Category: International Projects

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Note: this is part 2 of a 2 part series.  How many Project Managers deal with any of the following on a regular basis on their projects: floods, political unrest, changing of cultural norms, gender equality, health epidemics, gang lines, or refugee camps?  Listen in on a behind the scene look at some World Vision International projects.

The Youth Ready Project as well as Kendra’s story Chris mentioned in the interview is embedded below with other videos provided to me from world Vision for this episode.

Show Notes:

1. Host: Ron Smith
2. World Vision
3. Sponsor a child
4. Contacts:
   1. Miriam Booy
   2. Ermira Simeqi
   3. Chris Ortiz
   4. Twitter: @Steven_C_Ortiz
5. Music: www.hooksounds.com

 

World Vision Videos:

The World Vision interview of a 10 year old who was working in the field and is now in school.

The Youth Ready Project Chris talks about in the interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As4zr4ryB-w

Kendra’s story Chris talks about in the interview.

 

Use the comment section below to comment on the interview.

Want to get more helpful project management insights like this directly in your inbox? Subscribe to the Managing Projects newsletter (see subscribe in right side menu).

 

---

Ron is a Project Manager with Chalder Consulting Inc. www.chalder.ca

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/rondsmith

Check out the contributors page.

 

Transcription of Interview

Intro: Welcome to Managing Projects! The podcast for Project Managers in search of trends and insights. Join us as our guests dig deep into the thought provoking topics that matter most to project management professionals. You can find all the episodes at managing project status. And now here’s your host Ron Smith.

 

Ron: This is the second talk in a two part series that we had with World Vision. If you didn’t hear the first episode I would strongly encourage you to go back and listen to that episode. So let’s get back to the second part of the chat that we had with Miriam, Ermira, and Chris.

 

Ron: So Ermira, I understand your from Albania. and you use to directly manage an Area Development program. Can you just describe this experience. What would you do if things did not go to plan?

 

Ermira: Sure yeah. So I worked with World Vision Albania for eight years as a program manager. And our work was mostly focused in rural areas as the most vulnerable families and children were located in those areas. So I would say that successes and challenges are both part of their reality especially when you work in the field and the needs of the communities change very fast. I can give you. I can bring here an example of the hard realities and the how the needs change very very fast in the communities. Once we were designing the plans for five year period. And according to the community needs the focus of the projects would be an education, child protection, economic development, and child sponsorship as one of the main pillars of our work. So the design document was like finalized and ready to be sent to the donor. And in the same time there was another separate assessment that was being conducted in communities. And the purpose of that assessment was to measure the household quality of life. The assessment results are based both in primary data collection and secondary data analysis as well. And one of the questions was related with HIV AIDS awareness advocacy and prevention at that time. So there is a whole of this assessment showed that the households were either not aware at all about HIV AIDS or there was stigma and taboo about it and they did not like to talk at all about HIV. I can share example an answer from from a woman in one of the villages when she was asked about the fact if she was aware about HIV AIDS and what does this mean. She answered her answer was like this like God forbidden. I will never buy this food for my children my family. So she she had no clue. She had no idea about what HIV AIDS entered for sure. How can you prevent something if you’re not aware of that. So in the other side the secondary data collection that were analyzed by Health Department showed that the number of people being positive to HIV AIDS was increasing from year to year. So finding myself in this scenario as a project manager and based on the community needs we had to revise our designs and our plans. And include health as a sector that World Vision will be focusing in communities in the future. So in this scenario we had to go back to the donor to ask for extra time to ask for the second revision of our designs. So this is just one example and one project showing how important it is to be flexible and to adapt to the needs of the communities especially when you work directly in the field.

 

Ron: So I have heard of a couple of examples. Chris of just giving an example a few minutes ago of Kendra who had a stand that was she had begun the process of selling and then it got washed away in a flood. I can just imagine all the different variability of these projects. So sometimes it would be you know a physical impact of a storm or a flood or political unrest to realizing that you are dealing with these major health issues and concerns. So in the example that you gave did you add to the scope of the project health or did it impact what you were planning on doing with the education of the child protection or economic development? The first the first stage of your plan was or did you just add to it?

