Take a step into my office
on Phnom Penh Pal (Cambodia), 06/Sep/2012 01:52, 34 days ago
So, six months in and there's not really been much said about what we do. There's been a few pics of somenice placesin Cambodia, the odd commentary on someissues facing the peoplehere and a briefdiscourse on beer. But since so many people raised funds and donated money for us to come to Cambodia, I feel that I should at least give you a hint as to what I'm doing.Come on in to my office. That's a mango tree you can see the trunk of by the way. NGO Education Partnership (NEP)is the association body for educational NGOs working in Cambodia. Their two primary goals are to represent the sector in policy discussions with government and to support NGOs by providing training, supporting cooperation and sharing information and best practice.My role is to build the capacity of NEP to be successful in these goals, and specifically in terms of advocacy and fundraising ability. The key bit in that sentence is "build capacity". To help NEP achieve success, I'm not meant to lead people, direct work, or even do anything by myself in isolation. I'm meant to use my skills to make the people of NEP create that success themselves.Me and Rithy, CEO of NEP. Constantly amazes me about how much he knows about things like Thatcher, Princess Diana, Falklands War, and English comics of course (see previous blog).Mostly, I do this by sitting down with staff and working with them on their tasks and how to plan, implement and evaluate their work on these tasks. And because I am not meant to simply tell them what to do but actually to help them work out what to do for themselves, I basically ask a lot of questions. You know how 8 years olds go through phases of replying to every answer with "why?", well I'm kind of employing the same tactic.I ask question after question to push them to think about what they are doing, why they are doing it and whether it will help them achieve what they want to. The one thing I try not to do is offer my opinion, which must be infuriating. It's also pretty hard for me!Imagine having every question answered by a question, and then a guy who is meant to be there because is he knowledgeable about a subject refusing to give his opinion. I think it may be because they cannot reach up to my face that has saved me from a punch in the face. Even I want to punch me sometimes.The room where it all happens - my desk in the far right corner, and Rithy's desk on the left. I broke one of the blue plastic chairs in my first month. Never learnt not to swing on chairs. However, the staff at NEP show a real willingness to work with me and in doing things this way, which I hope will mean that after 2 years they will not need another me, nor think that they do.At our fundraising quiz/goodbye party, one of Claire's friends (mine too but you know what I mean) called Alasdair (not you Kipper) and I were chatting about the low enrolment rate in secondary school (35%) and that it would be a great achievement if after 2 years I had helped push that up a bit. But now, I'm realising that the real measure of success will be if it's the Cambodian staff of NEP who are pushing that up for years to come after I've gone home.Every Friday at 4:30pm - party time! All the staff eat together with two different people each week responsible for choosing and buying the food. I'm going to hunt a haggis for them soon. I will leave Claire to explain how she's getting on as a newly found health expert who moonlights as a MC for Embassy receptions.Take careGordon