Isla del Sol - Lake Titicaca

I've just got back from an amazing weekend on Isla del Sol, an island in the middle of Lake Titicaca, the world's largest high-altitude lake which covers 8400 square km between Bolivia and Peru at a height of over 4000 metres. It really is one of the most incredible places I've ever been to. The nearest I can get to comparing it to anywhere else in the world is a high altitude version of a Greek island overlooking the Himalayas?! As they say here, "no hay palabras" (there are no words), so I'll let the photos do the talking...

Copacabana - the launch pad for trips to Isla del Sol

On the boat, nearly there. Excuse the terrible hat - that sun is stroooong!

Arriving on the southern part of the island

Sun and Moon islands - Aymara and Quecha creation story

Up the Escalera de Inca (at altitude-induced snail's pace)

Looking out at the Cordillera Real through Yumani village

Cordillera Real

Sunset...

Sunrise...

And THEY thank YOU for coming!

Looking out at...

...a Greek island?!

As the Lonely Planet says: For human/animal sacrifice... and nice picnics!

Exploring the Chincana ruins at 7am = no other tourists = happy Charlotte

Heading down to Cha'lla village

Peru in the distance

Freeeeeeeeeezing, but had to be done!

Post-hike afternoon of reading....

...and eating (trout from the lake)

Saints Day festival

Hiking down to the boat to go back to Copacabana 

Bizarre weather patterns on the way back to La Paz

Somewhere over the rainbow...

Tearfund Bolivia Project Visits in Cochabamba

After thirty-two hours of travel and transits, four stodgy aeroplane meals and one four hour delay, I finally arrived in Cochabamba in the Central Highlands region of Bolivia on Monday morning. I'm digging deep for my university Spanish which is hidden somewhere under some lukewarm French, patchy Sinhala and the odd word or two of Krio. I haven't actually been to South America since 2002 when I spent my final university summer in Ecuador. And I can definitely say that 10+ years on, it is NOT just like riding a bike!

For the last four days I've been visiting Tearfund Bolivia's ICS projects and meeting with the staff, volunteers and partner organisations in Cochabamba. Tearfund is one of ICS's eight delivery agencies, with volunteers currently in Rwanda, Burundi and Bolivia. My visit is broadly focused on providing programme quality support as well as capturing examples of good practice and (learning through) challenges that can then be shared across the consortium. The two main objectives for this visit were to explore Tearfund's model for shared working and learning between the British and Bolivian volunteers and to learn more about their education-focused projects, identifying ways in which they are impacting on the partner organisations and beneficiaries.

Cristo de la Concordia - apparently 44cm higher than the one in Rio de Janeiro.

My attempt at eating Cochabamba's traditional  "Sil Pancho". I managed about a sixth.

The current team of thirteen British volunteers and seven Bolivians are volunteering across three projects that are each linked to a local partner organisation. All three projects (and partners) target vulnerable children and young women, and are based around the theme of education but with additional outcomes including improved health (physical, mental and social), child protection and prevention/protection against domestic and sexual abuse. 

ICS volunteers based with the partner organisation "Oeser" divide their time between activities in the nursery and primary school in one of Cochabamba's poorest communities. I was shocked to find that Oeser transports the nursery school children in from the local prison where it is the norm for children to live with their parents. As well as providing general support to the staff and children, the ICS volunteers have been organising various activities largely linked to health and nutrition. While I was there they ran a variety of hygiene workshops, teaching the children how to clean their teeth, wash their hands and blow their noses.

Teeth cleaning...

Hand washing...

And nose blowing...

Just outside Cochabamba in the rural community's red light district, a small team of ICS volunteers are based at "Fortin de Niño" (aka "Children's Fort"). The parents of the children who come to the centre often work long hours (or even days at a time) away from home so the children are left to fend for themselves. The children receive at least one nutritious meal a day, receive homework help and extra classes such as English and computers. More than anything, the centre provides a safe place for them to come and escape their harsh day-to-day life and just be children, so sports activities and other games are also a regular feature.

