International

I have just returned to Canada after two days of exhausting travels back from Malawi and it feels strange. Three months went by way too fast and I really wish that I could have stayed in Malawi longer. To sum up the experience in one word: amazing. I’ve met so many wonderful people, experienced so many great things and learned more than I ever could learn simply in a classroom. In my opinion, every International Development student needs to do something like this before they graduate.

During the last few weeks of my internship, I mostly worked on wrapping up my work so that my organization would be able to carry on without me. Mostly it entailed finishing up a couple of funding proposals, as well as an end-of-internship report that summarized everything that I had accomplished. It’s funny how when you write it all down in a report, all the work that you’ve done seems like a lot but at the end of the day, I’ve come out of this internship with the feeling that I could have done so much more. I guess that is a pretty normal feeling but I have definitely wondered why my organization wanted a Canadian intern around. I really hope that I was an asset but I’m sure a Malawian intern would have been just as good as a fit – maybe even more so, since a Malawian intern would have also known Chichewa. However, I am very thankful for the experience.

Now that I’m back in Canada, I’m just working on trying to make sense of all of the mixed feelings that I am currently experiencing. I am going through a bit of reverse culture shock and that, combined with the general sadness of leaving Malawi behind, has put me in a strange mood. On the other hand, it is really nice to be back and to see all of my friends and family so I’m not sure what to make of everything; it’s still a bit overwhelming. I am taking the post-internship intensive courses though so I am hoping that the courses will help me to put things into perspective. It is nice to know that I am not alone and that there are other interns who have mixed feelings about their experiences and about being back in Canada. All in all, I am very thankful to the University of Ottawa for giving me this opportunity and I am already looking forward to going back to Africa, because after this experience, I know that I will definitely be going back.

Change is possible. The last month ofmy time at the Mzuzu Youth Association can be summarized as a time of transformation, a new start. On June 25^th, 2011, the Association gathered all of its Affiliates and community stakeholders for its 10^th Annual General Meeting and 5^th General Elections. During the AGM, the Executive Committee is mandated to deliver its Progress and Financial Reports for the 2010-11 year. This was also when I reported the Organizational Assessment, which I had a chance to evaluate on the performance of the Association using from the data collected from the field assessments, self-appraisal, participatory evaluation, and an internal financial audit. All three reports were photocopied so that each affiliated youth groups received a copy and were able to make comments.

After the reports and questions, the General Elections for the new Executive Committee for 2011-2013 began. All the contested candidates had to be elected by his or her youth organization and meet all the criteria set forth by the Electoral Commission. The final screening is an interview. Each Affiliate was given two votes for each position. The elections were democratic and fair and it was presided over by District Youth Officer, who also chaired the Electoral Commission of the Association.It was a successful AGM.

Following the AGM, there was about two weeks of transition the between the outgoing and the incoming Executive Committees. My role at the Association also changed. I suddenly was a key resource person for handover notes and information. The new incoming Executive Committee entry into Office was critical for change management. I started this process by giving the Strategic Leadership Training was made possible through the WUSC-UNITERRA Sector Fund. The three week training was divided into three sections and all three parts were interlinked and builds on each other. Firstly, from July 11th to 12th, the workshop focused on transformative leadership and teambuilding skills. After from July 14th to 22th, the curriculum covered achieving objectives, strategic planning, and action plans. Lastly, from July 18th to 19th the resource mobilization and financial management training was successfully delivered. Four major deliverables were accomplished during the training to help strengthen the long term organizational capacity of the Association;a new Principle Guidelines, the defacto Constitution, introducing a Code of Ethics and Conducts,the Principles of Financial Management, and learning and doing Strategic Planning. I am confident about the new Executive Committee. The reputation of the Association is now more positive as there is greater community awareness and interest.

Lastly, on resource mobilization, the Association started two new resource mobilization projects, the Youth Computers Vocational Training Centre and a Fruit Orchard. Both of these will take some time to bear fruit. Also, one of Mzuzu Youth Association’s affiliate is benefiting further from WUSC-Uniterra income-generating activity initial funding for poultry farming.To make this sustainable, I linked the Association with other service groups in the community, such as the Lions and Rotary and requested for two more interns for 2012.

