Late June
Mtwara and Lindi
http://picasaweb.google.com/janey.brodigan/MtwaraLindiTraining#
So this feels like an age away as I’ve been back there and to other places since, but really I should write about it.. at least the good stuff. So what was good?
Being proven wrong; As mentioned in the previous ‘post’ our work there is to support Upper Primary English training in the form of a 3 day workshop. I thought this trip would be a waste of time; too little in the face of great need down there. What we were remitted to organize just seemed so small and insignificant and really not worth doing. And maybe that still stands, but from a purely selfish point of view I learned a lot, met some great people and felt like I made a positive difference to the training.
Great road trip from Mtwara to Lindi; off roading in the 4x4 as the road was being repaired. Spotting some great birds and cruising through some pretty remote villages.
Enjoying the camaraderie of my 3 Zanzibari colleagues: Aboud, Sufiani and Khator.
Meeting Brian, the owner of a beautiful hotel out in Mikindani. Being treated to nice supper and fine company.
Live cockerel in the back of the truck to tasty soup in my stomach within 90 minutes.
Meeting Catherine and her Mtwaran family: husband, Magnus and their lovely adopted children; Caro (4) and Gooddluck (12)
Discovering the joys of ‘The Young and the Restless’ (long running US soap opera). Hmmmm. Not much to do in the evenings!
Mid July
Moshi
http://picasaweb.google.com/janey.brodigan/MoshiTrip#
Hopping onto a bus for a 10 hour bus ride north up to Kilimanjaro. Highlights:
Marvelling at the mountains on the way up
Chatting to lovely Indian-Tanzanian lady and eating kebab together
Seeing John, my VSO friend based up in Maragu, a little town at the foot of the mountain
Being chilly; log fires, red wine, 3 blankets on the bed and socks!
Waterfalls
Zanzibari Wedding
http://picasaweb.google.com/janey.brodigan/ZanzibarianWedding#
Wow.. I was dreading this.. thinking I’d be stuck god knows where unable to leave for house because of:
politeness
lack of transport
But, unlike many UK weddings (!) it was fabulously functional! Strictly speaking I was just invited to the dinner; the ceremony had taken place the day before.
So, anyway.. I was invited by my Zanzibari friend, Fat-Iha, an exceptional English teacher at my nearest school, to attend the wedding dinner of her ex-student. The car collected us around 6pm and took us North out of town, down a sandy path and stopped. We walked the rest of the way through the village to the house. The men were outside and in we went.
We joined a room full of resplendent women and a few babes in arms, obligingly being quiet. We sat on the floor and talked and waited until the bride came in; she was stunning in a yellow gold dress and veil.
Then the food arrived, literally doled out by friends and family; a mound of Swahili bites and snacks. As I was marveling at the prospect of eating such a pile there followed a plastic bag and the women promptly deposited the items in the bag to take home, choosing a small nibble to keep them happy. The intention is that the wedding feeds the extended families of guests as well as those invited. Nice thought.
The extraordinary thing about the bride was that no one spoke to her; she sat on her throne of cushions, surveying the scene, unable or unwilling to eat while all her guests chatted and nibbled around her. When I asked why no one was speaking to her, my friend replied, “Well we’re eating,” Hmm!
The food was swiftly followed by the entrance of the Groom to excited ululations, which to my amazement I suddenly found I could do! He stood looking bashful next to his impressive wife while pictures were taken.
Then we left! In, fed and out again in under 2 hours! Splendid.
Birthday
As I was spending my birthday in the far flung reaches of Southern Tanzania, I had a rather pleasant series of protracted birthday events:
Birthday beers and goat at the classy ‘Prince Chris Gardens’ otherwise known as Mikindani, ‘under the coconut trees’. It’s a nice local joint deep in the heart of the labyrinth of Stone Town. I was joined by some of my town friends and quite an international event it turned out to be: Anna (Austria) and Dis (Tanzania) and other VSO’s Marius (Scotland), Maurice, Gordon, Anthony (all from Kenya) Alice and daughter (Uganda, via UK and elsewhere) Mary (Philippines), Lisenka (Holland) Tim (England). The Americans couldn’t make it. Nice eve.