 

Ermira: That’s a good question. No we just added to the plan. Thankfully we did not have to remove any of the previous projects that were planned. But we added on top of this. On the top of our design health basically tell us advocacy at that time and then in the years to come. The project was developed in including other stages as well.

 

Ron: The addition to the project was around the HIV. Was simply around awareness. Where was it dealing with it?

 

Ermira: The first stage was advocacy and awareness. And then in the fourth and the fifth year of the project we were able to identify people that were like infected with HIV AIDS and to work with them and their families to support them like from the economy perspective as well. So yeah that was pretty much the intervention that we we did at that time.

 

Ron: There are heavy projects. So when I when again so my project management experience has been around working for a corporate company building a product or some type of service. And it’s only as fulfilling as you’re helping that company to meet some type of financial goals or that kind of thing. You must find it rewarding or a sense of you are helping in these global issues. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

 

Ermira: Of course. Like as I said the work of the project manager like is challenging in a way that is rewarding and the other in the other aspect because when you see that with the support and with the projects you are running in the communities. You see change in lives of children you change it you see change in the lives of women and families. I think that’s the most rewarding aspect of our work as project manager.

 

Ron: So Miriam I want to ask you you’ve had fuel experience living in the Sudan and South Africa. What’s project management in the field means you can do. Can you give some examples from the Sudan.

 

Miriam: Yeah for sure. You know I actually give one from South Africa Ron. I really think in my field experience over the past few years and the past decade really working working in the field and also here in Canada. I’ve really learned that you have to really understand the root cause of the problem that you’re trying to solve. And and so often you know we think we know the solution and we think you know that it can be quite linear. Where you know if you train the teacher then they will teach the children better who will then learn to read who will then graduate and and have a better life. And so you have this linear path that you think in project management is going to yield a particular result. And we all know that that life is not like that especially in these context as you’ve heard from Chr Ermira. It’s much more challenging than that. And so I think I’ve really learned that you really have to look at the root cause of the problem and be sure that you’re addressing it in the right way so. So when I worked in South Africa you know one of the biggest issues was gender based violence and violence against women is extremely high there. And so you know we were trying as World Vision to address that and really thinking about doing a good analysis of what was the root cause and what we found was it really came back to some of the cultural norms and interpretations that that people had of the differences between men and women. And even some of the faith leaders were kind of using the Bible and interpreting the Bible in a certain way to thinking that that men were more superior than than women. And so one of the projects we had was actually working with them to you know being a Christian organization we could sort of work with them to look at how is the Bible interpreting this is there you know is there essentially equality between men and women and how do we understand this. At the most basic level. And so taking time to think through cultural traditions and norms faith traditions and how that helps us inform our perceptions and therefore our actions and what we do really helped bring transformation to to some of this violence that was happening in the communities. And I remember some pastors coming up to me and saying yes I’m now helping my wife in the home I’m helping her to do tasks in the kitchen and help to get firewood in. And not just expect that she will do everything for me. And so I really could see some of the transformation between gender norms happening there which was really exciting to see. So again you really have to look at what is the root cause here. How do we understand that and how do we address it to bring about social change.

 

Ron: Well that’s so interesting. So you would work with these pastors that are on the ground embedded in the communities and you would begin some of your education in your teaching through them for them to speak out and to start some of these cultural changes would be spoken in through the pastors of their churches and in who they’re working with in their communities.

 

Miriam: Absolutely. And then they become you know once they themselves are transformed in their own lives then they become change agents because they’re very influential leaders in the community so they can talk in their churches they can talk in the communities and they can inspire further change. And so it’s just a rippling effect.

 

Ron: You know I’ve heard it said before. People who go on mission trips or go to some of these countries. I think you know North Americans sometimes I’ve heard them have the attitude Oh it’s ok. You know get out of the way I just roll up my sleeves will fix whatever is there and what I’ve heard from people who have spoken with who are going on these trips is it’s not that way. You need to be working with the community for this type of change to be happening and it needs to. So that is long running as well. So it doesn’t revert back after you leave. I bet that it is complicated to have some of these social norms that are built up over decades and to try to address some of them.

