It's 15 degrees, the sun is shining. We've managed to shovel off the deck, fire up the bbq, and crack a few cold ones in celebration of a beautiful day that just so happens to mark the end of classes here at UNB.
28 days... That's my time left here in New Brunswick before I hop on the plane to Toronto for pre-departure training, and then onto Zambia. I figured I would update everyone on what I will be doing once I arrive on the ground. Please note this is not 100% confirmed and could change anytime between now and when I touchdown in Lusaka:
International Development Enterprises (IDE) was on of EWB's first partners in Zambia. They have been helping farmers in developing communities for more than 25 years, with a focus on moving farmers out of subsistence agriculture through market-based, micro entrepreneurship projects. As an international non-profit organization they currently have field offices in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and of course Zambia.
Zambia was IDE's first African country program, and has been working on implementing affordable and appropriate technologies that fit with the context of the lives of local farmers. IDE as also worked to facilitate linkages between smallholder groups and local markets and well as several export/output markets.
The current project focus is on a 4 year value chains project that is looking to raise farmer income with modular/adaptable irrigation and vegetable crops. The project has approximately 14,000 beneficiaries. Within this project context I am going to be looking at improving the Monitoring and Evaluation that is happening one of the field offices (which one has yet to be determined) but it will be in one of 5 provinces (Lusaka, Copperbelt, Central, Eastern, Southern). Another Junior Fellow, Florin Gheorghe (UBC), is also partnered with an IDE field office (again, TBD) so we will be collaborating on and off throughout the placement, sharing thoughts and ideas, best practices, etc.
I had the privlidge of having a conference call today with Hans Hesse, an EWB LTOV who has been in Zambia since late February working with an organization known as PROFIT. He has also been engaged with Monitoring & Evaluation work so Florin and I have been teamed up with him as our "learning buddy" on the ground. He saw the monitoring and evaluation process as having two distinct roles:
1) Gathering of critical numbers for the organization and its donors
2) Facilitating the Learning Loop - facilitating the synthesizing of knowledge from the field workers, to the field/head offices, and then transfering that synthesized knowledge back out to the field workers. Hans also spoke of the 'most significant change' technique and identifying what the beneficiaries are feeling is most valuable in the interventions/changes that are taking place as key parts of the process.
So nervousness is kind of setting in, but in a good, anxious kind of way I think. I've had the fortune of sampling what will most likely make up my main dish for most of the summer, nshima... basically corn flour and water, served with a relish (so far cabbage has been my favourite, with groundnuts & spinach coming in at a close second).
I've started adding some links from other members of the 2008 JF crew, so look for more additions there as time rolls on.
Anyways, I guess some burgers are on now.
Cheers!
Brian
1 comments:
hey! glad you came up to halifax today. it's been incredibly warm lately (and that's saying something... from a tropical BC girl).
i would have suggested meeting up with you(since we're not in training together)... BUT i have a multi-subject final exam today and i was holed up inside all weekend. by now i think i've managed to distinguish between the smells of my different textbooks.
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