Prologue to Blog 34: Quotes to consider while reading this blog post which is pretty long but you may find it intriguing. I at least guarantee that.
"Mr. Tran. Let me remind you that you are not a private citizen here in South Africa, you are a representative of the United States Government and by joining Peace Corps you agreed to forfeit certain rights that a private citizen enjoys.”
-A high ranking Peace Corps South Africa staff member shooting down a project idea I presented to her.
“So I hear you want to start an NGO when you get out. How do you feel that you will be stripping the already limited resources from other NGO’s in the area by directly competing with them for funding and potentially stealing their most qualified staff members thus crippling their entire operation?”
-A fellow Peace Corps volunteer after she heard that I wanted to start an NGO when I completed my service. Important to note, she stated this before she heard what the idea was.
“As amazing as this NGO idea sounds I just don’t feel like you would be in an effective position to do what your organization say you would do. I just don’t think people here are willing to change the way they work even if it is for the better. People are just set in their ways no matter how bad it is.”
-A fellow Peace Corps after I explained to her the idea of a NGO that I potentially could try to create.
Beginning of Blog 34
Although my blog is named after the book “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman (noticed I changed World to Earth to avoid any sort of copyright infringement? Like Friedman or anyone actually would care anyway) I had not read it until recently. Pretty retarded yeah? Your response should be “Yeah pretty retarded that you named your Peace Corps blog, which in many respects is supposed to be a fairly detailed account of your experiences, thoughts and musings about your life in Peace Corps which is a pretty significant part of your life, is named after a book that you have not even read. In fact you never even opened it? Looked at the cover? Yeah, retarded.”
Ah yes thanks for that. Anyway, the book “The World is Flat” is about the history of globalization and the different movements within it that has gotten us to the world we know today. Even though I did not read it until recently I had heard about the book in my macroeconomics class I took right before I left for Peace Corps. My professor explained the concept of the book in class and from what I understand it seemed as if he was saying that the world has entered into a new age of globalization one with an increased emphasis in collaboration not just between companies but individuals around the world that share ideas and develop practices and share them with each other. He stopped explaining the book shortly afterwards and went on teaching about something called “supply and demand”. The idea intrigued me, this flat world. Living in an area that is so connected to the world (Washington D.C. Metropolitan area) I couldn’t help but think this is a type of globalization I can believe in, rather than the skeptics that lambast any sort of international cooperation and call for decreased communication between countries (cough*Ron Paul*Cough). Believing that there is a lot more we have to gain by learning from one another and sharing ideas around the globe I shortly left for Peace Corps without ever reading the book but nonetheless decided to name my blog “The Earth is Flat” after it based on this idea.
22 months later I sit here writing this blog and repeatedly looking at this “World is Flat” book on my bedroom floor that helped me put into perspective my views of not just globalization and the world but probably more importantly it helped me put into perspective my view of the NGO field in which I currently find myself working in. (PC places us in different NGO’s in different parts of South Africa and pretty much tells us “good luck see you in 2 years”). There was one part of the book that I took great interest in: “Flattener #8: Insourcing, What the Guys in Funny Brown Shorts Are Really Doing.” That’s right the guys in the funny brown shorts would be those working for our dear old United Parcel Service. I was shocked by this next fact: That these funny brown shorts dudes weren’t just delivering parcels to your doorstep but they were dictating how businesses do business. To keep it short UPS apparently goes into different businesses and learns everything it can about that business: what they are producing, where they operate, how they operate, how they acquire materials, who they connect with, who their partners are, who their target population is, how they deliver their service/goods, pretty much they learn the entire layout of a business and how they function and why they are functioning in a certain way and then make changes to it based on UPS’s observations and the needs of the business to increase their efficiency. And if there are any missing links to making any improvements then UPS will help that business connect with persons that can help bridge that missing link thus helping that business streamline its operations, connect it to the globalized world, and helped make improvements that would help sustain long term profit gains. HUH? Yeah UPS acting as an external entity that was able to see certain businesses operations and the environment they work in objectively and help them make changes and connect to the world and compete with the big guns and in the process leveled the playing field for that company and flattened the world. Simply amazing really.
It was shortly after reading this part of the book that my friend, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, I had earlier served with approached me about the idea of creating an NGO when I got out of Peace Corps and when he got out of Grad School. He was adamant about me joining his quest to build an NGO with him and his wife, I agreed and we started brainstorming ideas. He originally started with ideas such as helping communities become self-sustaining by helping them develop their own agricultural practices and self-sustaining technologies free from influences from the outside world like a Kibbutz in Israel (at least that’s what I think he was saying). But continuing my reading of the “World is Flat” I really wasn’t into the idea. I told him I wasn’t sure if isolation is the way to go anymore and that perhaps we should implement a tempered form of globalization focused on the sharing of technologies and ideas and that the earth is flat, there’s no going back.