 

Miriam: Absolutely. Absolutely yeah and that’s that’s the great advantage of you know a virtue of our child sponsorship model because it does enable us to be in a community for 15 years and or more sometimes and we can really get to know local leaders helped to to change perceptions. And you know it’s not just going in and out in one or two years or on a short term trip like we’re were saying. It’s really working with the community to inspire social change over a long period that ultimately will impact the lives of children and these communities becomes sustainable. I’ve been to these communities where you know people will say OK World Vision we’re done we can we can do it on our own. We don’t need you anymore. And that’s that’s the most exciting thing to do that then they are able to continue to to create an environment where children will thrive without us being there.

 

Ron: That is absolutely fantastic. Fantastic now on my way in this morning I was speaking with a colleague of mine. You know I was so excited about this interview and I was telling them you know I’m interviewing World Vision this afternoon. I was very excited. And the person I was speaking with though said you know I’ve thought of doing that I’ve thought of sponsoring a child. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how one would go about doing that. So please would you would you tell us and for the folks listening for our listeners I will be putting links to how to sponsor a child. World Vision was kind enough to send me some links. Some youtube videos of some programs that are happening. The project that Chris had spoke about I understand that there’s a video being produced that I would put up as soon as I can. As soon that it is available to me on the show notes on the web page on managing projects. Before I let you go what are the different ways to get involved. One I know that you’re going to see who’s sponsoring your child. But just walk me through that. How do you go about.

 

Miriam: Absolutely yeah. Thanks so much Ron for for putting up the links for us and the videos and we hope your listeners will check them out. It’s really easy there’ll be a link to sponsor a child you just click on the link in and it will take you to the page and you can actually choose. You know that particular child from a particular country that you might be interested in. I know people who sponsor a child for every you know at the same age as every child that they have in their family. It’s a great way to to show your children you know what poverty is and how to connect with someone in a different part of the world. Your children can even write to the child and communicate with them. And it’s a great way to foster that personal connection. So go on the Web site. Pick a child. They’ll send you all the information about your your child’s community about the needs in that community and about what your money will be going to support and then you’ll get updates throughout the year of how your child is doing and what’s happening in the community as well. And then just you know other ways to get involved is just to be you know an advocate understanding what’s happening in the world understanding that there’s you know we we’re so lucky here in Canada and that there is children in so much need around the world and really being an advocate for that and telling others. I think it’s a great way a great way to get involved as well.

 

Ron: One of the videos that I have that I’m going to post that you provided it was a child who was a very young child. I think he was 10 and he was picking coffee and sort of being in school and very long days and it was very striking to say I think he started with something crazy like 5:00 in the morning till 7:00 at night or something I might have that wrong but it was something like that it was an extremely long day. And when you think about you know children who grew up in North America they need to be shown that that is happening.

 

Miriam: Absolutely. Absolutely yeah. There’s you know when you hear those stories about what children are facing whether it’s working or or or facing abuse or just or just hungry and not able to get food. Your heart just breaks and and you really have to do something because we’re so you know you don’t control where you’re born in the world. And we’re so lucky here and it’s you’re right. We have to we have to tell our children that that there’s other children that need help so much. I think one aspect that we haven’t really touched on but is really critical too is World Vision is there in the places of the world that are hardest the hardest places of the world. So you know countries like Sudan or Somalia right now where you know there’s there’s conflict there is hunger you know recurring drought just very fragile places where children are often forced out of their homes. So they’re on the move. They could be in refugee camps. And you know very volatile situations and World Vision is huge is often one of the first on the ground the first to respond with emergency supplies. And you know that looks a bit different than our sponsorship programs because you know you can’t though those are places which are you have to respond very very quickly. You have to give distribute food and distribute emergency lifesaving nutrition then it’s less about training but more about just giving basic needs for survival. But we’re in those context to all over the world and we’re committed to being there even when it’s difficult even when we face insecurity from from militant groups. You know our staff are on the ground responding and and we’re there until we we hope to be able to move into a more stable stable context where people can then begin to rebuild their lives and and where children can go to school again and where they can start a project like Youth Ready that Chris was talking about. We are focusing more on entrepreneurship and skills development and all of that so. So we’re there in emergencies we’re there in the long term sustainable contexts and really trying to meet meet all of those different needs. But we can’t do it without without the support of Canadians. So we really do appreciate your listeners and you know we really seek your yeah continual support to make this happen. And and just a huge thanks to those who are already supporting us because it really does go a long way.

