Colin, Teryl, Dylan and Christine with management students in Rangpur, Bangladesh

Evolving Expectations

It has been difficult for me to articulate my expectations going back to my first experience(s) in El Salvador (2008, 2009) because of the evolution I have undergone from a 19 year-old relatively ‘fresh’ student to the student I am now after having been able to experience some amazing opportunities leading up to my most recent 5-month Students for Development Internship in Honduras, and as I think about my expectations for my upcoming internship with RDRS in Bangladesh this May.

When, in 2008, I traveled to El Salvador with a group of students from the University my biggest expectation was simply that I wanted to ‘help’ people. I wanted to put some of the theories I had been studying in textbooks and tossing around in my classes into action, and I wanted to see a different part of the world. I’m not sure that before I left I quite realized how deeply I would be affected, and how this first introductory experience would have a very dramatic impact on the rest of my University education (and likely the rest of my life).

I had the opportunity to return to El Salvador in 2009. This time as a leader of a new group of students to the same communities I had visited the year before and instead of just wanting to help people, I wanted more. I wanted to start figuring out if the project in question was as efficient and effective as it could/should be, and I started to ask (a lot) of questions…about the project, about the Universities role in El Salvador, and about development in general. I expected to be able to make changes, to shape the program to be able to push the program to be as effective as possible and work with the communities involved the most efficiently.

In September 2010, I was accepted for a 5-month internship and set off for Honduras. Solo this time to work for five months with a non-governmental organization. This time I wanted to work for a longer period of time with an organization and be able to start utilizing some of the skills I had developed over the years. I expected to be able to share some of my techniques, skills, and ideas, while learning a whole lot at the same time, and I expected a practical application of everything I had studied and experienced over the last four years. At this point, my expectations were less about where I was going (I could handle the bugs, the violence, the food, the heat, the people, the changes) and more about taking more than a two-week vacation that again raised a lot of questions and left me without answers.

As I think about my expectations for this May, when I will be facilitating a 5-week program for four undergraduate students in Bangladesh with an NGO called RDRS, I hope that I will be able to share some of my experiences, some of my questions and help the students go ‘deeper’ and see beyond the resilience, kindness and smiling faces. To explore their own philosophies of development, and to realize that there is more to these experiences than returning to Canada feeling grateful for all that we have been given. That continuing the dialogue, that sharing stories, and pictures, and enthusiasm helps makes us all global citizens and that just because we are countries apart doesn’t mean that the connection (between people, between countries) needs to and should not end.

Delaney C.

Everything is very complicated math - in Tanzania too.

What Do Tanzanians Think About Good Work or Good Times?

Hi Canada,

We’re chatting over here about Good Work or Good Times. Here’s what we have to say:

We want to see people coming here with good practical skills they want top pass on to us -for example, establishing and maintaining a cool website; establishing and keeping up a creative and interesting blog. People in Canada need to realize that a lot of Tanzanians are on Facebook and are totally plugged in. Everyone here can have internet access through their mobile phones.

We wany to drastically alter the prevalent western image of Africa as being a huge loser wasteland. We want people to get on top of the issues here and realize that Tanzanians (africans) have the same goals as Canadians, but they have to work a lot harder with very limited resources to reach those goals due to global inequity. We want poeple to learn these thin gs and then communicate that widely and effectively to other Canadians when they return. We want them to come up with new ideas about how to tackle global inequity and to create fairer conditions and actual opportunities for those stuck in poverty.

Question: How come all these cool service learning, study/travel abroad and volunteering programs are all one way?! Where are the opportunities for Tanzanians to go on service tours to Canada?! Nderingo is in!! He wants to go to Saskatchewan and learn about wheat production. Deo wants to spend time in Toronto studying the Canadian urban lifestyle. Nderingo wants an urban experience in vancouver. Japhet wants to head-up Communications for a Canadian-based NGO so that he can portray the real image of Africa.