I kept thinking about NGO ideas but I was at a crossroads. How could our NGO assist with a multitude of issues such as HIV/AIDS, TB, food insecurity, poverty alleviation and other issues without competing directly with other NGO’s for precious resources and funding (the bad part of globalization)? I put the thought aside as I had to work on making contacts with egg layers in other areas so they could help build our poultry project. Without their help and expertise the project wouldn’t succeed so I needed to fill in this expertise gap that my organization was lacking when it came to raising and sustaining chickens… And then Eureka, just liked that the idea popped into my head, incepted somehow without my knowledge. I did not have to look far indeed as all I had to do was look at my own Peace Corps service and the service of others here in South Africa as I finally had a complete answer to the question “What do you do in Peace Corps?”. My answer jokingly to anyone now would be “I was the UPS of the NGO’s in my community.” So what is the NGO you ask? We become the guys in funny brown shorts, we become the UPS of the NGO field, minus the parcel delivery of course. I mean what did I do for the last 2 years? The same thing that UPS does with businesses, except this time PCV’s in South Africa are doing it with schools/NGO’s.
Let me start from the top and I’m not alone in this as every other PCV must do this when they get to site. When I came to my organization 2 years ago I asked a series of questions that revolved around one main question topic, “Where do you want to be in 2 years?” (The time I had to work with that particular community, as our Peace Corps contracts are only 2 years.) I knew what I wanted to do which was to build stronger HIV/AIDS education programs, and develop health strategies that would help alleviate health problems such as TB in the area. But of course I needed my organization to be on board with it. Members of my organization then listed out several things that I thought were interesting. Instead of them saying we want you to get us more money. Then said things like “We want to be able to function more effectively as an organization and develop a real strategic plan.” Or “Our funders want us to report our stats in a certain way but we are struggling with it. We want to be able to do it by ourselves without your help. Can you help us with that?” The list went on and on. At the end of it all I agreed to help with everything, but I needed something in return. I told them that in order for me to help you I need to know everything that you do, how you do it, why you do it, who you are doing it to, who you are doing it for, and who are you doing it with. I didn’t quite say it like that but those were the subjects we were trying to get at as stated in our Peace Corps mandated Needs assessment of our communities and organizations. Leonardo DiCaprio said it best in inception, “If I am to help protect you then you need to be completely honest with me. I need to know everything, your every thought. If you have a safe, I need to know what’s in that safe.”
Just like the UPS guys I learned every in and out of my organization. I learned how to do their reporting, what they wanted to report, what their funders wanted out of those reports and merged the ideas of what the organization wanted and what the funder wanted and we did it all electronically on our computer. I learned every deadline for every report and document (stats, finances, project description, events, patient databases, sign-up sheets, advertisements, brochures) and showed members of my organization as to how to develop these things. Of course the concept of internet and technology was very foreign to members of my organization and set out to teaching members of my organization how to report everything electronically and send them to funders via email. So essentially our organization was able to use technology to streamline their reporting and communication into a more efficient process. As wonderful as this sounds it was not easy, in fact it was extremely frustrating at times. Technology is no good if the people that need to use it cannot grasp it and it was a long process to help people in the organization and I think many PCV’s have gone through this long arduous process. If there was one thing I learned during this process it’s that NGOs cannot develop effective programs if their administrative core is not working at a high capacity. Only by having a strong administrative core can the organization and the ideals of that organization be sustainable. By doing this our funders were impressed with the core of our organization and were more willing to offer additional funding assistance and help expand programs. Only by laying the foundation can that organization use that foundation to develop effective outreach programs. I’m glad to say I feel like our organization has reached this point. Unfortunately I was not able to develop projects that I wanted to develop without this foundation but now that the foundation was laid. We could go on to that.
The next step was to expand. We created stronger partnerships with other organizations in the area. Once again that required at least a small understanding of what different organizations in the area do and how there could be a partnership. Talking to different persons of different organizations I got to understand more in depth as to how they perceived different problems and issues in the area. Helping talking to different funders and government officials I was able to learn what was expected of different organizations in the area. Different organizations in the area do different things so I realized that instead of competing against each other by doing similar services and see different organizations fail to gain resources we talked to different organizations to maintain a core focus of services and not to expand if not ready to do so. This resulted in my home based care being the main organization the offered care services in people’s homes, another organization could offer food support to families with Department of Social Development funding, and another organizations main focus would be broad based counseling services. This allowed for different organizations to cooperate and refer persons that needed assistance to each other. This became greater when the local clinic came on board to refer patients to relevant organizations.