 

Ron: You know I’ve met a few people in the last year or two who were sponsored children. They’ve gone through. One was an orphan and another one had gone through the sponsorship program. And I don’t know what my expectations were of them after they went through but I learned that the one that was an orphan that was supported. She had been working with this organization. It wasn’t Worldvision it was another organization that had helped her. But what surprised me was that they were able to help her to such an extent that she was provided with education. She was provided with care. She went to university and I was surprised to hear her story she went and she started working for a telco locally. And then she gave up working in the telco to go back to work with that organization because she was so drawn to it and thought you know that’s the work that I want to be doing because it’s so much more fulfilling. You know they gave so much to me. But I think what if those programs weren’t there what chance does an orphan have with the program so. So thank you to Ermira, to Chris and to Miriam for your time today. Thank you for your work. I think it’s very it’s you must find it rewarding but it must be kind of it must kind of beat you up some days as well to be and to be in the trenches there. So thank you for that. Thank you for sharing your story. And I do urge the listeners to to check out these links if you have not sponsored a child before you should go to the Web site. I will have a link. It’s very easy process. If you have sponsored one consider another. Thank you so much for your time today appreciate you very much.

 

Miriam: Thank you so much for having us Ron.

 

Ermira: Thank you. Thank you Ron.

 

Chris: Thanks so much Ron.

 

Outro: Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Managing Projects podcast. Find show notes and more at ManagingProjects.ca. And follow us on Twitter at manage_proj. If you enjoy the show help us out by recommending it to a friend or leaving a review on iTunes. Talk to you next time.

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

How many Project Managers deal with any of the following on a regular basis on their projects: floods, political unrest, changing of cultural norms, gender equality, health epidemics, gang lines, or refugee camps?  Listen in on a behind the scene look at some World Vision International projects.

The Youth Ready Project as well as Kendra’s story Chris mentioned in the interview is embedded below with other videos provided to me from world Vision for this episode.

Show Notes:

1. Host: Ron Smith
2. World Vision
3. Sponsor a child
4. Contacts:
   1. Miriam Booy
   2. Ermira Simeqi
   3. Chris Ortiz
   4. Twitter: @Steven_C_Ortiz
5. Music: www.hooksounds.com

World Vision Videos:

The World Vision interview of a 10 year old who was working in the field and is now in school.

 

Youth Ready Project Christ speaks about in the interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As4zr4ryB-w

Kendra’s story Chris talks about in the interview.

 

Use the comment section below to comment on the interview.

Want to get more helpful project management insights like this directly in your inbox? Subscribe to the Managing Projects newsletter (see subscribe in right side menu).

 

---

Ron is a Project Manager with Chalder Consulting Inc. www.chalder.ca

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/rondsmith

Check out the contributors page.

 

Transcription of Interview

Intro: Welcome to managing projects. The podcast for project managers in search of trends and insights. Join us as our guests dig deep into the thought provoking topics that matter most to project management professionals. You can find all the episodes at ManagingProjects.ca. And now here’s your host Ron Smith.

 

Ron: I am so excited about this episode. We have World Vision. We’re going to be talking with some of the World Vision staff about some of the projects that they run. The international projects. I would like to do a few introductions here. The first person I want to introduce is Miriam Booy who is the Director for Collaboration working in the Programs and Policy team at World Vision Canada. So she’s worked for World Vision for the last seven years. Some of that time she was based in South Africa – two years worth. She supported programs in East and West Africa directly and has recently shifted in her past year to support the operations of the programs globally. She grew up in Tanzania, East Africa and she’s been surrounded by poverty and various forms of exploitation her whole life. She’s passionate about sharing these stories with Canadians and together doing what she can to improve the lives of children around the world. So welcome Miriam.

