different professions including the local leadership. ColMEAL will create a lot of impact in the TOGETHER project implementation area because of high level of capacity building that will be given to the different structures with emphasis on mindset change and community encouragement to work for their own development.
