Working hard...

I realised today that I am one quarter through my volunteering assignment - three weeks of which I sat twiddling my thumbs waiting for my broken PC to get fixed. Meanwhile Kwame built two websites, one for an HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention NGO, another for an orphanage, and managed to find a third assignment to build a smart phone pricing application for farmers and co-operatives. The other volunteers and I have concluded that his IT skills are in more demand than all of ours combined.
Carmen has spent her first month at UNIFEM (a gender advocacy agency of the UN) reading piles of notes, brochures and reports on gender rights and HIV/AIDS prevention whilst her supervisor was away on annual leave. Upon her supervisor’s return, she will be assisting UNIFEM in incorporating gender equality into the national policy framework on HIV/AIDS. Kath also had a very quiet start to her assignment at AFRRI (a farm radio initiative funded by the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation) waiting for some work whilst her colleagues were out in the field collecting data which she will then integrate for donor reporting. Leah has probably been the busiest of all of as she was thrown in the deep end by her supervisor and founder of an anti-child labour NGO called Challenging Heights. She has been involved in almost every facet of the NGO from fund raising to attending child rights conferences.
My assignment with Theatre for a Change has been an interesting and varied experience. The NGO’s accountant was fired a day before my arrival and, instead, I was swiftly appointed to the role. This explains why I was writing cheques on my first day! However, the role has been varied enough to keep me interested. I am helping my supervisor build partnerships with other theatre based organisation in Europe. I have also written fund raising proposals and presented to potential donors. Corporate Social Responsibility is surprisingly well established in Ghana and we received a welcome reception from one of the major telecommunication carriers to fund an educational radio drama project.
On the capacity building front, I have been promised that a new accountant will be recruited and I am to fill the role temporarily and train the new recruit when they start.
What I have come to realise is that we’re all here to build human relationships. I’m not really here to build financial reporting systems but to exchange stories with my supervisor on how opposites are worlds are, to laugh while he and his PA sing about how much tea I consume, to lend an ear to the photocopier technician telling me about his aspirations to get a slice of Ghana's anticipated oil wealth, and to help a colleague celebrate his wedding day with as many handshakes and dance moves I can handle.

Abena