By and large, I'm absolutely ready to leave my house where nothing works, the constant sweating interspersed by rain that's like being in a swimming pool, and the job that I've never really understood because my colleagues are more than capable of doing it themselves on the rare occasions that they come to the office.
But this weekend all the closest friends I've made here came down for a farewell party. Mum, Dad and Beth had been visiting all week, and bathed in the glow of alcohol and lots of my favourite people I started to get quite emotional. If any of my family (VSO or genetic!) are reading this then thank you again for making my life so easy and enjoyable. I guess next year will be a bit like the last one - lots of my close friends living on the other side of the world. But I'll have the internet all the time and be able to keep in touch...maybe it won't be so bad!
(This post's not supposed to be about work. But if anyone's interested, so far this week everyone's still working very hard, the appraisal system I set up is working brilliantly and my colleagues have written by far the best funding bid I've seen all year based on all the preparation work we've been doing all placement. I have a warm fuzzy sense of achievement.)
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Coming to the end...WORK
I'm not sure if it's frustratingly bad timing that my colleagues seem to be working much harder now that it's almost too late for me to be able to support them with anything, or whether it's simply taken a year for my influence to lead to a tangible improvement in working culture. Probably a little bit of both, and it's certainly good to see staff and volunteers working harder. Last week some funders visited, and we took them into the schools to see the peer educators at work. It was good to see the young people asking questions about the spread of HIV, although worrying to see how much misinformation is still rife even though it feels like there are so many NGOs working to educate people.
My colleagues also host a weekly radio programme about sexual health issues, where they join up their classroom work to reach a wider audience, by answering questions on air that were posed in the schools earlier in the day. It's very difficult to evaluate the various projects in place to educate young people about sexual health, but it seems to me that my colleagues are doing a good job.
It's also great to see that more fundraising is happening in the office. After much encouragement and explanation that it's important to have project ideas before seeking funding, we now have some clear plans and I'm confident that some of our bids will be successful.
In Zambia it's important to celebrate success wherever you can - this week my boss thanked me when someone resigned - he said it's thanks to my insistence of formalising our management systems that our colleague resigned rather than simply not coming to work. I guess that means I've made some progress?!
My colleagues also host a weekly radio programme about sexual health issues, where they join up their classroom work to reach a wider audience, by answering questions on air that were posed in the schools earlier in the day. It's very difficult to evaluate the various projects in place to educate young people about sexual health, but it seems to me that my colleagues are doing a good job.
It's also great to see that more fundraising is happening in the office. After much encouragement and explanation that it's important to have project ideas before seeking funding, we now have some clear plans and I'm confident that some of our bids will be successful.
In Zambia it's important to celebrate success wherever you can - this week my boss thanked me when someone resigned - he said it's thanks to my insistence of formalising our management systems that our colleague resigned rather than simply not coming to work. I guess that means I've made some progress?!
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