The deserted streets around Fortin de Niño

Learning about the different parts of a computer (me included!)

The third project is based in the centre of Cochabamba, linked to the local partner organisation "Mosoj Yan". Divided between three main centres, the project mainly targets vulnerable girls and young women, including those living and working on the street and those who have been subject to domestic violence and/or sexual abuse. While I was there, the ICS volunteers organised an event to raise awareness about domestic violence and provide training on self-defence. Many of the local university students attended and as a result, signed up to take part in an action research study about bullying and violence in schools.

Self-defence workshop in one of the main squares in Cochabamba

Este no es Halloween - This isn't Halloween (see make-up).

Este es la vida real - This is real life.

I was really impressed by the dedication of all the volunteers in delivering such innovative activities (especially in the face of language barriers), and the hard work of David and Marco who work for Tearfund Bolivia and have built strong relationships with the partner organisations.

I'm now off to La Paz where I'll be visiting International Service's ICS projects next week, but before that I'm heading to Lake Titicaca for a weekend of high altitude boating and hiking....

VSO Tajikistan ICS in-country orientation

So it turns out "Varzob" does have a lot of "ob". In fact "Varz" means "full of". Only 15 minutes outside Dushanbe towards Khojand we were quickly into rolling hills/mountains with rivers and waterfalls lining the route. The actual training venue was right next to a lake which I ran around in the mornings before training began, making a nice change to my Davina McCall fitness DVD (which Habib did join me for one morning!)

The road to Varzob

Lots of ob!

Training venue in Varzob



View from the training venue



Location for my morning runs (-:

I arrived in Varzob with the in-country volunteers and an Afghan volunteer who'd flown in from Kabul in the night so that they could prepare a welcome for the UK volunteers who were catching up on sleep after their early morning arrival. I'm not sure their UK counterparts expected their first morning in Tajikistan to involve singing and dancing but they quickly got to know each other and were even exchanging ukulele tips in no time!

On the second day of the training, the volunteers split into different nationality groups and prepared presentations about their cultures. The group then looked more closely at case studies about the sensitivities involved in working in a multi-cultural team. After lunch the volunteers considered the opportunities and challenges associated with living in host homes and did some role plays about some common situations that may arise. They finished the day with group dicussions about group dynamics and how to resolve conflicts/difficult situations when working in a diverse team.

Tajik group present back about their culture

Host home role plays

On the third day the volunteers split into two groups, with the UK volunteers learning about the history of Tajikistan and the in-country volunteers learning about UK history. After being an observer for most of the training, I then got the chance to facilitate a pilot session on volunteer learning (linked to the focus of my visit). In order to help the volunteers personalise their learning they set three individual learning objectives that they will reflect on throughout the three month placement and beyond, taking a more proactive approach to their learning than has previously been the case. 

UK volunteers try to put the history of Tajikistan in chronological order



Afghan and Tajik volunteers discussing UK history



Facilitating the pilot session on volunteer learning

The  volunteer learning tree of individual learning objectives for the programme

Tomorrow the UK volunteers will be heading off to their host homes before beginning their in-community orientation with the in-country volunteers on Thursday, getting to know Dushanbe and their host families better before starting work on the project they'll be working on for the next three months - to organise and deliver a tourism festival in Dushanbe to promote tourism and increase employment. In the meantime I'm off to the VSO Tajikistan office for some staff meetings and training debriefs. It's been a fascinating visit in so many ways - just a shame I can't stay longer. Back in the VSO office in London for quarterly reporting deadlines on Monday....

VSO ICS Team Dushanbe, Summer 2013

VSO Tajikistan ICS pre-placement training

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.



Tajikistan is the pink country bordering the north of the purple Aghanistan (India in orange)



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!



