Skip to main content

End of Training

--> -->
Our training finally finished and we’re now on our placements. The final week of training was run by CDVS (Centre for Disaster and Vulnerability Studies) from Dhaka University. It focused on development and particularly on participatory tools we could use in the community.
It also made clear how important the issue of sustainability is. This isn’t just some project where the Westerners go dig a well and that’s that. We work with the community to ensure they are part of the decision-making process and are empowered to advocate for change in their own community once we’re gone. If something is installed, such as a water filtration system, at least one community member will be trained in how to maintain it properly and fix it if it is broken so they can show others and won’t have to rely on external sources for maintenance.
It’s been great working with the local volunteers so far. Not just because they’re all really nice, even if some are a bit shy at the moment, but it’s also prevented us from developing paternalistic attitudes towards the communities we’ll be working in. They’re all young people from the area and want to be part of improving their own villages since they’re the ones who live there.
We’re all a bit sad to be splitting up now after two weeks intensive training and living so close to each other but I’m really looking forward to getting stuck in and getting on with the work in the community.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Restart and Recharge

I was recently set the challenge of restarting my blog so here we are. Restarted. Things have changed a little since I last wrote this. Not overly much though admittedly. I am still volunteering at Corrymeela albeit in a slightly different role now. People have asked me what the heck I’m still doing here and plenty of people joke that I’m clearly incapable of leaving. Maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t. The important thing is that I’m here because I want to be. Not because I couldn’t find anything else or that this is a stopgap but because it’s the right place for me to be right now. Summer is here again and with that comes new faces and familiar ones. Both faces breathe new life into community and work and the sense that we’re all doing this together is recharged. It’s also a challenging time of year as our groups stay for longer periods, there are more people around and the One Year Volunteers are beginning to think about goodbyes. Lots of emotions all round. This yea...
2 comments
Read more

The Value of Freedom

After a morning of training in child protection and security we visited the Museum of Independence. It was a moving exhibition following the history of Bangladesh from British Raj to independence from Pakistan in 1971. Once again I was reminded why we should cover the history of British colonialism in school. As a nation we have such an over inflated sense of ourselves that we forget the horrors of what was done in our name in the past. It is quite shocking to be reminded of things that your country has done that are simply glossed over a lot of the time. Things that are still in living memory for many people. The list of political prisoners hanged after having been tortured is only one of many examples on display at the museum. Other countries across the world have lists equally as long I'm sure. As another volunteer put it "it's a wonder anyone still talks to us" The majority of the museum covers the period following partition to independence. A quick recap: Ba...
1 comment
Read more

Challenges and Opportunities

One of my biggest challenges here is not having the space to let my guard down. I find it exhausting keeping my emotions to myself and for the most part I do a pretty good job at keeping them at arms’ length so I don’t get swallowed whole by them and I don’t spill them into community life. It feels pretty selfish of me to let this get to me but in many ways the whole point of community life is to support each other with those things which is probably why there are ongoing discussions as to whether to call this a ‘community’ or not. My problem seems to be that when I feel completely powerless that guard slips and the smallest of things will spark a torrent of emotion over something that is actually very small. Part of me know that this is not healthy means of existence at all (all of that has to go somewhere and if you’re a bottler and have been telling yourself to let something go for so long eventually that bottle will explode when it reaches tipping point) and the other part kn...
Post a Comment
Read more