So I had a meeting this afternoon with someone from a different NGO. They've got this huge project to do "capacity building" with local organizations. A lot of money being spent, that's for sure. They're developing libraries, and amazingly enough, they want to put some of the local language materials in those libraries! Amazing stuff. So I went to the offices this afternoon to discuss with them how we can start working some of these things out. It struck me again just how different our organization works to some of these other big organizations. And I have to admit, I'm really glad I work for the little organization that I do! We do things small scale, "grassroots", and doing things with local folks. I must say, I was a bit chuffed (that means "pleased") when I got an email after our meeting this afternoon. She was writing it to introduce me to someone (from a HUGE funding organization) that she mentioned in our meeting because she wants me to go and meet him and tell him a bit about how we do things. She wrote this:
"He would gain immeasurably from learning about how efficiently you work, how light your infrastructure is, and how wide your reach through your particular approaches. I wish I had more time to reform my program to resemble much of yours."
Nice, eh? I was quite chuffed. I must admit that sometimes when I talk to some of these big organizations (like UN agencies and other international organizations), I get a bit discouraged because they all seem to have endless funds for their education projects. They hire so many employees, they build big buildings, they buy all these landcruisers and computers and equipment for their projects. We do none of that sort of thing. We rely mainly on volunteers from churches and other community organizations who are interested in developing their languages and who are interested in being trained in how to write their language, or how to teach people to read their language. We do small scale workshops in church buildings or existing schools. We take public transport to get to where we're going when we go to rural areas. And it seems to work. Of course, it's got its own challenges doing it this way. But it's also got it's own rewards, and really leaves things in the hands of the communities and churches and teachers that we work with.
And it's pretty light on the paperwork. I saw some of the process that organizations need to go through to get some grants through this particular agency today. There were pages and pages and pages (something like 40 pages) of forms and budgets and reports that they had to fill out in order to get a grant of $4000! For the projects we're involved in, we can do an awful lot with $4000, and basically, all we have to do is write a final report and produce receipts. And because our teams (and people like me) are so hands-on involved in what's happening, we know exactly where the project money is being spent and how and by whom and what the final result or "outcome" is. So we don't need to spend months and months filling out all the paperwork! We just DO things! It's really kind of nice, and satisfying to see how money is efficiently and wisely spent within our organization.
And it's really satisfying, too, to see how some of the work that we're doing can also be of benefit to organizations who do have more capacity to do things like set up libraries and then stock them with books! It's all around a good partnership, I'd say! And I'd love to see more of it in the coming months and years in this part of the world!
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