Brainstorming ground rules for the training days



Latifai, Afghan refugee living in Tajikistan presents back the MDGs to the group

Habib and Sarah (Programme Supervisors) facilitating a session on volunteering

Role-playing a case study about Tajik food

Week 3 at VSO

It's been a very long, very dark, very cold winter. Not the most fun time to be between jobs but I'm told it's through times like this that we grow (and catch up on episodes of Mad Men)... But seriously, applying for jobs has been a full time job in itself. It's time consuming, isolating and, at times, utterly demoralising. I had a couple of very close calls, getting through to the third rounds for Save the Children and Sightsavers, getting pipped to the post at the final hurdle for both. But just after Easter I got an interview at VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) to join the ICS (International Citizen Service) Hub as a Programme Development Manager and am now in my third week (-:

Having worked on the ICS programme at Restless Development, I was already familiar with it from a delivery agency perspective. I think I probably mentioned before that Restless Development is one of eight delivery agencies that form a consortium for the UK government's international youth volunteering programme where young volunteers from the UK work in teams with in-country volunteers from developing countries on development projects that relate to health, livelihoods, environment, education and civic participation. Funded by the Department for International Development (DFID), it aims to combine projects that work towards reducing global poverty with volunteer learning & development and long term active citizenship. My new role is based at the VSO ICS Hub (VSO is the lead ICS agency that is ultimately accountable to DFID) which has an overview programme delivery and programme quality function across the consortium.

I work within a team of four Programme Development Managers, each of whom work closely with two delivery agencies as well as leading a programme quality project and sector(s). My two agencies are VSO itself and Lattitude (which recently rebranded from Gap Activity Projects). My programme quality project is to raise the quality of volunteer learning & development across the consortium, and I also lead on the education and civic participation sector-focused work. So there's lots of variety and lots of new challenges which I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into over the coming weeks and months. 

My first programme quality support visit will be to VSO's ICS programme in Tajikistan this June. For anyone who knows the Crowe family, the irony of this will be obvious. For anyone who doesn't, my eldest brother and his family have been living in Tajikistan for the last four years but just moved back to the UK last month! Although it's disappointing I won't be able to combine the trip with a visit to where they were living I'm nevertheless really looking forward to getting a better insight into VSO's programme there. It's a really interesting programme model, where as well as having UK volunteers working alongside Tajik volunteers, there are also some Afghan volunteers who will join the team for the three month programme. It's the only example of regional volunteer recruitment across the consortium (as far as I know) and an innovative way of including young people from Afghanistan who will then be supported to contribute to community development projects back home once their Tajik placement has finished. Anyway, more about that when I get back in July....

So it's only been a couple of weeks but here's ten random things I like about VSO already...

1. The bike ride to work that avoids central London (currently based in Putney, we're moving to Kingston in July when my commute will also include passing by the deer in Richmond Park).
2. Working in a team. My last few roles have been quite isolating at times so it's great to be able to bounce ideas around with the rest of the team, especially as the new kid on the block.
3. Running along the river at lunchtime with "The Flying Daves", set up by three VSO staff all called Dave. They don't seem to discriminate against non-Daves.
4. Proactive travel planning. So I'll have a better idea of where I'm going and when and can start to make social plans that don't involve cancelling at the last minute so I can hopefully be a better friend!
5. Playing my first netball game in TEN years and beating Teenage Cancer Trust in the inter-charity league in a close match that finished 11-10. Mrs McGinty would be proud.
6. Flexible working. As part of VSO's "Work Smarter" policy we're encouraged to work remotely as well as spending face to face time as a team. 
7. The bottomless pit of Fairtrade proper coffee in the kitchen.
8. The long term contract. Consultancies no more.
9. The 20% discount at the Nando's across the road. I kid you not.
10. The people. Couldn't ask for a friendlier or more welcoming bunch.

ICS Sierra Leone Staff Training Visit

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.... 

Sunset aerobics

A trip to Freetown wouldn't be complete without a dress made by Mr Mansour!

Sunset football on Lumley beach

Lakka beach

Jamie and Danielle at Open Mic

First time amped up. Thanks Ned!