We want people coming here to realize that it is a huge privilege that they get to spend time in the ‘real’ Africa, in the real Tanzania, i.e. well off the beaten tourist track and traveller route, that they get to meet those that are working so hard. When they get back to Canada, we want them tio raise funds for CPAR Tanzania so that we can scale up our great work!

We have been approached by many wannabe volunteers who, before they dare commit, demand a detailed job description and need to know what they will be doing 9 to 5, every day, Monday through Friday. Needless to say, these volunteers never join us.

Right now we have a Canadian volunteer with us teaching ESL to UMATU members. She arrived with the understanding that beyond the goal of teaching English to UMATU members she would recieve very little direction. How, when and what she did was completely up to her. This volunteer has shown great initiatve. She has created a practical and fun program of language instruction for UMATU and she has developed her own unique relationship with them. She has come up with great suggestions about all the cool things that UMATU and CPAR can/should be doing. etc.

And that’s all we can think of for now….

Cheers,

Jean, Japhet, Deo and Nderingo – CPAR Tanzania

 

Borehole rehabilitation proves to be anything but boring.

Ntchito Smiles - Kololo TA, in the Mchinji District of Malawi on Ntchito Yabwino: A Service Learning Project in Malawi. Pictured (L to R) is Dennis Nyasulu, CPAR Malawi, Lauren Howard, Patricia Chikopa (CPAR Malawi), Jill Nichols and Eric Flaten.

On Expectations.

The word ‘expectation’ is a little bit tricky. Did I have expectations before I went to Malawi back in the summer of 2010? Yes, of course. Did the experience become what I had anticipated it would be? Yes…but then again, no. And not ‘no’ in a bad way, but rather that many things happened in ways that I had not anticipated they would. Events that I thought were going to be difficult were no issue, and some little activities that are so ordinary here were a huge cause of stress in this new culture and new country. One of my largest pre-departure fears was around food; what if there were lots of things that I wasn’t use to? I left Winnipeg with a steadfast plan to live off a diet of rice and beans for six weeks. My resolve lasted about a day… I also expected that there would have been some technological difficulties, but never really could have envisioned how a slow internet connection repeatedly held up the work we were doing.

Oftentimes, when people are reading a novel for the first time, they have images and pictures of the characters they are meeting and the places they are travelling to. Then, when the book becomes famous and popular and loved by all, a production company comes along and turns that made-up world into a reality. And it is never what you had been picturing. The image in front of you on the screen rarely matches up to what you had in your head.

I use this analogy not to infer that my time spent in Malawi was somehow less than what I had envisioned, or that it was disappointing, but rather that it is important to be critical about your own personal expectations before travelling or interning in a new country. No matter how well prepared you are before you go, or how often someone has told you what to expect, you will never quite believe it until you see it yourself.  I don’t think my expectations could have been better guided pre-departure. But I also don’t think it’s a problem that I didn’t have the ‘before’ picture quite right.

A huge part, and I might even say the most important part, of these service learning activities is what you learn on the side, when you are least expecting it. Expectations can cloud your vision and make to unable to pick up on little elements and pieces because you are waiting to see something else. I learnt much more about communications and development in Malawi when we weren’t in 9-5 mode, rather than when we were. All in all, expectations are natural, and to be expected, and often useful when it comes to planning and organizing. But it is ultimately important to remember that you have to anticipate balancing expectations with reality when you go somewhere new, whether that be halfway around the world…or just around the corner.

-Lauren Howard

CPAR/U of M Service Learning Malawi 2010

For myself, becoming a global citizen is espoused by the breaking-down of borders, and embracing an outlook towards people that emphasizes human semblance, rather than accentuates human difference. For this very reason, service-learning initiatives have the potential to play an important role in helping students expand their mental and geographical borders, and open up their world to a vast array of new experiences. However, at the same time, service-learning trips must be created with a conscious level of modesty built into them: especially those that are relatively short lived, or predominately observational. When created properly, and on a community-directed, sustainable basis – which works to help increase local community capacities, enhance positive local linkages, and in turn work to help promote local self reliance – service-learning initiatives can hold much reciprocal promise for all actors engaging in the process. Unfortunately though, however admirable or successful, the challenges to, and limited effectiveness of such initiatives (short, observational) should be touched upon before departure.

