Arriving in Dushanbe at 11:30pm on Wednesday night has to be one of the calmest and stress-free arrivals at an airport I've ever done. I was met by Eraj, the VSO driver, and driven down the main street "Rudaki" to where I was staying. Rudaki is six lanes wide and lined with huge trees and buildings along a completely straight route.There were barely any other cars and nobody out on the streets. Absolutely not what I expected. And having just come from a short stopover in Dubai, where traffic jams are not unusual at 3am, it was a significant but very welcome contrast! Even though I knew that English isn't a commonly used language in Tajikistan, I wasn't quite prepared for just how much of a language barrier I'd be facing. Realising that it was late at night and I wasn't exactly sure where I was staying, I was keen to buy a bottle of water just to get me through the night. So Eraj and I entered into a charades-style conversation in which I acted out "water" in every possible way I could, potentially indicating that I wanted to do anything from go to a bar to go swimming. Looking completely bemused that I couldn't even speak Russian (a lasting legacy of the Soviet era) he then handed me a phrasebook. Flicking through I found how to ask for a facepack at the beauty salon, how to buy vegetables at a supermarket and how to introduce myself but couldn't find the one word I needed for the majority of our journey down Rudaki. Eventually I found it and then realised it didn't really help me because Tajik script is completely different. Aggggh. So with a lot of pointing at the phrasebook from me and a lot of "oh that's what you mean" noises from Eraj, we finally stopped and bought a bottle of "Ob". Ob. I'll never forget that word. Ever.
So, as I said in my last post, one of the parts of my new role in the ICS Hub is to raise the quality of volunteer learning (formal training and experiential/reflective learning) throughout the ICS volunteer journey. So I'm here to observe the pre-placement training that the in-country volunteers attend before the UK volunteers arrive (having already observed the pre-departure training equivalent for UK volunteers last month). I'm also observing their in-country orientation (the training that all the volunteers have once the UK volunteers have arrived and they join together as one team before their placement). It's the first time the ICS Hub has had the opportunity to observe the in-country element of training so I'm looking forward to seeing exactly what happens and hoping I can use the visit to share learning across the ICS consortium. It's quite a different visit to the very "hands on" trips I used to make with Restless Development - it feels strange not to be facilitating the sessions myself, but it's great to see Sarah and Habib in action - the two Programme Supervisors for the programme who are leading the training.
I've now been here for three days and have just finished observing the pre-placement training for the in-country volunteers, a really diverse group of young people made up of Tajiks and Afghan refugees living in Tajikistan. The multi-national mix is a first for ICS and something I'm hoping to understanding better so we can consider the possibility of replicating the model in different regions to reach more young people in developing countries. They were a really enthusiastic group who threw themselves into ever aspect of the training, especially the role plays and case studies in which we definitely identified some budding actors! The two days covered a wide range of topics, including broad concepts such as culture, diversity and inclusion as well as more practical elements like the structure of the programme and an introduction to the project they'll be working on.
The UK volunteers arrive in the middle of the night tonight and head straight to the training venue for the in-country orientation in Varzob - which I now understand, from my one word of Tajik, must involve some "ob" so I'm hoping for rivers and lakes if not both!
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| Tajikistan is the pink country bordering the north of the purple Aghanistan (India in orange) |
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| Rudaki street in Dushanbe |
So, as I said in my last post, one of the parts of my new role in the ICS Hub is to raise the quality of volunteer learning (formal training and experiential/reflective learning) throughout the ICS volunteer journey. So I'm here to observe the pre-placement training that the in-country volunteers attend before the UK volunteers arrive (having already observed the pre-departure training equivalent for UK volunteers last month). I'm also observing their in-country orientation (the training that all the volunteers have once the UK volunteers have arrived and they join together as one team before their placement). It's the first time the ICS Hub has had the opportunity to observe the in-country element of training so I'm looking forward to seeing exactly what happens and hoping I can use the visit to share learning across the ICS consortium. It's quite a different visit to the very "hands on" trips I used to make with Restless Development - it feels strange not to be facilitating the sessions myself, but it's great to see Sarah and Habib in action - the two Programme Supervisors for the programme who are leading the training.
I've now been here for three days and have just finished observing the pre-placement training for the in-country volunteers, a really diverse group of young people made up of Tajiks and Afghan refugees living in Tajikistan. The multi-national mix is a first for ICS and something I'm hoping to understanding better so we can consider the possibility of replicating the model in different regions to reach more young people in developing countries. They were a really enthusiastic group who threw themselves into ever aspect of the training, especially the role plays and case studies in which we definitely identified some budding actors! The two days covered a wide range of topics, including broad concepts such as culture, diversity and inclusion as well as more practical elements like the structure of the programme and an introduction to the project they'll be working on.
The UK volunteers arrive in the middle of the night tonight and head straight to the training venue for the in-country orientation in Varzob - which I now understand, from my one word of Tajik, must involve some "ob" so I'm hoping for rivers and lakes if not both!
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| Brainstorming ground rules for the training days |
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| Latifai, Afghan refugee living in Tajikistan presents back the MDGs to the group |
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| Habib and Sarah (Programme Supervisors) facilitating a session on volunteering |
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| Role-playing a case study about Tajik food |
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