 

Miriam: Thanks Ron it’s great to be on the show today.

 

Ron: Oh it is wonderful to have you. And there are two other guests. The second person I’d like to introduce is a Ermira Simeqi and who is the Program Portfolio Manager working with programs and policy team at World Vision Canada. She’s worked with World Vision Canada for for over a year. In the beginning she was supporting Latin America and the Caribbean country. The Caribbean sounds like a nice place to be this time of year by the way. And programs and has recently shifted in supporting East and South Asia countries. Ermira has worked as a Program Manager within Albania and Kosovo with World Vision directly managing the implementation of the projects in the field. Ermira is passionate of improving children’s lives and families and well-being in the most vulnerable areas around the world. So welcome to you Ermira.

 

Ermira: Thank you. It’s my pleasure to be here today.

 

Ron: And the third guest that we have is Chris Ortiz who is a Program Portfolio Manager with the Programs and Policy team at World Vision Canada. His portfolio includes programming in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras as well as the Youth Ready Project. He’s managed this portfolio for the past year. Previously Chris was the Regional Program Manager with Canadian Programs at World Vision Canada. Having 11 years of experience in urban community development in Toronto. Chris is passionate about seeing transformation in the lives of community members. Chris is a Bolivian-Canadian. He has spent his childhood years in Bolivia and has been a resident of Toronto for the past 30 years. There’s something so compelling about the World Vision story about being a project manager there. This is why I’m so excited because these projects they’re not just building a product for a company and helping a company succeed. These projects are impacting lives. That’s why I’m that’s why I’m so excited about this to have you on the show today. So Miriam who is World Vision Canada? And what’s their mission?

 

Miriam: Yeah thanks Ron. So World Vision is a global organization. Global humanitarian and development organization in around 100 countries around the world with 40000 staff. And we like to describe ourselves with the three Cs. So I’m going to tell you what the three Cs are the first one is is child focused. So we are a child focused organization that works towards improving the lives of the most vulnerable children around the world in the most vulnerable places. And you might have heard of our funding model of sponsoring a child. And so that’s one of the ways that we support children directly. People send monthly donations to support a child in another country and improve their lives. So child focused is the first one. The second one is community based. So we work with communities we in rural areas primarily but also in urban areas. We’re very grassroots and we partner with leaders and communities with partners and communities not coming in like we know everything but by working through the local community to help them to meet their needs and improve their lives. And then the third C is Christian. So we are Christian in our identity and it doesn’t mean that we actively proselytize and try to convert people but rather it’s the motivation behind what we do. And we find that being Christian can actually be to our advantage in some countries because we can work closely with religious leaders with faith leaders to bring about cultural change that sometimes non Christian organizations can’t. Because faith leaders are very influential in these contexts. So those are the three C’s child focused, community based, and Christian. And that’s that’s really who we are.

 

Ron: Let me ask you a couple of questions on that. So child focus. Your first C. What are the ages of kids that you work with? Is there a beginning age, and an age where you know in their teens you’re no longer with them. What does that look like?

 

Miriam: Yeah. So we are primarily focused on children up to the age of 18 working in their different life cycles. Children who are just born and looking at their nutrition in their early childhood development at a young age up to the age of 6 making sure that that they’re well nourished and you know in those first few very important years. Children 6 to 11 making sure that they’re able to read and that they’re attending school. And and you know that they’re protected and cared for. And then children 12 to 18 helping them to as they’re growing into an adult and learning life skills and preparing hopefully to go to further education. Helping them to make good choices. I think the project that Chris will talk about which is called Youth Ready really looks at that at that age group 12 to 18. So those are sort of the three different age groups and we target our projects towards those age groups because each of them have different needs.

 

Ron: And you are community based so I understand that you would work with the communities themselves to help to identify their most pressing needs and what they feel that they should be developing working with these different communities.