Although geared with the best intentions, both service-learning initiatives, and all those who participate in them, need to recognize and acknowledge the effects of their participation in the broader structural and developmental context. Although service-learning projects hold much promise and opportunity, those organizers and participants who believe that their impact will severely change the way things currently (and unjustly) are need to be given the opportunity to learn about the systemic and structural pervasiveness that stands in the way of overcoming global poverty. Although a lofty challenge for such programs, a start would be for all service-learning participants to watch the documentary “The End of Poverty? Think Again.” A sobering film, it helps to realistically contextualize systemic poverty at a global level, and will help participants measure the effectiveness of their service-learning projects/activities/goals within that of the institutional structure of society. Ultimately, this is in no means to discourage participants, or to belittle service learning initiatives, but rather to encourage those who participant in these opportunities to use them as a starting point of engagement, and to realize that much more must be done on a more grand, global scale. Although service-learning engagement projects can work towards successfully achieving their goal of capacity building at the community-specific local level, we must be cautious of over-inflating their positive benefits at the expense of ignoring the possible dangers to development that could be unmeaning, and therefore unassumingly taking place. For all past and future participants, take what lessons and passions you gain(ed) during the initiative, and carry them into your future endeavors while working towards progressive social change. By placing service-learning initiatives in the broader context, participants will be encouraged to engage in a more critical and ethical dialogue on what it means to serve, experience, learn, and adopt the postures and practices of a global citizen.

For myself, becoming a global citizen is espoused by the breaking-down of borders, and embracing an outlook towards people that emphasizes human semblance, rather than accentuates human difference. For this very reason, service-learning initiatives have the potential to play an important role in helping students expand their mental and geographical borders, and open up their world to a vast array of new experiences. However, at the same time, service-learning trips must be created with a conscious level of modesty built into them: especially those that are relatively short lived, or predominately observational. When created properly, and on a community-directed, sustainable basis – which works to help increase local community capacities, enhance positive local linkages, and in turn work to help promote local self reliance – service-learning initiatives can hold much reciprocal promise for all actors engaging in the process. Unfortunately though, however admirable or successful, the challenges to, and limited effectiveness of such initiatives (short, observational) should be touched upon before departure.

Although geared with the best intentions, both service-learning initiatives, and all those who participate in them, need to recognize and acknowledge the effects of their participation in the broader structural and developmental context. Although service-learning projects hold much promise and opportunity, those organizers and participants who believe that their impact will severely change the way things currently (and unjustly) are need to be given the opportunity to learn about the systemic and structural pervasiveness that stands in the way of overcoming global poverty. Although a lofty challenge for such programs, a start would be for all service-learning participants to watch the documentary “The End of Poverty? Think Again.” A sobering film, it helps to realistically contextualize systemic poverty at a global level, and will help participants measure the effectiveness of their service-learning projects/activities/goals within that of the institutional structure of society. Ultimately, this is in no means to discourage participants, or to belittle service learning initiatives, but rather to encourage those who participant in these opportunities to use them as a starting point of engagement, and to realize that much more must be done on a more grand, global scale. Although service-learning engagement projects can work towards successfully achieving their goal of capacity building at the community-specific local level, we must be cautious of over-inflating their positive benefits at the expense of ignoring the possible dangers to development that could be unmeaning, and therefore unassumingly taking place. For all past and future participants, take what lessons and passions you gain(ed) during the initiative, and carry them into your future endeavors while working towards progressive social change. By placing service-learning initiatives in the broader context, participants will be encouraged to engage in a more critical and ethical dialogue on what it means to serve, experience, learn, and adopt the postures and practices of a global citizen.

David Safruk

Global Political Economy student

University of Manitoba