I've always been 'Charlotte Nangi' when I'm Sri Lanka ('Nangi' meaning 'little sister'), so it was a bit of an (age) reality check to realise I'm now a 'Didi' (meaning 'older sister') in Bangladesh. Although Urban Dictionary says this...
Didi
1. an absent minded girl
2. a really cute and absolutely wonderful person
3. a type of banana
1. Dang dude, you're such a Didi.
2. Didi, I love you............r shoes!
3. I'd like a bunch of fresh ripe Didis please!
...so really I have no idea what I've been answering to the past 12 days in Bangladesh!
Having seen the benefits of multi agency learning support visits in Uganda last November, I was really pleased to be able to combine an observation of Tearfund's In-Country Orientation (ICO) for their incoming volunteer teams; observation of a volunteer team meeting with YCI, and VSO ICS placement visits and further ICO observation. A jam packed 12 days with lots of long and often uncomfortable travel, but rich with learning and development opportunities (and a few goat and rickshaw selfies) along the way.
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| Typing up notes at Kulna airport, waiting for flight to Dhaka - with Robiul, VSO's Project Coordinator |
Tearfund In-Country Orientation
In order to get to Birishiri (in the far north of the country), it took 36 hours of travel via 2 tubes, 2 planes, 1 minibus, 1 boat and 1 bicycle trailer. I travelled alongside the UK volunteer team who were at the beginning of their ICS placement, and ready to meet their Bangladeshi team counterparts. It's always fun to see a new country through their (much younger) volunteer eyes. I sometimes find I'm a bit numb to the culture shock of being in a new environment, especially in South Asia, but watching their eyes widen at the noisiness and busy-ness of Dhaka, and listening to their excited conversations as I semi-dozed in the minibus from Dhaka too Birishiri, took me back to when I first arrived in Sri Lanka at roughly the same age, completely overwhelmed by the world I'd just stepped into.
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| The last stage of the journey to Birishiri |
For 5 days we stayed on the Garo Baptist Convention (GBC) compound. GBC is one of Tearfund's local partner organisations, and with security taken very seriously (especially after last year's attack on a bakery in Dhaka), we stayed within the compound for the whole week (apart from my afternoon visit to YCI's ICS programme - more about that below...) The compound is like a mini village in itself - with a church, homes, offices, dining rooms, a guesthouse, training rooms... and 2 very friendly goats!
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| Quick download of emails when the power kicks in after a powercut |
As my godfather reminded me at Christmas when he asked, "but what do you actually DO?!" I'm not sure I've really updated on my blog with what I've been doing in my new role at VSO (for exactly a year now).... As Youth Learning and Development Manager for the International Citizen Service (ICS) programme, I oversee the quality assurance of volunteer training and learning activities as well as provide targeted support to those who have a direct role to play in this process. I often find I'm 2 steps removed from the young people I'm supporting - generally working through the consortium of 8 organisations who deliver the ICS programme, and then in turn support the volunteers and team leaders who take part in our projects. So what that means in real terms is things like observing volunteer training (and giving feedback), sharing good practice from across the consortium, and designing alternative ways to provide learning and development opportunities (such as online, through audio-visual content development and social media).
So my time with Tearfund was focused on observing the In-country Orientation (ICO) - when the British and in-country (here, Bangladeshi) volunteers come together for the first time, to learn about the projects they'll be working on together, explore the opportunities and challenges of working in a cross-cultural team, as well as receiving safety, security and health training. Here are some photos of the ICO...
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| My new favourite travelling companion - vital to fight jet lag and stay awake through 5 days of training! |
At the end of the week the volunteers split into 2 teams, ready to get to know their new communities and host families and begin working on their projects. I left with the team going to an area called Rangrapara, which involved an interesting river crossing before continuing the journey on to Dhaka back in a minibus....
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| Walking down to the river |
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| Waiting for the boat with my ukulele |
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| Loading up |
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| Saying goodbye to the other team |
YCI Team Meeting and Team Leader Filming
While I was with Tearfund I took an afternoon out of training to go to one of our other consortium organisations - Y Care International - which delivers ICS through its network of global YMCAs. Also based in Birishiri, it felt like stepping into a parallel universe, apart from the YCI team being 3 weeks further ahead in their (12 week) placement than the Tearfund team.
I'm a big believer in the 70:20:10 model for learning and development. This is founded on evidence that 70% of what we learn is through work and volunteer experiences, 20% from interactions with others, and only 10% through formal education or training. So while I am responsible for the quality assurance of volunteer training across the consortium, I'm also passionate about 'action learning' (which does what it says on the tin - learning by doing). This means that building regular opportunities for learning and reflection is important in a programme like ICS, so it was great to observe a YCI team meeting where they simply review what went well, what didn't go well, and what they'd do differently at the end of each day.
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| Bangladeshi-British facilitation of the day's reflection session |
After the whole team meeting, I met with a smaller group of staff and Team Leaders, to explain the Team Leader Support Network I'm setting up to enable peer-peer learning for Team Leaders across the consortium though social media. One component of the network will be to host a series of 'Team Leader Top Tips' films in which Team Leaders record their advice on how to manage the role, so that they can be watched by future Team Leaders. The Bangladeshi Volunteer Supervisor had previously been a Team Leader, and the British Team Leader was on his second placement, so both had lots of brilliant ideas and were keen to get involved (see below). I'm looking forward to the rest of the content coming together and launching in May.
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| Filming the 'Team Leader Top Tips' film with Anando |
VSO Placement Visit and ICO observation
After the peace and quiet of the GBC compound in Birishiri, it was quite a shock to get back to the hustle and bustle of Dhaka, but it was good to squeeze in a couple of hours of shopping, and hijacking rickshaws...
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| With Abbie from Tearfund (and a bemused looking rickshaw driver) |
I was then joined by my VSO colleague, Alix (based in Nairobi) who I also combined visits with in Uganda. So after one night in Dhaka, we flew south to Kulna to meet with VSO's partners and the community-based youth clubs who are working through a peer education model - raising awareness of big issues like child marriage, sexual and reproductive health and the value of youth livelihoods and entrepreneurship in the community.
Unfortunately because of visa delays, the volunteers themselves were not already on their placements, so I was unable to observe any of the volunteer learning activities, but it was a great opportunity to spend time with our local staff (a fantastic Project Coordinator and Project Officer), meet with the partner organisation, observe some peer education sessions (led by the youth club) and meet with the youth club members themselves. They were such a motivated and inspiring group of young people, and it made me proud to be part of an organisation that is really working at the grassroots level in a carefully designed and sustainable way.
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| Meeting with one of the youth clubs on day 1 |
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| And another on day 2 |
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| Meeting with one of the host families where the volunteers stay |
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| And one of the entrepreneurs who has received skills based training from local experts and a small start up grant |
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| Community poster, designed and organised by the volunteers and youth club |
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| A community 'courtyard' (awareness raising) session, planned and delivered by the youth club peer educators |
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| Forget diet coke breaks - it's all about the coconut water breaks here |
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| ...And trying to get a cheeky photo with one of the many ginger bearded (henna) men |
We then flew back up to Dhaka to observe the first day of the ICO (which I had also observed at Tearfund's programme). It was interesting to see a different organisation delivering training at the same stage of the placement, especially in the same country. While we have a set of minimum standards that all organisations must meet, there is also the flexibility to make the training most relevant to their context. It's a shame I won't get to see the rest of the week, but Alix is still there (and observing training as I write this blog in Dubai airport) so I'm looking forward to hearing and reading more about the rest of the week from her. More photos below...
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| Introducing ourselves to the volunteers |
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| Small group discussions |
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| And presentations |