My international internship at the Mzuzu Youth Association occurred during at time of many changes. It is a good challenge. According to the Malawian National Youth Policy, over half of the population in Malawi is under the age of 25, making it a youthful nation. The absence of a coordinated approach to youth issues has resulted in the absence of programmes beneficial to the youth. Above all, the youth have not been involved in decision-making on issues which affect them.

This is happening at a time when the youth are becoming increasingly vulnerable in the following areas:

• Inadequate vocational training
• Homelessness
• Unemployment and underemployment
• Sexual harassment
• Health related issues such as HIV/AIDS STDs
• Unlicensed entertainment
• Teenage pregnancy and early marriage
• Crime and general youth deviance
• Marginalisation
• Youth non-involvement in decision making
• Smoking, drug and alcohol abuse
• Lack of sporting and entertainment facilities

Priority groups identified are:
• Poor youth
• Street youth
• Out-of-school youth
• Youth with disabilities
• Semi-literate and illiterate youth
• Deviant youth

All these issues, I personally witnessed during my daily interaction with youths at the Association. It can sometime be difficult and humbling. It is very vital work. One thing that I learn very quickly is to have patience. Patience in youth work or development work is important as change processes takes time.

This blog is going to be focused on two things, Self-Appraisal and Field Assessments. I see this as a way to get a situational analysis and also build the capacity of the Association. I am entering the Mzuzu Youth Association at the end of one Executive Committee’s term of office. General Election will happen on June 25, 2011 to elect a new Executive Committee.

Through observation and time working hand in hand with the Executive members of the Association, I thought it might be imperative to introduce a Self-Appraisal system. The Self-Appraisal system if used well and periodically can help manage and assess personal performance and strengthen its human resource/performance management in the Association. With the assistance of member, I drafted a Self-Appraisal form for the Executive Committee members. The Self-Appraisal form was comprised on two sections. Firstly, the 8 performance indicators were used, which includes, Punctuality, Quantity of Work, Quality of Work, Honesty, Teamwork, Relationship with Others and etc. In order to give objective and a fair appraisal, each member of the Executive Committee were asked to assessment themselves on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being Very Poor and 5 being Excellent. Afterwards two other individuals in the group will objectively rate anonymously to that individual.

The total sum of the three scores, one part self-rating, and two parts rating from others, give an objective and independent Appraisal. Part two of this Self-Appraisal form asked open-ended questions using Appreciative-Inquiry method, with questions such as “When is a time when you feel you performed well?” and other follow-up questions.

The Self-Appraisal forms were completed in a group setting. The finding and the results of the Self-Appraisal was a good opportunity for the members of the Executive Committee to voice the strengths, weaknesses, and discuss about human resources management concerns. A report was produced to give some of the findings and areas that needs improvement.

The Mzuzu Youth Association has over 40 youth groups or community based organizations (CBOs) registered and affiliated with it. I had the fortunate opportunity to do field assessments of 15 Affiliates of the Association. The aim of the assessment is to identify and evaluate how youth organizations in Mzuzu are doing and a way for the Association to identify particular strengths and weaknesses of each group. The assessment was done through a structured interview process in teams of twos. Transport,lunch, communication, and photocopying costs were budgeted to amount to close to over MK15,000 or about CAD100.

The field assessment form was comprised of 5 sections; A. Identification, B. Membership and Demographic Information, C. Activities and Achievements D. Impacts, and lastly, E. MYA Relationship and General Recommendations. In A. Identification, organizational name, date of affiliation, Mission statement, catchment area, and contacts information were collected. In B. group demographic and numbers data were collected to assess the vulnerability of individuals in the group. In section C. information regarding the current activities and sources of funding data were gathered. In part D, the Impact of the youth organization were asked, this was done through using 8 indicators ranging from Meeting Youth Needs to Financial Management were asked and ranked on a scale of 1 to 5, with one being Very Poor to 5 denoting Excellent. Lastly, in part E, the Association was able to give valuable comments and recommendations.

