Grinding my teeth, Part One: What am I doing here? 15/12/08

(A disclaimer: I’m feeling somewhat bitter and frustrated right now, so apologies if this post turns into a rant.)

Realizing that I haven’t yet written anything about the work I’m ostensibly here to do, I suppose I ought to say something. Although I’ve only been in placement just over a month, I’m quickly becoming acquainted with the joys and frustrations of working in development, and in particular, working in development in Bangladesh.

So: a brief outline of what I’m here to do is probably in order for those of you who don’t already know/didn’t pay attention to my lengthy explanations. I’m here working through VSO, an international development organization that works in 34 countries around the world through skilled volunteers. Although it’s a British charity, VSO also has recruitment offices in Kenya, the Netherlands, India, the Philippines and Canada, hence the mix of volunteers I’m working alongside. In each of its target countries, VSO works through partnership: in Bangladesh, this means there is a central program office in Dhaka, but volunteers are placed with a range of smaller, national and local NGOs all around the country. VSO Bangladesh focuses on three of VSO’s strategic areas: good governance; HIV and AIDS; and indigenous community rights.

My placement is with an indigenous rights organization based in north west Bangladesh called Gram Bikash Kendra (literally, Village Development Centre), which has been working with adivasi (indigenous) communities since 1992. It also has programs in various other areas, such as working with harijan communities (otherwise derogatorily known as sweeper or dalit communities). GBK is fairly large and quite well-established by local standards, and has had at least two previous VSO volunteers before Ollie and I arrived.

Now, what exactly are you here to do? I hear you cry. Well, prepare for a tirade, dear reader... I have no idea. One month in, and I have not a clue. I’m a pretty flexible and adaptable person (one of VSO’s recruitment requirements that they hammer home to you until your sick of hearing it), but even my flexibility is eroded by the intensity of my frustration. When I accepted my placement, it was on the basis of a pretty vague outline of what I’d be doing: capacity building for an indigenous rights organization, including documentation, communication, fundraising, networking and advocacy. Given the massively nebulous nature of most of the words in the above description, I accepted the placement on the assumption that all placement outlines are equally vague. Little did I know, mine would be more vague than I’d thought possible…

During induction, I met several times with my VSO manager and GBK’s executive director, to discuss the details of my placement in more depth. It was only two days before I actually left for the north that VSO decided to inform me that I’d be doing something quite different from what I’d first envisaged. They’d told me initially that I’d be working to build the capacity of GBK’s partner organizations (GBK works through 5 partners of its own – very small-scale community based organizations that work in different geographical areas with adivasi communities), in order that they would be able to work more effectively with local government. GBK would be ‘hosting’ my placement, but I wouldn’t actually be working directly for them. Quite a complicated aim, for sure, but something I could certainly have a stab at.

Then, VSO tell me that, in addition to working with these partners, they also want me to work with about ten of their own partners, based in several different parts of the country and which work in the area of good governance. Now, given that most volunteers work with four NGOs tops, I reckon working with sixteen is quite a tall order, especially when you consider that:
1. Many of these NGOs have no English speakers working for them
2. They are hundreds of miles apart
3. It takes time to build up a rapport with one NGO, let alone sixteen
4. I have no clear idea who I’d accountable to and where professional support comes from (VSO or GBK?)
5. VSO seem unwilling to give me a firm idea of what they want me to do, and GBK don’t seem to care

And so here I am. One month in, and generally not a clue as to what I’m supposed to be doing. Of course, I understand that adapting to a different culture takes time, and that things are done at a different pace here (see next entry), and that it’s important to do things in as participatory a manner as possible (i.e. I’m not going to decide my objectives unilaterally, but try to work them out on the basis of the needs of VSO, GBK and all the partner organizations), but unless I get a little more direction soon, I am going to wind up insane.