 

Miriam: Yeah absolutely so. So as we talk about project management we go into a community and do very detailed assessments to determine what is the need of that community. Is it water? Is it education? Is it health care? And to make sure that we’re targeting the project towards that the need that the community feels like they have. And we work with them on that and we work with other partners. And then you know what we’ll make a five year plan and execute that plan execute that program and then have an evaluation and sort of ask ourselves within our project did we meet the needs that we intended to meet? Did we achieve change in literacy levels? Did we achieve change in nutrition levels did we achieve change in the levels of child protection that we wanted to. And then we’ll evaluate and redesign and typically we’re in a community for 15 years so we’ll sort of go through three cycles of this sort of project management assessing designing implementing and evaluating.

 

Ron: So Miriam I’m recalling that my wife and I have sponsored a child from World Vision. And it’s funny when we first did this it felt very personal to pick a child to sponsor. We went through the list in the country to choose from. We found that to be a difficult process actually. But my mindset was very much. I imagined that you know I was sponsoring this one particular child and as I as I’m realizing and learning more about world vision. That is true true I was sponsoring that one child but it actually… World Vision would actually pool the funds for the children in a geographic area and run a project to help a community worth. Could you speak a little bit about how that pooling happens. The numbers of people that would be impacted by the project?

 

Miriam: Yeah absolutely. And you’re absolutely right. You know we we have a connection with the one child and the one child really benefits from your sponsorship. And and you can write to them and get to know them on a personal level but the impact is so much greater because the money of of several children is pooled together so that the community projects are implemented to benefit the whole community. And that could actually look like an area of 20 to 30 villages and even around 20 to 30000 people within that area. And so if you can imagine if you build a well the well will impact your sponsor child but it will also impact all the villages which access water. So the impact is so much greater than the one child that you sponsor.

 

Ron: Can you talk a little bit Miriam about what does that look like the program management in the context of World Vision Canada.

 

Miriam: Yeah for sure. So we we work through our field partners and we have field based offices as I mentioned in 100 countries around the world. And those field offices our local staffs to implement the projects and manage the projects for us. And this is really key because as you can imagine projects are so much more effectively managed by people who are from that country who speak the language who know the needs the best who are from that same culture. So they manage the projects for us locally but we in real vision Canada also kind of have a bit of an indirect form of project management because we still have to kind of sign off on the plans and the budgets that are sent to us by the field offices to say that we agree and we support the project that’s happening and that our Canadian dollars are being spent in an effective way. So so we have a bit of an indirect form of project management here that we work with our field partners to understand their needs to get more funding for them when they need that. And to really be a bridge. We’re kind of like a bridge between the donor and the sponsor here in Canada and the field, our field partners, and we managed the project together.

 

Ron: I want to ask a question to Chris now. I understand you’re the Program Manager working within Latin America. Chris can you describe a bit about the programs that you manage and how you work with the partners in the field?

 

Chris: Sure happy to Ron. It’s great to be here with you. Yeah I’ve managed programs in Central America including Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. So I work closely with each of those World Vision country offices to provide direction and control over the programs supported by our World Vision Canada office. So I also have a major project that is funded by a Canadian Foundation. It’s a three year project and is being implemented in two countries El Salvador and Honduras. The project is called Youth Ready and it intends to equip youth with life skills and prepare them for employment so to manage this project I worked closely with our bi-national project manager who is the point person from the field. His name is Carlos Diaz. He’s a great guy. He’s he’s from Honduras and he manages two teams that have a total of 15 staff. So what this means is that I have to have a lot of communication with Carlos. I have to visit the field to also monitor and evaluate the process of the project. So there’s a lot of close communication and a strong relationship between us.

 

Ron: Do you have these remote planning sessions working sessions over the internet?

 

Chris: Yeah that’s right. So Skype is probably the tool that we use most often. So you just send each other messages and then have a skype call. We also use another videoconferencing system here where we have larger meetings and for the most part we’re able to communicate clearly through that and then the field visits I think are the ones that are most important because you get a chance to build the report and get to know the staff and also the participants of the project.

 

Ron: So how often would you go on a field visit?

 

Chris: So we like to visit each country that we manage once a year if possible. But with this special project it’s in two countries and so we’ve had to visit it and see the work firsthand. And so I’ve been traveling quite a bit this past year I’ve had to travel eight times. Two times to each country to visit the Youth Ready project.

