The really hard work begins

As I have said on this blog many times before, the VSO approach is to facilitate learning and build the capacity of people and organisations so that our skills remain when we leave. Unlike many voluntary placements, this is not just doing a job and heading back to a land of cheese, salaries and cities you can walk around in after dark, feeling good about yourself and having something worthy to talk about in job interviews. There’s a bit of that, obviously, but if it works well there’s so much more.



Me looking exceptionally elegant - really need a haircut



I've worked with individuals to support some various communications elements of the programmes,  but not done any team-wide work until yesterday. We began with partnership-building, not the ideal place to start sharing the skills my placement is designed to impart but operational pressures dictated. We need to find the right partnerships to help us reach as many persons with disabilities as possible; organisations which can distribute our simplified introductions to human and constitutional rights  and providing fora for the outreach workers we are training.  

Yesterday's session was not designed to be formal training. I wanted to prompt discussion and generate some creative ideas around how we identify partners, communicate with them and build something together which helps to meet our ambitions and the aims of our programme.



Maxwell putting the finishing touches to out Olympic
 running track. Sponsorships still available.



The VSO training - and volunteers' previous work experience - should provide lots of ideas and techniques to do this, but the reality is always going to throw up some surprises. I have introduced a couple of visual elements to the programme – an Olympic running track that we’re ‘racing’ round, with team members moving further along as we produce active partnerships, and maps on the wall where we’ll be marking the growing network of partners. 

The opening exercise, drawing portraits of each other to adorn the running track, seemed to have the desired effect as it raised a few laughs.





Drawing Mzungos is obviously a challenge
for my colleague Mercy



But the group discussions which followed never seemed to continue the momentum. Asking individuals questions within the discussion showed that they clearly understand the subject matter and have intelligent observations to share.

But contributions seemed a little stifled, with no-one wanting to volunteer information. It was surprising and frustrating to see a group of individuals who are usually so talkative, forthcoming and sociable turn so quiet. Most volunteers will know their homeland's working culture inside out, which is a huge advantage when trying to work out whether the contributions of people in meetings or team sessions reflect their levels of boredom, confidence, knowledge, attitude towards the subject at hand or most importantly the value they place on being there.

But when you are acclimatising to working life on another continent, there are so many elements and variables to success that make judging your work and refining your techniques much more difficult. The most important thing to ask is whether what you are experiencing is 'normal' here; the response might simply be alien or unexpected because just the way things are done in another place. The same applies to identifying development needs; volunteers have to be exceptionally careful  that their capacity building work is not  actually trying to undo an integral part of Kenyan working culture. For example, although it has not necessarily been the case for me, we are prepared for the fact that hierarchy is much more respected, so we shouldn't expect to stimulate a free-for-all creative meeting if the boss is in the room.




The team as drawn by the team



If this is the case in an organisation, volunteers will not change it within a year so they should not try. We have to quickly understand and accept what elements are fixed and which are flexible, and then work within those parameters. The only way to find out which is which is to sound out lots of other volunteers to determine what is 'normal', be patient, properly reflect on the work and get as much feedback as possible. I have had a lot of feedback but its all too positive for my liking. Encouraging really honest feedback will be one of  my biggest challenges, but will be critical to the success of my placement.

Only time will tell how successful it was, which is lucky because at the moment I have no idea.I've had feedback about yesterday ranging from the reassuring (facilitated well, people listening, people were quiet because not everyone had done the preparatory work) to requests for better seats and a soda. But at least I have now been reminded what capacity building cannot look like;  with me at the centre asking questions or prompting discussion.

Back to the drawing board. Or maybe not, considering our artistic efforts yesterday.