What are the Lessons learned? Field work/assessments are extremely unpredictable. We underestimated the total cost and time budgeted, for example the field assessment took over 4 weeks to complete as compared to the planned one week. Also do not overestimate how much one can do in a day. At the end, a report was produced and given to all affiliated groups to give an overall general conclusions to assist the Association identify the needs of its Affiliates.

As I am writing this post, I only have a few days left in Malawi.  I find it hard to believe how fast my internship in Malawi has gone by.  Looking back on the last 3 months or so I have to admit I have experienced a lot!  The things, good and bad, that I have seen, touched, felt and lived in the past 12 weeks have all played a uniquely important role in the learning experience this internship has been.  While my work as a Child Rights Advisor for NAPHAM was at times frustrating, slow and seemed highly ineffective, I can honestly say that the experience as a whole was extremely rewarding.  I have witnessed first hand how determination hard work and desire to improve ones fate brings progress (however slow it may be) to the table.  When I decided to do an international internship with the FSS I had no idea what it was like to work for an NGO in a developing country.  I now have valuable experience facing challenges on a daily basis with limited time and resources to find solutions.  Malawi is a great country with wonderful welcoming people and a vibrant culture.  I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to come here and make a small contribution to the long process of improving children’s rights in a number of different domains.  I am confident that I will look back on this internship as one of the highlights of my university years.  Finally, I encourage everybody who has an interest in the developing world to investigate the possibility of doing such an internship as it will undoubtedly bring forward new perspectives and prove to be a learning experience that a classroom in Ottawa simply cannot provide.

See you in Ottawa,

Jean-Luc

That unfortunately is about the extent of my Chichewa at this point in Malawi, and it essentially means “How are you?” I have been here officially one week and I am slowly starting to get accustomed with my surroundings although it has definitely been a bit of a shock. We started last week in the capital city of Lilongwe, where we (the OttawaU interns) met up with a few other interns from other schools and underwent the in country training. It was actually really interesting and fun! It’s good to have a chance to get to know the other people who are going to be going through the same stuff you are. Before coming I thought I was the only one who was nervous about the placement, about the job, etc. but it turns out pretty much everyone was in the same boat, which is reassuring.

I got to my placement site on the 12^th and pretty much immediately went to work. I am here to be working as Resource Mobilization Officer for the Ntchisi Organization for Youth and Development (NOYD), in Ntchisi, Malawi. If you are asking yourself, what exactly does a resource mobilization officer do, join the club! I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be doing yet but as soon as I arrived they asked me to write a proposal for a project they wanted to get funded by Plan Malawi. Honestly, it was a pretty inefficient system because they asked me to come up with an idea, I spent two days trying to do that and then it turns out that they already had an idea the whole time but just didn’t tell me about it. I get the feeling that communication is going to be an issue while I’m here; I deal best with direct communication and that does not appear to be the norm here, just something else to get used I guess!

I’m pretty excited because next weekend I am going to be meeting up with some of the other interns in Lilongwe and we are going to go to the beach! Stay tuned for more updates!

That is the second word that I learned here in Malawi, and by far the word I hear the most often! Azungu is the Chichewa word for white person and as I am the only white person for miles and miles around I hear it all the time. It actually means someone of means, and over time has just come to mean white person. At times it can be sweet (like when little kids see you and are genuinely amazed by your existence) but other times it can be irritating (like when strange men are proposing to you). Life has been good here in Malawi, although it has definitely taken some adjusting. I am in a very small town and like I said I am the only Azungu around. I am living with a nurse, who is really kind but it has definitely been an experience in isolation; there are times where I feel very alone. Luckily the capital city is only 80km away (or a 2.5-5 hour minibus drive depending on your luck!) and there are other interns there who are kind enough to host me pretty much every weekend. I do appreciate the experience of living in a small town where there is no hot water, where I frequently have to light a charcoal fire and hope that I don’t get carbon monoxide poisoning to cook my dinner, and where electricity is a luxury but at the same time it is nice to escape to a city and talk with other Azungus candidly about my work and life here. Everyone in my town is very nice but there are definitely times where I just need to vent.