Safari Blue. My birthday present from Dad was to invite some friends (Marius, Mary and Lisenka) to do a Dhow trip: we were picked up and driven to the South coast; boarded a Dhow (Traditional sail boat) and motored out to he next island; saw dolphins on route; lay and played on beach; ate amazing lobster / Sea food lunch; went out to the sand bank for more play time; snorkeled and put the sails down and sailed back to shore. Magic! Just a great day!
In Mtwara, on the day itself, I was invited by Catherine to dinner at home; lovely kids, nice folks, good food, a beer and a kanga for a present (local fabric- one can never have enough!). Lovely.
On my return, my good friend Micelle took me out to dinner, which was a real treat.. dining on the beach under the stars.. we even had nice wine and did some crazy dancing!
Next day we returned to the beach and, thanks to Mum I had a good old local scrub, traditionally given to brides before their wedding: Sandalwood, rose water, ylang ylang, jasmine.. all in a good black exfoliating mush! Was great fun!
All in all.. 32 seems a pretty fine place to be! J
Mtwara Revisited
So, back again for a week of finishing our work down south. More of the same in terms of training.. all good!
Arriving a the remote Teacher Centre at Libobe was acutely awkward; cars are a rare sight in these parts and I felt a kind of embarrassment at what my friend Marium, Head Teacher of a Primary School there, refers to as ‘these luxury things’.
The undoubted highlight was not having the car or enough cash to taxi out to the remote Libobe Teacher Centre on the last day. So, I went with Marium, who was one of our trainers, on the bus in the hope that the driver would take us the final 10kms off the main road for a little extra. However, it turned out the ‘little extra’ was more than I had in my pocket. So, off we jumped, literally at the end of the road, leaving me thinking, “Err.. what next?” Marium promptly signaled 2 young men on bikes and before I knew it we were off whizzing along the dirt track, perched on the parcel shelf! It was brilliant! There’s so much more you can notice when not in the car. I guess it also made a difference not arriving in a 4x4, at speed, spewing up dirt in my participants’ faces as they arrive on the back of bicycles!
I’m really hoping to get back there for a visit; I met some wonderful people; Marium for one and Modesta, another beautiful and talented teacher. I would love the opportunity to meet their families and visit their schools.
Writing this, I am in Pemba doing training of trainers here. We’ll be back to finish delivery to teachers in October. I leave for home tomorrow and go through the whole process of training on Unguja. Then, hopefully it’s a final, follow-up visit to Lindi and Mtwara.
So I’m looking forward to these last couple of months. Hoping I’ll get some traveling in.
Busy busy J
Friday, August 29, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Work Life
Work Life
So, I’ve just realized there is very little mentioned here on the blog about my work. This could be for a variety of reasons:
1. Sometimes there is little of it
2. Sometimes, it’s maddeningly frustrating or banal
3. My work-life balance is more healthy
4. My out of work life is more interesting and entertaining
5. It feels mean writing about my largely lovely colleagues
6. I’ve forgotten to
Still.. that’s a little unfair as largely work is GREAT. So, it’s high time that I mention a few things I’ve been up to..
Just incase you didn’t know I work for The Teachers’ Advancement Programme, funded by USAID through the Aga Kahn Foundation and in partnership with the Ministry of Education, Zanzibar. I am employed as an ‘English Advisor’, which can comprise of many things:
wheeling in high finance
trying to coax the tea boy into some basic English utterances
banging my head against any available solid surface
drinking copious amounts of hot super sweet tea
carrying brown envelopes, stuffed full with millions of shillings, out to far-flung destinations..
editing, writing materials
training
travelling
The Advanced Secondary Teachers’ Certificate
The main course the project runs is called The Advanced Secondary Teachers’ Certificate and is aimed at up-skilling under qualified Secondary Maths and Science teachers. The teachers are largely trained Primary teachers, who have been ‘promoted’ to work in Secondary school due to the gross dearth of trained Secondary Maths and Science teachers. The main problem with this is that these teachers have come from a background where they are used to teaching in Kiswahili and are comfortable with their subject knowledge. When they move up to teach in Secondary they are required to teach using English and sometimes to the same educational level that they themselves received. This puts huge stress on the teacher and there is little support, zero resources and huge class sizes.
