Happy Days!!!?

If this day tells me about the whole week this week then I know I’ll be having fun this weekend no matter what! Manashi just left my office with a big big smile on his face. And I am now typing this with maybe an even bigger smile. After hearing Manashi’s story about his school up in the Hills (read Ogbagi) and all his paper work to get clarification and approval of the community school I asked him if he ever thought about working together with the other Eggon Community school nearby Lafia. Maybe by working together he would be able to get support. Then I told him that I could go to the director of inspectorate to ask if he knew how I or Manashi could best get in touch with that school to talk about collaboration.

I knew the director came from up the hills himself so maybe he could also help in another sympathetic way and he did! Without asking he offered to look at the situation and write a letter of recommendation to the local inspectorate office. He was willing to talk to Manashi (in their local language) and explain clearly about the procedures of becoming a center for the West African Examinations. Really nice! Along the way the director of schools (also Eggon) came in and asked Manashi if he was there during a meeting in which he had to reregister his school for the new system. Manashi told him he attended the meeting too late and did not get any information of what was told during the meeting. It seemed that Manashi was working with the old structure and old papers and nobody in the area office bothered to tell him. So we went back to my office to set a new action plan and I went to the Director of planning and information to get the right form so Manashi could carry it right away whitout first climbing the mountain to get 5000 Naira and come back to collect the form. I explained the situation to the Director and he helped right away!

Never thought that I could have this much impact on Manashi’s life work just by knowing people in the office. All those hours of ‘just talking’ and ‘doing friendly’ where not useless. The network I built finally helped somebody that needed help really bad! Happy Day 1!!!