Work is interesting, before coming I was unsure of what I would be doing and as it turns out my organization didn’t really know either. They wanted to be trained in proposal writing (something that honestly I didn’t know that much about) and they wanted to try and get more funding. But in a place that doesn’t have internet except at the hospital, and even at that it goes out pretty frequently, I wasn’t exactly sure how they wanted me to find them funding opportunities. I quickly realized that being an Azungu means that some people here think that you have the solutions to problems, when really I know nothing. It’s been an interesting experience because I think that my organization wanted someone with more experience and they got stuck with me! We are making it work slowly but it’s not been easy that’s for sure.

I went down to Blantyre last weekend to visit some of the other interns there, which was fun! It’s nice to be able to see what other people are doing and how they are handling everything, it’s reassuring to know that to an extent we are all in the same boat. While work is leaving something to be desired Malawi as a country is not! There is so much that I want to do before I leave!

I have now reached the last leg of my internship in Malawi. I only have 20 days left here and I know that those 20 days will go by fast because the past 2 months have felt like 2 weeks. Right now, I am simply trying to make the most of my time left here and trying not to get too ahead of myself. As much as I am excited to see everyone back home, I do not feel nearly ready to go back!

Overall, my internship itself has been pretty steady in terms of workload. In other words, it has been a little on the slow side but it’s obvious that that’s just the status quo here and I think that I’ve been able to adapt to that fairly well (case in point: I always bring a book with me, just in case). I have been working for the Lilongwe office of the National Association of People Living with HIV and AIDS in Malawi. Working for the Lilongwe branch of the organization has meant that I have attended a lot of meetings (Lilongwe being the capital city), which have all been interesting experiences to say the least. While it is true that some of the meetings have captured my attention more than others, I can honestly say that I have learned something from each one of them. I found one of them was especially interesting for many reasons. The meeting was put on by the German Development Corporation and UNDP and its focus was on Integrated Rural Development, i.e. coming up with a framework for Malawi’s development that focuses especially on the rural communities (which comprises 80% of Malawi’s total population). The stakeholders in attendance came from across the board: government, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, civil society, etc. and that alone made it interesting because of the wide range of ideas and interests that were presented. I was also surprised by how much development theory and terminology that I have learned from classes was used throughout the 2 day meeting – for the first time, I REALLY saw a link between the classroom and “the real world”. However, that being said, this whole experience has also helped me to realize what I’ve thought for awhile, which is that I don’t think that this sort of development work is for me; attending this meeting in particular helped me to further realize that.

Other than work, I have just been trying to make the most of my weekends. There have of course been a few trips to Lake Malawi and we have also just returned from a 4 day safari in Zambia, which is something that has been on my bucket list and did not disappoint! It was absolutely incredible and I do not doubt that is will be the highlight of my 3 months here. The only downside to the trip was that I have always wanted to see Victoria Falls and being that close (the Falls are in Zambia so we were even in the same country) but not being able to go and see them was hard. To have done so, we would have had to take a week off of work and since this is only a 3 month internship, that was out of the question. I guess it will just be another excuse to come back to this part of Africa again – after this experience, I have no doubt in my mind that I will!

Before, I arrived in Malawi, I was asked by my sending organization, World University Services of Canada (WUSC) regarding what type of living arrangement I prefer. I decided to opt for living with a host family. The living arrangement was by my hosting organization, the Mzuzu Youth Association. I was placed with an excellent and warm host family.

The people of Malawi are, for the most part, very modest and fine. According the Government of Malawi’s figures, over half of the Malawian population is under the age of 25 and the average life expectancy is low at around 60. Due Malawi’s development, it is only recently that the rural-urban migration is increasing with 80% of the population stays in rural areas. The major urban areas includes Blantyre (the commercial center), Zomba (the first Capital), Lilongwe (the political capital), and Mzuzu (the intellectual center).HIV/AIDS prevalence rate has stabilized to the current 10-12% of the population with urban areas reporting higher rates. During the day, the streets are normally safe for both travellers and foreigners. The Malawian people are generally very kind and helpful. General things to be aware of are fuel shortages, the donor culture, trust, and higher price or foreigners (These are things we can discuss in person).

