Thursday, May 1, 2008

The Work


I have written about a wide variety or cultural experiences and social activities in my blog. An old friend of the family, who was a Peace Corps Volunteer in India, pointed out to me recently that I had yet to write about what I’m actually doing…the work.

The Peace Corps tries to find, with varying degrees of success, qualified Americans to volunteer in specific, well defined, projects working directly with host country nationals. Peace Corps Guatemala has six program areas: Agriculture (Improved Techniques and Marketing), Health in Schools, Appropriate Technology, Eco-Tourism, Youth Development, and Municipal Development. I’m in the Municipal Development Program.

The Municipal Development Program (Muni for short) places volunteers in Planning Offices at the Municipality level of government (a cross between a city and county government in the United States). With 10+ years of experience as an Air Force Officer the Peace Corps seemed to think that I could impart some management and planning knowledge on the office and municipality.

The program goals are two-fold. 1) To improve the functioning of the Municipality 2) To increase citizen participation. Under Goal #1 I have facilitated the creation of Annual Goals for each of the workers in the office and based on the Goals we created an Annual Plan. I’ve worked on creating databases of information on the different communities in the municipality. I’m also working on a Community Diagnostic which should provide us some valuable information on the needs in the different communities. The list goes on. Goal #2 is more at the grass-roots level and it involves me working with community groups. Guatemalan law allows for the creation of legalized citizen participation groups at the community level known as Consejos de Desarrollo Comunitario (Community Development Councils). In Tejutla we have 62 of these groups. To better manage them I worked with my counterpart and the City Council to create 8 micro-regions. We were able to implement the regions during March of this year. Together with the NGO CARE International, I’m embarking on a training program on different aspects of citizen participation such as: The Law of the System of Development Councils, Project Design and Implementation, etc. I’ve also chosen a number of community groups to work more directly with. I meet with a women’s group every two weeks and I’m advising the Volunteer Forrest Fire Fighters of which I’m also a member (the Forest Fire Fighters, not the women’s group). On the more macro level I’m advising a network of women’s groups and I worked with them and the City Council to get two seats on the Municipal Level Development Council.

If it all sounds a bit nebulous it’s because it is. I sometimes wish I was building something or helping plant something where I could see tangible results from my actions. At the same time I understand the importance of good governance and am excited to be able to play a small role in the bettering of the local government in Tejutla.

So that’s what I’m doing and what I’ll be doing for the next 18-months or so. Am I busy? At times. Am I challenged? In different ways than I have been previously in my life. Am I happy to be here? Absolutely.

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