My role in Botswana to is to build capacity in the area of communication and information management. It has been a struggle particularly at the counselling centre. The centre is short of funds, as are many NGOs, and I have been utilized to write proposals and look for sources of funding. Not necessarily my job description. Also, one of our major programs, which employs about 17 staff, ended September 30. Therefore, most staff spent the past two months wrapping up the program, writing reports and polishing their CVs in hopes of finding new employment. I've been asked to write a lot of CVs and I've helped out after hours as much as I can.
There are many days where I can't help but feel like I'm wasting my time here. I've been working at Maun Counselling Centre (MCC) for two months and I don't know if I've actually made any type of difference. The point of capacity building is that when I leave, the people in the organization should be able to continue with my work. I just don't know if that can happen here. Especially in such a short time.
When people think of communications, they usually think about websites, newsletters, pamphlets, brochures, etc. Well, at least that's what management thinks about at MCC. But when an organization is struggling to survive, the last thing it has is money to produce these types of products. Also, for many employees at the centre, English is still a new language and the capacity to write these documents has not yet been developed.
When I spoke to employees, they informed me that their communication needs were far more basic. They want to learn basic typing skills, basic English language writing, how to take minutes during a meeting, etc. This isn't what I had in mind when I first came here, but I have to adapt to my surrounding and to the needs of people.
Another struggle has been the lack of enthusiasm, or maybe it's better described as apathy, in actually learning. Sure someone tells me they want to learn how to type, but when I ask them to type a simple letter, they say no. Same thing with taking minutes. Batswana are funny people. Many of that claim to want to learn, but don't actually want to do the work to get there. This has been my biggest frustration so far.
So imagine my surprise and deep delight when I walked into the office this morning and found a coworker practicing his typing using a program I found online and added to every computer in the IT room. Not only was he practicing, but he was teaching another employee how to use the program. Still working on lesson 1, which practices using the letters "F" and "J," he excitedly told me how he only made 23 mistakes during his last test. The first time he took the test, he made 191 mistakes. He is now working on lesson 2 and his typing is improving every hour!
This is the first time in two months that I've seen someone take initiative with anything that I've attempted to teach. Typing might seem like such a small skill, but if they get comfortable with the computer, then they might start typing their reports instead of writing them by hand. This simple skill will help them today and in the future wherever they may be.
If this is the only skill people learn while I am here, I will be satisfied. We need to start small. One key, one letter, one word at a time.
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