To make the most of my time studying in the Netherlands, I've taken the liberty to contact local development organizations to volunteer, hoping to offer some contribution while gaining more experience regarding the field of region/international development.
Started out as a volunteer at Oxfam Novib since November 2013 after a TEDx event in Delft, I worked with other senior staff for E-motive project, a consortium of organizations with trajectories put forth by Oxfam Novib. The project puts strong emphasis on the collaboration between organizations from the Global North and those from the Global South. The main ideology is that development is no longer happening thanks to the paternalistic approach offered by only developed countries, but rather, development now is more possible with the conjoint cooperation and local knowledge available from the developing countries as well.
My time at Oxfam Novib, although very eye-opening, was not really packed with new learning experiences as I had expected. Perhaps partly it was because Oxfam Novib and E-motive are big organization and big project with a lot of levels, hierarchies and a huge army of developmental workers, leaving little space for an undergraduate student like me to contribute. Also, due to the beginning phase of numerous projects within E-motive being implemented, ambiguity regarding their directions is pretty at play, together with my lack of practical experience regarding international development, I could not offer much when it comes to practical and in-depth field-related tasks. Staff are busy with their work as well as family, it was difficult to find a mentor who would be willing to take my hand and walk me through my baby steps.
However, volunteering at Oxfam Novib provides me with other practical skills such as networking, communicating and conducting meetings, also an opportunity to further penetrate the Dutch development community.
One thing led to another, at one of the networking event of E-motive in late January, I had the opportunity to meet with Fons v.d. Velden, director of Context, Int'l Cooperation. At first, he appeared to be a seemingly humble old man yet respectably possessing ample knowledge of developmental work, theoretically yet practically. Through a brief conversation about social entrepreneurship, my attention was captured. He seemed to get what was going on in my mind, regarding my confusion being exposed to different ideologies. At that time I was utterly confused after a while associating with the libertarian ideologies even though I was gradually disconnected. Fons kindly encouraged my confusion as a good sign of an intellect being open-minded to different viewpoints and opinions. He briefly told me his stories back when he was still working at the university in Nijmegen. His stories took me by my heart. At that moment, I wished I could further meet with this respectful man and learn more from him. He gave me his business card and I made it a thing to connect with him after the event.
Although it took us a little less than 3 months, quite a few phone calls and meetings after, I finally started my internship at Context by the end of April and will carry on for the coming 4 months until the end of August. Fons agreed to be my primary mentor at the firm, pretty much to my delight at the prospect of having someone willing to providing some guidance as well as insights into the developmental field. It has been nearly a month ever since and I have taken gradual steps to learn more on and along the job.
Context, in a nutshell, is a small social enterprise with Monitor&Evaluation (M&E) as its main focus while also acts as a research and knowledge center offering advice and guidance for clients and fellow organizations in the community. It is fair to say that learning and cooperation is at the heart of the firm's main objectives. Even though the firm is small and close-knitted, it has respectable reputation within the Dutch development community and other organizations often come to Context to seek for advice and facilitation.
At Context, I have the privilege to learn one of the advanced tools for assessing social impacts - the Social Returns on Investment (SROI) as a part of Context's main job regarding Evaluation. At this point, I am involved in the current evaluation project that Context takes up for the Fair, Green and Global - one of those numerous consortiums of collaboration in the Netherlands and elsewhere in the world.
This blog is thus taken up into a new direction, with the purpose of documenting my learnings and discoveries while at Context. I cannot hide my excitement and anticipation regarding my time at Context. The work is expected to be challenging, requiring a lot of reading, research and reflecting, but I am thrilled at the opportunity of gaining hands-on experiences, and what is better? - With Fons as my mentor.
Let's see how the journey goes. 'Til next post! :)
