Since I'm at work, I thought I'd take the opportunity to mention what the heck I'm doing out here.
Basically I'm volunteering for Save the Children (STC) as an intern. This means that for 2-3 months I am free labor for whatever anyone in the organization needs! Luckily, this isn't a coffee-photocopy type deal. Here's a list and description of each one of the tasks I've been assigned so far.
PR Statement
STC produces a leaflet summarizing all of their work in Mozambique. It was my job to look at the past leaflets and create an updated version. This involved talking to a lot of people in the office to find out what it is their department does and where I can find relevant information. Then I wrote it up. I'm a published writer?
Roundtable on Corporal Punishment
For some unknown reason, it fell to me to be one of the lead organizers of a Roundtable meeting between the government and NGOs in order to influence the government to criminalize corporal punishment in schools and in communities. I had to liase with three different organizations, produce the preliminary Terms of Reference for the meeting and create a leaflet that documents the problems of corporal punishment, and what we are trying to achieve. I had to do all this in Portuguese (my goodness, GoogleTranslate is more important than oxygen).
Flow of Info Project
This is my longer-term project. Basically, there is a problem of accessibility of information at STC. If someone in Health wants to find out about, say, some Education information in a certain province, where does he go to find that information? There's no central database (there's a 'Shared Drive', but it's rarely used) so he has to go to the head of Education. Well, for instance, at the moment there is no head of education. So it is essentially impossible for him to find that information. Most people just use Google. My project is to find out the actual flow of information (what is received and produced, where it goes and what it is) to try and map a better way to share documents. This... is time consuming. But quite important.
Proposal
I had to write up the preliminary proposal for a $6 million grant. The project has to be focussed on reducing violence against women, especially those who migrate. This invovled a brainstorming session (we brainstormed pretty hard) to come up with the project, then I had to write the proposal. It was cool.
Newsletter
This hasn't quite taken off yet, but I am to help HR with the internal newsletter that is distributed. Then I'm to use the information, translate it (GOOGLE) and write it all pretty and such for the STC International Newsletter. This should be fun.
Villages Report
A British TV channel wants to investigate basing a TV show of some sort on a village in Mozambique. I had to find three villages in which STC works to propose, to provide information and brief research on two of the three proposed villages.
ACCRA Research Project
This has become the big momma of my work, though unfortunately without Martin Lawrence. Here, straight from the horse's mouth, is what ACCRA is:
The purpose of this programme is to increase the use of evidence by governments (specifically in Ethiopio, Uganda and Mozambique) and other development and humanitarian actors in developing and implementing policies and interventions that improve poor people's adaptive capacity to climate related shocks and stresses.
Cool, right?
However, the guy that STC commissioned to do the research took STC's money, did the research, and delivered 30 hand written notepads of notes as his findings, to which STC said 'what the **** are we supposed to do with this pile of ****?'
It would have been rhetorical until they answered 'Let's send Damien to the small city of Chokwé, where this moron is based, for two weeks to write up the report based on the notes!'
And I said 'Oh. Awesome!'
and then I said 'Wait, are the HAND-WRITTEN notes in English?'
'No, he doesn't speak English'.
I'm now taking Portuguese classes.
I think I'm also supposed to analyze the data. How do you say 'data' in Portuguese?
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, this is going to be the most bananas, get-stuck-in, learn-on-the-job, experience that I'll have in Africa. On the other hand, WHAT????
But overall I'm optimistic.
So... yeah! That's what I'm doing here. A couple of problems do exist, however, with this internship. For one, I don't have an actual superior. This doesn't mean I'm the boss. I'm more like driftwood. This means I had to wait on people to ask me to do something, or start doing something that will ultimately have no meaning. It also means that I can spend thirty minutes at work writing on my blog... hm.
I have, once again, learnt a TON (imperial, not metric... we've been through this) about Africa, development, Mozambique, STC, what the heck a Terms of Reference is, and that I never want to work in an office where I don't spend at least 50% of my time interacting directly with another human.
You know what the next post will be?
PHOTOS. There are 35 of them, I've already picked them out, all I have to do is upload them. Boom.
Thanks for reading!
