Development or Volunteer Work?

Another Engineers Without Borders JF heading to Ghana this summer, Steph, posed an interesting question:

Do people's reactions vary if you say you are doing development work vs volunteer work in Ghana?

What do you think?
Here are some of my intial thoughts, and I would love to hear what yours are.
Volunteer work implies that you are going to help people in need. For the most part, we are all familiar with "volunteer work" as this term is used widely in Canadian society and we can immediately identify activities that constitute volunteer work (i.e. volunteering at a hospital, old age home, helping ESL kids learn to read, volunteering at a food bank, etc.).
Development work, on the other hand, is less clear and harder to define. How many people have experienced development work firsthand?
This summer, I will be doing development work. I will be working with local organizations (non-governmental or governmental) with the aim of having a positive impact on the country's development.
But what is development?! "Development work" is still unclear.
Development, to me, means bridging the gap between the developed and developing world. Not in terms of material possessions and economic status, and this doesn't mean making "them" more like "us", it's a two way exchange. Just as I hope to improve people's lives in Ghana, I hope to develop Canada immensely from this experience. I think development means increasing peoples opportunities and choices in life. To me, it means learning how to create a world in which we find a balance and can live sustainably, happily and peacefully. Ambitious?...Of course, but what else are we going to strive for!
Just to complicate things...I will be doing development work, but I also will be a volunteer. I will not be paid, and will have the priviledge of being able to be focused on improving the organization, and not be worried about losing my job by questioning what is currently being done.
Your thoughts please!

Learning about Ghana, my summer home

Ghana is where I will be spending my summer and hopefully learning and impacting to the max, but how do much do I actually know about this country? One of the things that I want to do is to slowly and manageably learn about Ghana and have my lovely Guelph chapter learn with me. What I have decided to do is to focus on one aspect of the country per week. Here we go!

Week 1 - (Reading Week) Ghanian Culture

• major ethnic groups: Akan, Ewe, Mole-Dagbane, Guan, Ga-Adangbe
• no part of Ghana is ethnically homogenous
• the south has western influences and is primarily christian, the north has more of an islamic influence
• Naomi Chazan: prolific writer on modern Ghana
• President: John Kufour
• one of Ghana's foreign policy principles is to be a friend to all
• food: fufu (mashed cassava, plaintain or yam), ground nut stew, fried plantains and magoes!
• sports: football (soccer) and boxing
• textiles: Ashanti well known for kente cloth, in a distinctive basket-work pattern. the colour and design is a way of indicating status and clan allegiance. only men weave the kente cloth
• Population: 21 million
• Capital: Accra
• former UN secretary General Kofi Annan is from Ghana
  

Week 2 - Ghanian Geography and Climate

• neighbouring countries: Cote D'Ivore, Burkina Faso, Togo
• 539 km of coastline
• the size of Britain
• only a few degrees north of the equator!
• very flat and close to sea level (the whole country is below 1000m)
• world's largest artificial lake, Lake Volta (when the Volta River was dammed in the mid-1960s
• climate: tropical
• the north (where I will be going) is hot and dry and I will be there primarily for a dry season
  

Week 3 - Music!

• Check out some radio stations from Ghana:
  http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/live-radio.php?popup=1
• Ghana is known for its fusion of musical genres, including of American hip-hop and gospel rap!

Week 4 - Language

• Twi ("chwee") is the most widely spoken African language in Ghana, where its the official language of education and literature
• Hello: a-kwa-ba (response) yaa
• Goodbye: ma-krow
• Please: me-pa-wo-che-o
• Thank you: may-da-say

Traits of a Development Worker!

This is from the Guelph Chapter's working partner, Alanna Peters. She is currently working in Burkina Faso (West Africa) as a long term overseas volunteer (referred to as OVs or LTOVs) working on the improving the mango value chain. This is her response when we asked her for some traits of a development worker...its pretty funny.

Alanna Peters:

1. Patience - as things will always take longer than expected and your working in a context that doesn't always make sense to you



2. Ability to laugh at yourself - you are bound to make cultural blunders



3. Ability to self motivate - Often you are left alone to make you work happen and it is not always easy to see the point and purpose, but you need to value the little successes as much as the big ones. Also nothing/no one is going to come to you it's up to you to find friends and things to do so get out there.



4. Balance - ability to keep all aspects of yourself in balance: mental, physical, emotional and social. To know when one area is taking too much of your energy and how to bring yourself back to a balance. This has tobe one of the hardest parts and is constantly being challenged.