So, the course aims to build their skills in: English, methodology and content knowledge. The course is run over a 2 year period, the teachers attending 2 days a week; once during the week and once on Saturday.
At this point it’s worth highlighting the extent of the partnership from the Ministry of Education. Their role is simple:
To provide transport costs for the teachers to travel to the training
To pay the trainers.
Neither of these conditions have been met.. in TWO YEARS! The pilot course is now finished and still there is NO sign of the money. Interesting interpretation of the word ‘partnership’, isn’t it?
So, one of the big tasks I have completed is a review, edit and re-write of the English component of the 2 year course. I conducted the review in collaboration with the trainers and the re-write has led new improved, a more language focused course. There are now individual English assessment criteria for each assignment, which means they can track the development of the written English over the 2 years. We want to include a spoken assessment too, but it seems pointless due to the reason below.
Sadly, it seems that after the 2 year pilot, despite the success of the course, the ‘roll out’ or extension to other teachers will not happen. This could be for a number of reasons:
Our donors USAID and AKF will not continue to fun us due to a change in their Strategic Plan / Funding objectives blah blah..
The Ministry of Education will not fulfill its promise to ‘take on’ the course because: a) they have no money to; b) they don’t care; c) it’s too much effort, especially if; d) the donors will pay for it and run it so they don’t have to.
So, all the time and effort we invested in the review and re-write of a course that may be for nothing as it may never be used again. But you never know.
Onto merrier things I do..
Training on Zanzibar
This course is run at 3 Teacher Centres: 2 on Unguja, one rural one urban and one on Pemba. It was lovely to be able to travel around visiting them and see some of these 2 beautiful islands. I managed to deliver some of the training with all our English trainers at each Teacher Centre where the course is run and meet the trainees just in time for the end of the course.. just as I realized where I was supposed to be every week and what I could do.. Still that’s standard VSO experience I think.
Training in Southern Tanzania
The project also ‘supports’ other training, which means it gives educational ‘stakeholders’(teachers, trainers, ministry officials, inspectors..) the time, money and resources to run the training they want to have in certain areas. E.g. Upper Primary English, Maths and Science.
The regions we are remitted to work in are: Zanzibar- the islands of Pemba and Unguja and Southern Tanzania- Mtwara and Lindi. I have been lucky enough to work in all those areas and with particular positivism in Southern Tanzania.
My role in this work is to help facilitate the identification of training needs, planning of training by Master Trainers and support delivery of training first to the trainers and then to the teachers.
At first I was very skeptical about the work in S Tanzania, as it seemed so little in the face of great need, but it turned out to be the best work I’ve done. Both trainings worked brilliantly in Lindi and Mtwara; the trainers were great and a good deal of the teachers were fantastic. It was so inspiring to see how creative and effective these teachers can be, when many of them have had so little training.
I made some good friends on those last 2 trips: In Lindi with Modesta, a beautiful and immensely talented teacher, who is now working in training; in Mtwara, with Mariam, a young and exceptional woman, who has recently been promoted to Headship at a rural Primary School.
I am looking forward to visiting them again in October with any luck.
My main influence on the trainings here has been in developing the trainers’ ability to deliver training effectively. We run a ‘facilitation skills’ day in preparation of the training, which introduces the main issues I want the trainers to focus on:
Ways of encouraging participation
New methods of organizing grouping and participatory methods
Managing constructive criticism
Review and evaluation
Then we have a day for planning the 3 days training, in which the Master Trainers wisely decided to include large amounts of time for sharing ideas and best practice, which worked brilliantly.
