Sunday, April 30, 2006

Milestones

So it’s been over 2 months… two months and two measly blog entries!!! “What the heck has that girl been doing over there?!?!”, you’ve probably been asking yourselves… “She goes overseas with some dodgy little NGO, gets paid a pittance to live in some god-forsaken country, and doesn’t even have the decency to let us know what she’s doing over there!!!”

Okay, okay… so I realize that I’ve been a little bit under the radar as of late… but to be fair, my life has been a bloody three ringed circus for the past two months. I’ve been traveling around the country like mad, organizing meetings, drafting proposals, and trying to absorb as much of my predecessor’s understanding of the project as I can before she leaves for Canada in a couple of week’s time. As I write this, I realize that many of you probably don’t have the foggiest clue about what type of work I am doing here. On this note, I’ll try and summarize the project and how I’m involved, and do my best to keep your eyes from glazing over!!

To start, the project that I am working on is called Scala. Scala was the brainchild of a couple of EWB Engineering students from McGill, who had the idea that they could create opportunities for Filipino youth by providing access to non-formal computer training. To make a long story short, EWB (by way of these students) created a partnership with the Department of Social Welfare and Development in the Philippines in order to set-up Computer livelihood training centers around the country. To date, there are 23 such “Scala” training centers around the country, offering basic computer training and life skills classes to Out of School Youth and Youth with Disabilities. If you’re wondering why this project is housed within a Social Service department like the DSWD, it’s because the project also offers ‘life skills’; it not only hopes to not only create livelihood opportunities for youth (aged 15-24), but it also aims to arm youth with social skills the will prepare them to become contributing members of society. (Life skills content include topics such as reproductive health, entrepreneurship, leadership training, public speaking, high school equivalency, etc.)

Anyway, all of the existing Scala Centers have been set-up in cities or provinces around the country (provinces are considered ‘local government’ in the Philippines), and are managed out of city or provincial DSWD offices. Where I work, on the other hand, is at the National DSWD office, or the Social Technology Bureau. The STB’s role in all of this has been to coordinate the expansion of Scala to new Regions and to offer 'technical assistance to the Regions and Local Governments that require it. (Fyi, "Regions" are more similar to provinces in Canada).


My role within this strucutre has to support the replication efforts of the STB, as well as ensure that there is institutional capacity at both the national and Regional levels to implement the project after 2006. (To provide a little bit of background, EWB will no longer send volunteers to work on Scala, as they have done since the project began in 2003. The reason for this is that EWB has focused its volunteer sending (and organization) efforts to rural development initiatives in Africa. Since 2006 is the last year that EWB volunteers will be supporting the SCALA project, much of our efforts have been on ensuring that the DSWD can continue to do what has successfully been done over the past three years.)

Sounds easy, right?!? Uh, not exactly….The work here has been VERY challenging, largely because SCALA is lodged within a government department. As many of you may have already surmised, working in government is VERY trying, and not because the people aren’t dedicated or committed to positive change…. It’s challenging because of the level of structure and red-tape tape that every piece of information must pass through before being actualized… Add to this the Filipino tendency to leave decision-making to those at top levels, and you have a situation where bureaucracy is RIFE. Despite all of this, however, this project has seen some great results; over a 1200 Out of School Youth have been provided with basic computer skills, life skills, and career opportunities, and local governments and communities have rallied behind Scala centers to ensure that they are able to train youth in the long-term.

So that’s what I’ve been busy with…. I wish I could go through every detail of my time here, but time being what it is, I’ve compiled a list of ‘milestones’ for the past two months instead!



  1. Travel to numerous parts of the countr so that I'm able to get to know the project better
  2. Organization of a multi-stakeholder meeting that invovled all of our partners so that we could collective understnad where we were, how we'd gotten there, and what needed to be done as a result
  3. Planning of the year's activities with our partner
  4. Visiting two new regions in Mindanao and being overwhelmed by the need in this underserviced area of the country
  5. Writing a proposal for funding for the year (and re-writing, and re-writing, and re-writing!!!!)
  6. Navigating the challenges of working at the DSWD given the time it takes to even write a memo!! (literally 3-4 days)
  7. Going to the Bureau of Immigration for the 5th time and still not coming home with a visa/work permit
  8. Discovering that I actually like durian (the stinky, frightening looking Asian fruit that looks like it should be attached to the end of a medieval mace, and not eaten by hordes of faithful enthusiasts!)
  9. Slowly but surely learning Tagalog - or at least picking up more "taglish", anyway!
  10. Having days where I am completely overwhelmed by the fact that I few friends here, only to meet a lovely new friend on a public bus and be overhwhelmed by the universe's reiteration that everything does, indeed, happen for a reason
  11. The difficulty and beauty of the realization that my knowledge of Filipino culture was and is not as vast as I thought
  12. The uncomfortable realization that I’ve been going through culture shock (with no real ‘honeymoon’ stage!!), and that this is still ok – it’s all just part of the learning process
  13. Turning 30 and not realizing how much of a milestone this was until I was smacked in the face by it (oooh, that sneaky little bitch of a number!!!)
  14. At the same time, letting go of society’s timetable and timeline and recognizing that my life will unfold in its own time, and nothing will speed it up or slow things down