My notebook reads Day 16. It feels like only yesterday I remember everyone in this sending group sharing our hopes and fears, and introducing each other and getting to know who each other is.
One of the facilitators mentioned that EWB uses the “firehose model” of learning. Everything we can possible do in 1 month:
· Simulating meetings with development agencies
· understanding what we define as poverty
· Attempting to change each other’s behaviors within the month
· Designing intervention projects and presenting our ideas to potential funders
· Having interviews, drop-ins to organizations, calls, research in Toronto in a span of 5 hours to come up with an answer to an assigned question related to poverty in the city.
· Capacity Building
and that’s less than half of everything theoretical we did so far.
On the practical side, my vaccinations are complete, my travelers diarrhea & cholera vaccine will be done this week and I have enough things for a month long expedition …. The guys at Mountain Equipment Co-op are starting to recognize me as the guy going to Zambia for a year.
We’re on our last few intense workshops and assignments that I expect to make me pull at least 1 all nighter this week (if I’m lucky)… and I’m not even “on-the-ground” yet.
Joanne and I, Team Zambia, departs in 5 days. It’s going to be an intense year. 
During my pre-departure training here in Toronto, I’ve started to learn a bit more of my placement in Zambia and what it means to join the Agricultural Value Chains Team.
Mapping out a value chain
It’s focused on the interacitons between farmers, the private sector, government and the NGO (non-governmental organization a.k.a. non-profit) sector.
However, the viewpoint on this system is slightly different.
While looking at the value chain:
- The focus is the farmer, the producer… not the customer.
- The vehicle for supporting the farmer is business… not charity
- The view of the sustenance farmers is as a producer and consumer… not someone who is simply “poor”
Mapping out the Zambian Agricultural Value Chain Sector (I removed the names of the Project Implementation NGO as well as the Donor)
I’m excited but scared about this assignment. I believe that this strategy of working with farmers, business and all stakeholders in the Zambian market has a huge potential to lift many people out of poverty. But I’m also aware that I’m unsure about marketing and running a business in Zambia, unsure of the culture and how to build relationships.
The first week of training just finished and here are a few highlights:
We kick started our second day with a simulation meeting with “a partner” on running a survey on the implementation of a development project. Our team had a few ideas and tried to push through some constraints but we left feeling completely overrun by the person we were meeting with.
In hind-sight, we could have been slightly more strategic about influencing the decision making after the meeting by placing ourselves into key roles to work on the project.
Later, we dove into a quick session on Behavior Change and looked at how presenting information, social structures and many other factors drive behavior.
A few other items were going over the whole history of how EWB’s strategy evolved over the years from simply supporting the adoption of appropriate technologies to the wide-scale, fairly complex strategies found in EWB’s sectors today.
But more importantly, this is how we eat.
Our First Dinner
There are many more workshops and sessions and events, but what really matters are: I had an awesome week, with great people, sharing great stories, cooking and eating great dinners. We all have tons to learn before we go but… this team is really a family and ready to push each other for the rest of the month.
EWB- African Program Volunteer Staff (APS) - Summer 2010
If anyone is interested, here was “our strategy” for the meeting:
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