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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.
World Vision Speaker Bios:
Miriam Booy is the ‘Director for Collaboration’ working in our ‘Programs & Policy’ team at World Vision Canada. She has worked for World Vision Canada for 7 years, based in South Africa for 2 of these years. She has supported programs in East and West Africa directly and has recently shifted in the past year to support the operations of our programs globally. Having grown up in Tanzania, East Africa, she has been surrounded by poverty and various forms of exploitation her whole life and is passionate about sharing these stories with Canadians and together doing what we can to improve the lives of children around the world.
Ermira Simeqi is the Program Portfolio Manager, working with Programs and Policy team at World Vision Canada. She had worked with World Vision Canada for over a year now, in the beginning supporting Latin America and Caribbean country programs and has recently shifted in supporting East & South Asia Countries. Ermira has worked as a Program Manager within Albania & Kosovo with World Vision directly managing the implementation of the projects in the field. Ermira is passionate of improving children’s lives and families well-being in the most vulnerable areas around the world.
Chris Ortiz 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 has managed this portfolio for the past year. Previously, Chris was the Regional Program Manager with Canadian Programs at World Vision Canada. Having eleven years of experience in urban community development in Toronto, Chris is passionate about seeing transformation in all the lives of community members. Chris is Bolivian-Canadian. He spent his childhood years in Bolivia and has been a resident of Toronto for the past 30 years.
Show Notes:
- Host: Ron Smith
- World Vision
- Sponsor a child
- Contacts:
- 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.
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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.