Week 9 - Reporting, reporting
The past week has been extremely hot. We are in the middle of the hot season, and some of the days here are incessantly, endlessly, hot. The past week has been a battle to get things done, with the heat draining the energy out of everything and everyone (especially me).
However, the past week has been spent doing a lot of report writing. As the NGO does not have very many English resources of reports, I took it upon myself to start creating some documentation about the achievements of certain projects.
Anti Trafficking Project
Firstly, I have been working on a report surrounding the 2010 achievements of the Anti-Trafficking Project. I have been mainly doing work for the Anti-Trafficking Project while I have been here, though it has ranged. I generally work with Salapao, who is from Japan, within this project. Earlier on in my stay here, I worked with Salapao to more effectively translate a report documenting the previous project of the Anti-Trafficking Project, which was a preventative education campaign. The campaign looks incredible, and involved drama and role play in schools, villages and dormitories, discussing the dangers of unsafe employment and the danger of human trafficking. A cartoon comic booklet was produced telling stories of people in vulnerable situations, as well as a clay animation film, which is incredible, and I have watched, depicting two friends and the choices that they make in employment. Another part of this campaign included training in art and the holding of an art exhibition of children’s artwork surrounding the topic of ‘what I want to be when I grow up’ or ‘safe/unsafe employment’. I have since referred back to this document so many times I almost feel that I was there while the project ran – even though it finished a few months prior to me coming here. I have now provided a summary of this project, and of the sexual health education camp, to provide potentially the first ever summary annual report of the Anti-Trafficking Project in English, summarising the projects and providing journal-based research as to the rationales of the projects.
I have also created an evaluation report of the sexual education camp, which was a pilot project that we were running. I figured that producing an evaluation report would also be useful for future funding to show that the pilot project was effectively evaluated.
In addition, a staff member from the Australian embassy in Bangkok wants a summary of the projects here (in English) to send out to various networks to source funding. So I have also been working with another Australian girl here to summarise the projects of Mirror, including a summarised version of the summary of the Anti-Trafficking Project, and the Citizenship Project. I am still working on those things.
Mlabri
I am also writing the funding proposal for a project to assist the Mlabri people. It is a unique position, being able to write funding proposals, as I find that I am actually able to contribute ideas to the project, and sometimes, these ideas even get adopted. I am hoping this is the case with this project because I have some ideas that I think are important to the effectiveness of this project on an ethical level. I hadn’t realised that it can be a bit of an ethical dilemma even writing a funding proposal!
New possibilities
And things are stirring up in this current week.... which are extremely exciting... I had a meeting with the director today, and a project director of the small business we run here producing handicrafts and jewellery. We met on the floor in the director’s house (which is onsite) as the nanny that looks after her son was sick today.... and we sat there with cups of 3-in-1 coffee in our hands. I had emailed a friend of mine last week in Australia telling him about the NGO, and now suddenly, the wheels are in motion, and potentially, a women’s empowerment project training them in sewing, design, marketing and production could all be happening!!! INCREDIBLE! I had a meeting this morning, where we mapped out the project plan of what would happen, with me frantically taking notes on my laptop. I would ask questions like ‘how would we select the women’ and ‘how many’ and then I would contribute ideas about ‘no, I think we could do more. I think it is possible to do more than that’. And then my ideas were getting implemented!! I have always been someone that likes to think of ideas and brainstorm new possibilities... but here, when I am connected to the right people, this skill is somehow utilised... I love it. I’ve just been contacting my friend back, who is writing a funding proposal, so fingers crossed that we get it....
Pictures: Khaw soy, an amazing soup with noodles all inside it with chicken, and crunchy noodles on top
Me and and another volunteer in Chiang Mai on our weekend.
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