And so the blogging starts...

Well I have given in and decided to write a blog. There were many reasons, one being that fact that if I do send out a monthly update it is going to take hours to read it (I was never very good at getting to the point!) and hopefully with a blog it will allow you to read it at your own leisure, or not as the case maybe.

For those of you who don’t know, I am living and volunteering in India for a year. To be more exact I am living in a small town called Deoghar in the state of Jharkhand and working at an NGO called the Network for Enterprise Enhancement and Development Support (NEEDS).

NEEDS was founded in 1998 by Mr. Murari Mohan Choudhury and Mr. Tanay Chakroborty with a mission to improve the standard of living of the Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, and other marginalised groups. The vision for the organisation is:

All people are achieving their full potential; leading healthy, productive lives; and living within their community and society at large in an atmosphere of rights based empowerment, equality, dignity and respect.

For more information on the organisation please visit the website: http://www.needsngo.in/index.htm

So what am I doing here? I have been accepted by the organisation to assist in the strengthening of the Monitoring and Evaluation systems and the Project Management systems, hence my job title of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation advisor (PME advisor)

When starting out on this journey I decided that there were a number of professional and personal objectives I wanted to reach, some of them are too personal to share but those I am happy to share are:

·         develop a sustainable system for the organisation which can maintained when I depart;

·         gain experience with a well-established NGO;

·         gain experience in Development;

·         train others in the skills I have been lucky enough to develop;

·         see a bit of the world;

·         take myself out of my comfort zone;

·         meet and hopefully make friends with, new people.

I am not going to kid myself that I – Katy Maguire – am going to save the world, but I don’t think any one person is capable of that (except fictional characters perhaps – but even I know they’re not real!) Hopefully I can make a small difference in assisting people that are working towards change, for the benefit of others.

After a challenging 2010, I am going forth into what is promising to be a challenging 2011. Hopefully I can make this blog interesting enough for you to read about the year I am experiencing and doesn’t sound like a teenage diary full of angst! We can also monitor (see what I did there!) the progress of my objectives. As I have already been here for a month I am going to post my last update which was sent out in December and go from there.

As always – I hope 2011 brings you happiness and love.