As our primary aim is to improve the lives of orphans and vulnerable children by uplifting the lives of their caregivers we need to continually monitor and evaluate our impact to ensure we are making the best possible difference. Measures are being put in place to assess the benefits to each household - and assess each child's progress.

When a project is just starting, monitoring and evaluation measures generally get pushed to the back of the queue as other demands crowd in which require immediate attention. And yet it this is one of the most important aspects of any organisation because there is no point in continuing if you are not achieving your aims. Successful evidence-based interventions are urgently needed to effectively address the scale of the orphan problem in southern Africa, principally due to the AIDS epidemic.

In a stroke of great fortune the US Peace Corps placed a full-time volunteer with Mothers for All in Botswana at the beginning of 2010. Mary McGee (seen left with two of our Bobonong mothers) will be with us for two years and she brings much needed administrative skills and has tackled the issue of monitoring and evaluation with dogged enthusiasm. Mary used to run the entire library service in Alaska - do we need to say anything else?

Mothers for All has certainly achieved one measurable aim which was to improve the financial status of each mother's household. Records of every mother's income have been kept since 2008 and many of our mothers have been able to improve their houses and material situation considerably since joining the organisation. We are now getting our mothers to record details of their household expenditure. Measures to assess the impact of our interventions on the children include keeping records of their school attendance and grades as well as the number of clinic visits as these will provide important indications of their mental and physical health.