Charlotte's Web: January 2013

Exactly a year ago today I flew out to Sierra Leone to begin the most nomadic year of my life (so far?) So it is strangely poetic that the final trip of my contract with Restless Development saw me returning there for an International Citizen Service (ICS) staff training support visit last week. It was so great to be back with the team in Freetown - lots of familiar faces and some new ones. The purpose of the visit was to train the new field officers and programme coordinator in all aspects of ICS from volunteer management to risk and incident management and monitoring and evaluation. They were such an enthusiastic group and we definitely identified some budding actors during the volunteer management role plays!

ICS Team, Restless Development Sierra Leone - Sinneh, Paul, Daniel and Jalloh

Madelene, Jestina and Paul try out their volunteer management skills

Identifying qualities for effective volunteer management

Monitoring and Evaluation training session.

On my last day, the whole team sang to me and gave me a goodbye card. It took me back to my first visit to the Freetown office 12 months ago when I was greeted with drumming, singing and dancing. I couldn't have been made to feel more welcome during the three visits over the last year. Ah deh mis am!

With the whole team on my last day

As well as spending time in the office, it was great to reconnect with Freetown life outside work and make the most of the sunshine while the snow started to fall in the UK! So my week also included a sunset aerobics class in the hills outside Freetown, a trip to Malama Thomas street for material shopping (and dress-making by Mr Mansour), running at Lumley and Lakka beaches and Open Mic night at O'Casey's. Not sure I've progressed much with my ukulele playing but they're still an encouraging audience!

So it's goodbye to Restless Development for now. It's been an incredible eighteen months of working with some of the most passionate, enthusiastic and truly restless people I've ever met. I can only hope I'm fortunate enough to find such incredible colleagues in my next job....