 

Ron: Can you can you give me a before and after? You’re going to work with a child that is in some situation and then this program is helping them to get employment. I heard as your main goal. Can you tell me give me an example of someone that has gone through the program that you’re working with the hopes to get them from point A to Point B?

 

Chris: Sure. So I’ll tell you a bit more about Kendra one of the participants but a bit of a background to the project. So the youth participate in two phases over the course of one year. So first they get a foundation through facilitated group learning where they focus on the three Ls: literacy, life skills, and livelihood preparation. And then the second phase of the project is when the youth embark on their livelihood pathways. These are the three E’s known as education, employability, and entrepreneurship. So this project is just a year in so we’ve had 998 youth in total in these two countries go through the first phase. So they have you know improve their literacy skills be digital literacy we have computer labs there. They’ve looked at their life skills they’ve found out who they are. They’ve designed a life plan and then they’re getting ready to choose their education or their next path which is whether they want to go back to school or they want to start working or start business. So I mentioned Kendra and she is in Honduras. She was one of the first participants and she was able to listen to the life story of one of our mentors. She found out that this mentor was cooking her own food and selling it and she was motivated to start to make her own tortillas and to sell that as a way to support her family. And so through this project Kendra was able to identify who she is identify what she wants to do in life and find a way to earn an income. And so she is in that process and at the same time. One thing that has affected her is the context of the country. In Honduras there were floods and there’s a lot of political turmoil right now. And so she was affected by a flood that washed away her hut where she was selling those tortillas. And so we had to provide additional support to her. So I say all this just to give you a picture of Kendra who is receiving this project. She’s a participant of the project and she’s bettering her life. She’s you know gaining some income and then an emergency disaster happens and it washes away her her tortilla stand. And now she needs to kind of start again. So with international development what we see is that we’re able to provide supports but then also there’s emergencies or crises that happen. And so we might take two steps forward and then take a step back and that’s just the nature of the type of work that we do.

 

Ron: It sounds so compelling almost 1000 youth at this point going these types of programs. And so you had mentioned Kendra was one of the first to go through the program and you are typically working with youth from 12 to 18 years old. What’s the timeframe there if you start working with a 12 year old for the first phase going through the three L’s. How long does that typically take to work with someone through that first phase and then the second second phase?

 

Chris: Yeah that’s a great question Ron. So this special project Youth Ready project also works in areas where we have our community projects or community development programs there. They have sponsored children up to the age of 18. Now with this specific project we start working with you youth at age 15. So what they do with the first phase is approximately six months and they’ll get umm. Twice a week they’ll meet in a group where they have a facilitator that goes through a curriculum. As I said they identify who they are what their strengths are and that’s a really transformative process. And we saw a lot of transformation just in that first phase of six months. We have a lot of great stories that we’ve collected from the field that we were able to to share with the donor. The donor is very happy to see this transformation even early on in the project. The second half of the project also takes six months where the youth are supported as they develop their entrepreneurial ideas or they go back and study or get some education for their trades.

 

Ron: So if I were to give to sponsor a child through World Vision that well you typically think of sounds like it’s a different funding mechanism. So you have donors for this particular project that are outside the sponsored child program.

 

Chris: Yeah that’s correct. So we do have different ways that people can support our work. So this particular project is through a Canadian Foundation. Sponsorship continues to support the communities as well. We also receive funding through grants through a global affairs Canada. That’s a large source of our revenues. And some of our programming can overlap. And so I think it’s important for people to know that when they are able to support World Vision whether it’s through a disaster as they give to a cause or if they sponsor a child we can really see a transformation in the child’s life. Also in the community as well.

 

Ron: I love hearing stories so compelling.

 

Ron: Hey this is Ron. Since there was so many great things to talk about in this interview, I decided to break this chat up with World Vision into two parts. Tune in next week for the next episode where I will play part 2.

 

Ron: Thank you so much, all of you, for your time today. Appreciate you very much.

 

Miriam: Thank you so much for having us Ron.

 

Ermira: Thank you. Thank you Ron.

 

Chris: Thank you so much Ron.

 

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