What am I doing here?

Now that I have been working at my organisation for two weeks, I am going to allow myself a stab at the ultimate question – what am I doing here?

First of all, a brief background: the community school organisation (CSO) provides support to a network of 68 community schools and over 300 teachers in the Copperbelt, Central, Lusaka, Northern, and Eastern provinces. These schools serve over 10 000 children, many of them considered orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). A large number of OVC are result of HIV/AIDS related deaths of their parents and/or guardians. Without community schools it is unlikely these children would have access to education. Community schools often work closely with other OVC programmes such as orphanages and street kid projects.

Most teachers at community schools are volunteers and have no formal training. The school themselves often have very little infrastructure and can come in many forms; rural areas they are often mud/sticks/grass structures and urban community school frequently utilise church and other available building space. The challenges of this type of learning environment are plenty: teacher to student ratios typically around 1 to 100, lack of teaching materials, poor sanitation and water facilities, teaching taking second priority to working on the farm.

The CSO works to support community schools through various activities:
Building teacher capacity by providing basic teaching workshops to untrained teachers
Sponsoring volunteer teachers to college (to be on the government payroll, a teacher must have college training)
Providing teacher and learning material supplied by other organisations and agencies (i.e. CARE International, UNICEF, Save the Children, etc.)
Linking schools with feeding programmes, commonly the World Food Programme
Building school infrastructure (including boreholes and latrines) through community partnerships – CSO provides building materials and training, if community provides labour
CSO also facilitates the development of income generating activities in the community in effort to make the community school more sustainable – i.e. volunteer teachers and donor support are not indefinite

My role as a Programme Support Officer is, as the title suggests, to support the CSO activities. The national staff currently consists of the Programme Manager, Office Manager, the driver, and me. The true work of the CSO lies in the efforts and commitment of volunteer teachers and community members. To date, I have mostly been in an organisational role working on strategic plans, following up with donors, and revising the end of year report. Seeing that I really do not know what I am doing, I expected to spend more time observing and learning about the organisation. However, jumping right in has been to my benefit as it accelerated the learning process. The last week I have been meeting with other organisations that work with community school, donors, and the Ministry of Education in addition to visiting community schools in and around Lusaka. In the coming weeks, most of my work will be focussed on specific training and education programmes. There are so many organisations that work to build teacher capacity, implement HIV/AIDS programmes in school, support life skills training, etc., so that my role is to link the plethora of resources with those can benefit from them. Most days (unless I have just attended an aimless, bureaucratic meeting) I feel very motivated and hopeful that there is so much energy, especially at community level.

The question constantly in my head is am I the right person to be doing this job. I don’t speak the local language, though I am learning quickly (appreciative responses from community members is a great motivator). I do not exactly understand the Zambian education system. I do not know the local support networks. However, even if it should not be this way, being foreign puts you automatically into the network of international agencies. And oddly enough, my computer and internet savvy have been my most useful skill. I do not think the answer is yes, I am the person for the job, but I am starting to think I can contribute and legitimately have a part in it.