Food is great and fairly seasoned with natural ingredients. Food is safe and generally clean. The main base for any dish is nsima (maize floor), rice, and chips (French fries) with a meat, usually a chicken, chembo (fish) or beef, a relish (any vegetable dish), and beans. The prices range depending on the place, for a rice, beef, relish, and beans, its MK250 or CAD1.70 (MK150 = CAD 1 officially, much higher unofficially). Once in a while for special occasions a large mixed meat pizza it is MK1400 or CAD9.33 or a tasty Indian curry, chicken vandaloo is about MK780.If you are looking for something unique and traditional or local you can try mice, pigeons and attend a wedding ceremony.

Religion is a large part of life in Malawi. On Sundays, the streets are empty as people congregate at Church. With my host family, each night the family would come together after dinner for Bible studies. The largest religious group in Malawi is the Pentacostal Church associated with Scotland. However, Christianity is the dominate religion in the nation but like the country itself, there is great diversity. During different Sundays, I would attend a different church some in English and others in Chichewa or Tembuka.Islam and local traditional religion are also visible in Malawi.

Malawi is a dynamic and vibrant nation. For the next three months ahead, it is my hope that I can observe and be open to learning from this novel experience. I cannot wait to jump in and be immersed in the Malawian culture, language, and people and share with everyone back home about my first African experience. More broadly and linking it to my academic learning, this international internship is a personal reflection and “reality check” of my understanding of international development and the various challenges confronting youths in Mzuzu.

My international internship takes me to the City of Mzuzu, the regional capital of northern Malawi to work with the Mzuzu Youth Association (MYA) as a Resource Mobilization Advisor.  MYA is an umbrella youth association registered with the National Youth Council of Malawi and the National Network for Youth Development, representing over 40 affiliated youth organizations in the City of Mzuzu and surrounding areas. The Mzuzu Youth Association’s mission is to “coordinate and network youth developmental efforts in the City of Mzuzu”. Here is an interest piece of its history. The Mzuzu Youth Association began in 2001 as a dream of a few young people around the City of Mzuzu to create a positive space for youths. It is a healthy and welcoming space where the young people can come together to discuss and to work toward a better future for the youth of Mzuzu and Malawi. The current location of the Mzuzu Youth Association Centre on Mzuzu Hotel Road used to be the headquarters for the Malawi Youth Pioneers. The Malawi Young Pioneers was a paramilitary youth wing during the Kamuzu Banda dictatorship era. After the introduction of the multiparty democratic system in Malawi in 1994, the Malawi Young Pioneers was disbanded and its northern headquarters abandoned. It not until 2001, when the youths of Mzuzu reclaimed the abandon site to transform it what it is today, the Mzuzu Youth Association. What an amazing transformation.

Excited and overjoyed to start my adventure. I realized that I am able to easily adapt myself into the rhythm of life in Mzuzu. Frankly, without not too many unexpected surprises or culture shocks just yet. Somehow but not completely certain, I believe because I was born in Taiwan and having the chance to live in Asia helped me relate and better comprehend my surrounding around Mzuzu and Malawi.

I was first introduced to my work partner-hosting organization, Mzuzu Youth Association and then to my host family, the Nyirenda family. Because Mzuzu is located in a mountainous densely forested area, the temperature is very cold at night in June to August (Winter-dry season). During the second day, I quickly purchased a second-hand bicycle from South Africa. Something important remained with me that I want to share on this blog. During the introduction orientation to Malawi at the WUSC-Malawi office in Lilongwe, others interns and I were told that “we were Agents of capacity building”. I want to find out what this actually translates into on the ground or in other words, “how can I build the capacity and invoke positive change in myself, others, a team or group, and an organization?”  Think… think… think. Mmm… After much observation and discussion with the Executive Committee and Advisors of MYA, my work partner and I realized that much is needed to be done and my role as a Resource Mobilization Advisor need to also include Institutional Governance as well. This is an interesting start to my role with the Association as I desire to learn and do more.

Peaceful vibes,

Kai