Finally we are then ready to deliver training, first to trainers and then to teachers. My role is to observe and support as they try new things.
All the way from the initial needs analysis, through planning and delivery we involve the local educational officials; the District Academic Officers and the School Inspectors. We do this for several reasons: it’s a courtesy; it’s important for them to see what we are doing; we can engender change in them also. So, we include them in decision making and invite them to observe / participate in the training. I was dubious about this initially, as I was concerned that their presence would intimidate the teachers, but happily, they were positive and supportive.
Sharing Skills and Changing Lives
So.. all in all the last months of this have been great. I’ve met so many great people and developed my own skills in so many ways; it’s one thing to plan and deliver training yourself, it’s quite a different matter supporting someone else to do it! Also the financial and logistical planning aspects of the training have been a real challenge too. But it’s all good experience.
People worry about the fact that employers view volunteering with VSO as a career break. There’s absolutely no way that this year can be described in such terms. It has enhanced my skills and experience in so many ways; I have had opportunities here that I would never have had if I had remained in the classroom. I feel profoundly lucky that I have had a placement in which I have been able to grow as a professional and in ways I never thought I could.
VSO's slogan is ‘Sharing Skills and changing lives’; if this isn't it, then I don’t know what is.
So, I’ve just realized there is very little mentioned here on the blog about my work. This could be for a variety of reasons:
1. Sometimes there is little of it
2. Sometimes, it’s maddeningly frustrating or banal
3. My work-life balance is more healthy
4. My out of work life is more interesting and entertaining
5. It feels mean writing about my largely lovely colleagues
6. I’ve forgotten to
Still.. that’s a little unfair as largely work is GREAT. So, it’s high time that I mention a few things I’ve been up to..
Just incase you didn’t know I work for The Teachers’ Advancement Programme, funded by USAID through the Aga Kahn Foundation and in partnership with the Ministry of Education, Zanzibar. I am employed as an ‘English Advisor’, which can comprise of many things:
wheeling in high finance
trying to coax the tea boy into some basic English utterances
banging my head against any available solid surface
drinking copious amounts of hot super sweet tea
carrying brown envelopes, stuffed full with millions of shillings, out to far-flung destinations..
editing, writing materials
training
travelling
The Advanced Secondary Teachers’ Certificate
The main course the project runs is called The Advanced Secondary Teachers’ Certificate and is aimed at up-skilling under qualified Secondary Maths and Science teachers. The teachers are largely trained Primary teachers, who have been ‘promoted’ to work in Secondary school due to the gross dearth of trained Secondary Maths and Science teachers. The main problem with this is that these teachers have come from a background where they are used to teaching in Kiswahili and are comfortable with their subject knowledge. When they move up to teach in Secondary they are required to teach using English and sometimes to the same educational level that they themselves received. This puts huge stress on the teacher and there is little support, zero resources and huge class sizes.
So, the course aims to build their skills in: English, methodology and content knowledge. The course is run over a 2 year period, the teachers attending 2 days a week; once during the week and once on Saturday.
At this point it’s worth highlighting the extent of the partnership from the Ministry of Education. Their role is simple:
To provide transport costs for the teachers to travel to the training
To pay the trainers.
Neither of these conditions have been met.. in TWO YEARS! The pilot course is now finished and still there is NO sign of the money. Interesting interpretation of the word ‘partnership’, isn’t it?
So, one of the big tasks I have completed is a review, edit and re-write of the English component of the 2 year course. I conducted the review in collaboration with the trainers and the re-write has led new improved, a more language focused course. There are now individual English assessment criteria for each assignment, which means they can track the development of the written English over the 2 years. We want to include a spoken assessment too, but it seems pointless due to the reason below.