5. Curiosity, desire to learn - you learn sooooooo much while being overseas and working in the development context, it's great but can betiring



6. Constant questioning - it's the only way to understand!



7. Be humble - Know that you really don't know that much about the context and the complexities, know that your judgments are culturally learnt and may not apply to the new context/culture, be willing to say you don't know - people will respect you more if you are honest about your ability/knowledge than if you pretend you know and get caught later



8. Have a strong stomach - You are going to get sick as food, water, germs are all different, be ready to be acquainted with the latrine on more than one occasion, and laugh if you have an accident, I think the statistics in EWB is that 90% of OVs poo themselves at some point - so far I've been lucky, but keep your fingers crossed, just don't let it phase you



9. Determination - constantly push yourself, this is not always easy as you are tired some times, but with language it is absolutely necessary



10. Keep criticism in check - This is your criticism of yourself, of others and from others. For yourself try not to be too hard on yourself when things don't work out or are slow. Of others, try not to compare ways of doing things with ways you are used to back home. From others, be ready to accept criticism and to let some of it roll off your back. Here people are less gentle in their opinions as they are in Canada, in other words they are direct despite your feelings, but don't take it the wrong way



11. Dedramatize - it is never as bad as you think it is, you just need to take a step back and relax then you will see it for what it is



12. Have fun and enjoy the experience and exchanging with people!

*I hope that helps.

Alanna

Questions Questions Questions

Have some general questions about what EWB is all about? Here are some classic questions and their response. If you have more specific questions, let me know and I will answer them as best as I can.

What is Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Canada?

EWB is a registered Canadian charity dedicated to human development. The goal is to ensure that people in developing countries have access to the technology they need to improve their lives and opportunies. EWB works overseas with partner organizations in local government, NGOs and other community development projects. In Canada we address our goals by building awareness and encouraging change at the individual, corporate and government level.

What kind of work does EWB do overseas?

Engineers Without Borders sends both long term and short term volunteers to work with established organizations to build their capacity in the rural sector in primarily the areas of water and sanitation, food production and processing, and energy. EWB parnters with these organizations through long term volunteers (LTOVs) and short term volunteers. LTVOs spend a minimum of 1 year in a community working on understanding a project in order to have a positive impact. Short term volunteers, or Junior Fellows (JFs, that's what I am), are university students who spend 4 months working on similiar projects to the LTOVs. EWB works mainly in rural Africa in Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Zambia and Malawi.

What does EWB do in Canada?

In Canada, EWB works to ensure Canada is a role model among 'developed' nations in development - reducing the barriers facing developing countries that exist from our own policies and actions. This is done through:

• encouraging change in individual actions through public outreach and advocacy and school outreach
• corporate practices through corporate engagement and engineering curriculum enhancement
• government policies and actions through public outreach/awareness, petitions and advocacy, and direct engagement on development topics

An example of some of the things that have been done at the Guelph Chapter:

-high school outreach presentations on topics "Food for Thought" "Energy Matters" and "Water for the World"

-GROW highschool conference on international development

-Bill C-923 in canadian foreign policiy

-Promotion and education of Fair Trade

-creating the foundations for the curriculum enhancement at the School of Engineering and corporate outreach

-weekly education sessions on anything from workshops on the root causes of poverty to speakers on the role of engineers in appropriate design overseas.

Pre-departure Learning

Although my placement doesn't begin until May 7th when I step foot in Ghana, there is a significant amount of learning and preparations that need to take place beforehand to ensure we are the most effective and make the most of the learning experience when overseas.
The major preparations come from:

1. Personal Development Plan
2. Past Junior Fellow (JF) coffee shop discussions
3. Foundation Learning
4. 1-week pre-departure training prior to leaving

The personal development plan is to help us identify what our strengths and weaknesses are and see how they line up with what knowledge, skills and attitudes we will need overseas in our placements. From there, we just have to take advantage of the time we have to try and improve and fill in the gaps of our knowledge.

The coffee shop discussions have been the most helpful so far. The two JFs from the Guelph chapter, Janna and Kyla, and myself and Madavine, the other 2008 JF from Guelph who is going to Zambia, meet every wendesday in the Daily Grind and they help us through our learning and preparation. They answer all our questions and tell us stories of what to expect, its lots of fun.

Foundation learning is a series of assignments for all of us JFs to do. There are different levels of learning, and an example of some things I have completed already: interviewing a past JF and seeing how their expectations lined up with their realities overseas, reading the book "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe, reading about rural livelihoods and agriculture in Africa, to name a few. We discuss our findings on myewb posts with the other JFs and our JF support Staff, Cat Dorval.

Then there is a whirlwind of a week where we learn as much as we can before we jump on a plane and disperse throughout Africa!