Sometime you are wondering as a volunteer ‘what is my job about?’, ‘What did i come here to do?’ If you look at my first placement description you would think it is all plain and clear. I am here as a teacher trainer to teach national volunteers how to teach. There is not much you can discuss about this job description if your read it like that. Just visit the volunteers, prepare workshops and try to make teachers out of them. But …. Now after one year of trying it seems like things are not working the way it should. My program officer in Nigeria recognized the problems I mentioned and has some other difficulties with the program. So we decided to change my placement. Starting the New Year I will be starting a new placement as national coordinator for the National Graduate Volunteering Program (NGVP). This means I will be responsible for the current national volunteers working in the educational sector and I have to make sure that the program will be in hands of partners within a period of 6 months. This is quite a challenge, but I am not afraid of challenges as long as I experience support.
As I said officially I will start in January, but this morning I am already getting ready to leave for Kano. As we have a ‘new’ partner there who is willing to carry a part of the NGVP. We are now of to provide them with knowledge about assessment and we will help them assess their first national volunteers for this program. I also will provide the selected volunteers with a first workshop about teaching and learning. So in a way I already start my new placement this week.
How I will approach this new placement is still a blur. I hope I will soon get a chance to talk to the current partners and stakeholders. I also need to figure out how to build a proper network and where the educationists meet. Luckely I already met with the secretary of the Nigeria commission of education (NCE) at the annual JJCE meeting that was held in Lafia a week ago. Maybe that will be a start of my federal network.
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