Sadly, it seems that after the 2 year pilot, despite the success of the course, the ‘roll out’ or extension to other teachers will not happen. This could be for a number of reasons:
Our donors USAID and AKF will not continue to fun us due to a change in their Strategic Plan / Funding objectives blah blah..
The Ministry of Education will not fulfill its promise to ‘take on’ the course because: a) they have no money to; b) they don’t care; c) it’s too much effort, especially if; d) the donors will pay for it and run it so they don’t have to.
So, all the time and effort we invested in the review and re-write of a course that may be for nothing as it may never be used again. But you never know.
Onto merrier things I do..
Training on Zanzibar
This course is run at 3 Teacher Centres: 2 on Unguja, one rural one urban and one on Pemba. It was lovely to be able to travel around visiting them and see some of these 2 beautiful islands. I managed to deliver some of the training with all our English trainers at each Teacher Centre where the course is run and meet the trainees just in time for the end of the course.. just as I realized where I was supposed to be every week and what I could do.. Still that’s standard VSO experience I think.
Training in Southern Tanzania
The project also ‘supports’ other training, which means it gives educational ‘stakeholders’(teachers, trainers, ministry officials, inspectors..) the time, money and resources to run the training they want to have in certain areas. E.g. Upper Primary English, Maths and Science.
The regions we are remitted to work in are: Zanzibar- the islands of Pemba and Unguja and Southern Tanzania- Mtwara and Lindi. I have been lucky enough to work in all those areas and with particular positivism in Southern Tanzania.
My role in this work is to help facilitate the identification of training needs, planning of training by Master Trainers and support delivery of training first to the trainers and then to the teachers.
At first I was very skeptical about the work in S Tanzania, as it seemed so little in the face of great need, but it turned out to be the best work I’ve done. Both trainings worked brilliantly in Lindi and Mtwara; the trainers were great and a good deal of the teachers were fantastic. It was so inspiring to see how creative and effective these teachers can be, when many of them have had so little training.
I made some good friends on those last 2 trips: In Lindi with Modesta, a beautiful and immensely talented teacher, who is now working in training; in Mtwara, with Mariam, a young and exceptional woman, who has recently been promoted to Headship at a rural Primary School.
I am looking forward to visiting them again in October with any luck.
My main influence on the trainings here has been in developing the trainers’ ability to deliver training effectively. We run a ‘facilitation skills’ day in preparation of the training, which introduces the main issues I want the trainers to focus on:
Ways of encouraging participation
New methods of organizing grouping and participatory methods
Managing constructive criticism
Review and evaluation
Then we have a day for planning the 3 days training, in which the Master Trainers wisely decided to include large amounts of time for sharing ideas and best practice, which worked brilliantly.
Finally we are then ready to deliver training, first to trainers and then to teachers. My role is to observe and support as they try new things.
All the way from the initial needs analysis, through planning and delivery we involve the local educational officials; the District Academic Officers and the School Inspectors. We do this for several reasons: it’s a courtesy; it’s important for them to see what we are doing; we can engender change in them also. So, we include them in decision making and invite them to observe / participate in the training. I was dubious about this initially, as I was concerned that their presence would intimidate the teachers, but happily, they were positive and supportive.
Sharing Skills and Changing Lives
So.. all in all the last months of this have been great. I’ve met so many great people and developed my own skills in so many ways; it’s one thing to plan and deliver training yourself, it’s quite a different matter supporting someone else to do it! Also the financial and logistical planning aspects of the training have been a real challenge too. But it’s all good experience.
People worry about the fact that employers view volunteering with VSO as a career break. There’s absolutely no way that this year can be described in such terms. It has enhanced my skills and experience in so many ways; I have had opportunities here that I would never have had if I had remained in the classroom. I feel profoundly lucky that I have had a placement in which I have been able to grow as a professional and in ways I never thought I could.
VSO's slogan is ‘Sharing Skills and changing lives’; if this isn't it, then I don’t know what is.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)