Why am I am here?

This is the first full week of solid “work” as I had two days at St. Anne’s in Nkhotakota split by a weekend and two full days at St. Joseph’s before the Mother’s Day long weekend. So this week will start to determine the answer to the question “Why am I here?” (vs the location question “Where am I?”).

To begin to answer the question, I return to the program that brought me here. The program is called Leave for Change and it is offered through an umbrella organization called Uniterra which is a joint venture of World University Services Canada (WUSC) based in Ottawa and the Centre Canadien d’Etude et de Cooperation Internationale (CECI) which is based in Montreal. Both organizations operate many long term international engagement programs and receive funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

WUSC, which is my sponsor, is a non-denominational, non-sectarian, non-government organization and a registered Canadian charity. WUSC has offices in 9 countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas (Central and South). Currently WUSC Malawi is working on the following sectors: health, education, refugee issues (Malawi receives refugees from other countries), gender equality and “livelihoods”.  The mandate of WUSC is to build capacity of individuals, organizations, and society to effectively contribute to the economic and social welfare of the populations.

I am here in a dual capacity. The first is as an individual supported by my Canadian employer the Hamilton Family Health Team. In this capacity I will work within my scope of expertise which is accounting and financial management. In this regard, at St. Anne’s Hospital in Nkhotakota, I worked at the micro-level to improve the capacity of the accounting staff in their use of the software product Microsoft Excel. At St. Joseph’s, I hope to assist the hospital in the selection of an information technology solution that will better place them to collect, process and report information to governing bodies including the Board of Governors and Management at St. Joseph’s Hospital and College of Nursing.

The second, and I believe the over-ridding reason for my engagement, is to be the eyes and ears and any other sense that I can engage, for the Hamilton Family Health Team (HFHT). It is our plan to offer participation in the Leave for Change program as part of the employee benefit structure which includes a social engagement component. Many of our (HFHT) staff are involved in community service work in Hamilton and with the Leave for Change we can now extend the opportunity to participate in development work at the international level in a manner that is consistent with Canadian standards (note the CIDA connection) and in a non-denominational, non-sectarian manner (through WUSC). This is the first time the HFHT has worked with Uniterra and its regional offices, and I am hoping to take the mystery out of working in far-off places and the Leave for Change initiative so that future HFHT staff participants can engage in a confident manner.

With three weeks to spend at St .Joseph’s there is also the opportunity to be engaged in a useful capacity to assist St. Joseph’s in addressing organizational concerns. In this regard, I am meeting with the leadership team to develop organizational development priorities and to identify strategies that might be followed to allow these to be realized. As a general statement the priorities will be grouped into selective staff upgrading, general staff training, major equipment replacement and minor equipment and medical surgical supplies procurement. The overriding shortage is not the potential of the people; rather it is access to resources that would allow this potential to be realized.

So that is Why I am here. Whether I can make any of this work is that challenge for the remaining two weeks and upon my return to Canada.