The other step after this was to develop projects. Things that I had set out to do in Peace Corps I was finally able to do. Developing a TB DOTS program was not possible if we were not able to record the progress of different patients in taking their medication. Our organization has that capacity now and as such the clinic was willing to develop a stronger TB DOTS program with us. Developing a stronger HIV/AIDS education outreach program became a lot easier now that there was a foundation to work from and a partnership with different organizations established. We trained several persons to be peer educators and placed them in different zones and are now teaching people about HIV/AIDS and to break the silence. Another project we started was the development of a income generating egg laying project. In which we would raise chickens that lay eggs and sell the eggs to the community at a reduced price so members of the community would be able to save money while increasing food security.
I could talk about more projects but the point of this is that instead of developing a NGO that offered its own service and competed with organizations directly if our NGO focused on learning intimately the process of how organizations work, the challenges that they face, learning about the community in which they are located in, we would be able to impact a lot more change by helping these organizations achieve high functionality by integrating technology into their daily operations and focusing on helping them develop their own programs through shared ideas and practices from other parts of the world that could be adapted the area we work in.
So essentially the NGO would be what a lot of Peace Corps volunteers do except there are a few differences. As stated in the first quote we PCV’s are not afforded the ability to travel freely. Being free from the Peace Corps Bureaucracy would allow members of the NGO to move around to different parts of the area and establish more effective long distance relationships especially with potential funders and program developers. Being allowed to drive would allow for this to happen more effectively. Next and perhaps the most important part of this entire operation is that when capacitating organizations or developing projects members of the NGO would be allowed to work in teams. Different members of the team would have a different core skill. One person could be the health strategist, another person could be the technology specialist, several people could work as capacity builders and administrative specialists, another person could be an agricultural specialist, and another person could work as a business development specialist that helps organizations or budding businesses in the area develop income generating projects. By allowing people to do what their skill set is tailored to it could allow for more effective development and allow for people to do different things that they are good at and passionate about. I am proud of a lot of things about my Peace Corps service but I had to ask myself, what do I know about Chicken farming? Wouldn’t that be a job more suitable for an agricultural specialist? I helped my organization balance its finances and show them how to do their financial reporting, but what do I know about accounting? A job more suitable for an administrative person or accountant, no? Obviously each member of the NGO will have to be able to do a variety of things but their core focus would be their skill set. The administrative/capacity builders will have the most difficult and most crucial job so there will have to be many of them. Without a solid base to operate from the organization will not be able to develop programs with the assistance of other members of the NGO. This would also allow for more communication between the funder and the the organization being funded. We could act as a temporary liason while the organization is brought up to speed with any new reporting systems. We could offer continuous support to organizations in the area as our NGO will be situated in the area in which it operates.
Imagine this hypothetical situation. One particular village’s clinic in partnership with that village’s home based care wanted to start a TB DOTS program to ensure that persons infected with TB take their medication everyday and complete treatment but are having trouble with caregiver accountability and patient defaulting. The health strategist can determine which areas in the village have high cases of TB and help the nurses assign caregivers to different TB patients based on need. But to increase the likelihood of patients taking their treatment and caregivers going to a patient’s home to see if those patients are taking treatment we can develop a scanner system that indicates which patients have taken their treatment and who hasn’t. There is cell phone technology that allow for cell phones to scan bar codes of any kind. So let’s say business expert can contact companies that develop this technology and try to acquire those cell phones/barcode scanners. Each caregivers’ cell phone could be fitted with these barcode scanners. Each TB patient is issued a green card with a check list to indicate if they have taken their TB medication. Each TB green card could be outfitted with a barcode as well as the bottle of medication that the patient has. So the caregiver could come to that person’s house, scan the medication bottle, watch the patient drink the medication, and then scan the green card. The technology person can develop a database inside the home based cares involved and the clinics involved to be alerted when the medication bottle is scanned and the green card is scanned. This would allow for the nurses in the clinic to mark who has taken their medication that day and who hasn’t and if they haven’t they can contact the patient and/or the caregiver as to what the complication was. Also it can track whether a patient needs to have a medication refill or not as the number of times the bottle is scanned can indicate how much medication is left in the bottle. So 3 different persons with different skills were able to work in tandem with different people on the ground in the clinics and the home based cares to develop a more effective TB DOTS Program that emphasizes caregiver and patient accountability at the same time the Nurses at the clinic would be able to monitor patients more effectively and their treatment regimens.
By allowing people of different skills and disciplines work in a multi-disciplinary team while at the same time using more advanced technology to enhance and streamline the operations of NGOs in the area it would allow for an increase in productivity thus helping the people of that area. As for the last quote at the top, it is true that some organizations might not be ready for such a drastic change and output, but that acceptance comes with time. And if we show that we will be there assisting and teaching them every step of the way they will gain more confidence in themselves and their ability to grow. This in turn can help collaboration between different organizations and service providers in the area to coordinate their services and thus making help and assistance more accessible. This is by no means a new idea, but it is not a prominent one, and it all started with a simple statement, “The earth is flat, there’s no going back.”
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