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?!