Week 1

Mambo vipi!

I hope everyone in Canada is well, warm, and happy.  It is warm here (for me), but it is raining an awful lot.  I've managed to only get stuck in it once though - hurray! ...so far.

So Sunday night I left, and I arrived Monday night around 9.  Got through the airport, with my Visa and CTA, checked into my hotel, slept, met Domitila (YCI logistics manager) in the morning, got on the ferry and arrived in Zanzibar to Shaibu and Ben!

Shaibu is the YCI Zanzibar manager, he oversees all of the volunteers, innovators, and interns.  Ben is the YCI intern right now, working with ZANGOC on health policy - he graduated last year from U of T with a Kinesiology degree, so our backgrounds are very similar.

Tuesday was a holiday, so that's when the GET team (Gender Equity Team, under ZANGOC - who I am working with directly) was able to meet.  Because members of the GET team all have permanent jobs, meetings do not happen regularly or with everyone in attendance.  So, we stopped by the ZANGOC office to meet everyone, then went over to my new home for 6 weeks.

Last year my homestay experience was amazing. I could not have asked for better hosts, so it is the least to say I was a little nervous - I'm also by myself this year, missing Jen-my-better-volunteer-half - so it'll be a new experience.  However, they are lovely!  I am living with Mama Miriam and her five children - Isaac (the youngest, who will be 3 on the 17th), Aisha(6), Namea(8), Sabrina, and Lucy.  In addition, there is the housegirl and a little mtoto named Kat (I'm not sure who she belongs to or where she's from, she appeared yesterday and has stayed so far! haha).  Rashed is the father of the household, but he is not always present because he has a second wife and family who live in another house. I met him last night and he is also very nice.

So, I guess you want to know what it is, exactly, that I'll be doing?  Well, right now (apart from writing this blog post, it's 11:35am here), I am writing a road map for the next 6 weeks - what exactly I'll be doing, how it is going to happen, time frames, etc, etc, etc.

GET and Shaibu identified 3(put into 2) main tasks that they want me to focus on while I'm here.  The first is introducing the GET team to 45 local NGOs.  ZANGOC is an umbrella organization that has partnerships with 45 NGOs in Zanzibar and Pemba (a little island near Zanzibar).  Because the GET team was established in August 2011 by Lisa d'Alimonte (intern with ZANGOC & YCI last year, I met her while I was in Morogoro last year as well), not all of the NGOs know about GET or what it's all about.  However, getting around to 45 NGOs spread across the island isn't the easiest, or cheapest, task.  So, we paired the first task up with the next two.  So, for the next 2.5 weeks my main priority is conducting a needs assessment in 25 of the NGOs in relation to gender policy.  Then, with some GET members, we will write a report, confer with the participants, and confirm our results.  This will then help the next Innovator and Shaib assess the current Gender Policy in ZANGOC and GET and develop a revised one.

While this is being done, we need to start working on the next project.  Women Leadership Training.  There are elections coming up in the NGOs ZANGOC works with.  GET wants to encourage female members to run for election positions.  To do this, they want to encourage them and provide them with tools to do this, to increase their leadership and self-efficacy.  (I think) we have decided to invite 2 females from each NGO, breaking them up into 4 Groups.  At the most, we will have about 90 participants, however not everyone is going to accept - that's just the reality.  However, this way we will reach a larger percentage of the women.  The training will be two days for each group, lasting 8 days in total.  However, because of budgeting reasons (I get to work with a budget! Yippie!...it's also in a different currency then I'm used to, with different prices for things, so I'm asking Shaib a lot of questions, hahahaha), and jobs, etc, we have put the training for just mornings.  So, each group will consist of about 20 women who will come together for two mornings.

This is an extremely rough sketch of what will be going on - especially with the Leadership Training since there is still a lot to discuss, so it may change.  The only thing I'm worried about is the lack of availability of the GET members - we need to get rolling so I can complete these tasks before I leave... 6 weeks is not as long as you think it is - no matter what Brent or my parents tell you! *(bahahahha).

So. That is what it, kinda, looks like for now.  How much travelling I'll do, I'm not sure.  Although after I met my homestay family on the first day, Ben took me into StoneTown and we wandered around a bit, got a little lost.  I plan on going to the beach atleast once - if by myself that's fine too.  I'll go see all the historical stuff in Stone Town as well, however a lot of the tourist stuff is closed for the month of May because it is low season! Huh!
And I REALLY REALLY want to see Franki, Magunda, and my family from last year again - hopefully they'll be in Dar and I can see them before I leave on my plane! (My homestay family from Morogoro last year relocated to Dar es Salaam - so hopefully I can convince Magunda and Frank to come visit me!)

Anyways, ta-ta for now.  Or, Kwahiri !
(Swahili is coming back to me slowly - pole, pole).

J