Institutional development

I read an article about how development fails once that told of a girl who had become ill after receiving the same vaccination from 3 different aid agencies. The current trendy thing in development seems to be for funders to also provide some organisational support to grassroots NGOs with a view to helping them be sustainable when the particular fund comes to an end. In theory this is a good idea, but this week I attended my 4th institutional development workshop with CTYA. I've only been here 3 months (and my job is to represent yet another NGO helping CTYA to do institutional development...) and I can't help but think the amount of time spent considering the state of the organisation is disproportionate to the amount of time spent on work!

It's been quite a good week though, work has been busier in terms of time spent in the office, and I'm starting to see small changes in how we work that I think will make the organisation more successful in the long-term. One highlight of the week was being the guest speaker on CTYA's weekly radio programme, discussing the upcoming Miss VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing for HIV) beauty pageant.

I've also been busy preparing for my holiday. We leave early tomorrow morning and I'm very excited, especially as I should finally get to see some elephants! Hopefully not in too close proximity to my tent though.