In the past two weeks, I have read five books, watched at least ten movies, completed about fifty crossword puzzles, made twenty-ish playlists in iTunes and joined the gym. In other words, I have had a lot of free time on my hands.
But work this past week finally got interesting. In the middle of December GRS closed and all work stopped. And I don’t mean that we just put things on hold; rather, we wrapped up everything that we were working on and didn’t make any future plans. As a result, when GRS Kim “reopened” in January, Mandla, Thuso, Trevor and I had to begin making plans for the entire year to come.
This process has consisted of a lot of talking, a lot of cleaning, and a lot of waiting, but overall I have enjoyed it. During this past two weeks I have gotten to learn a tremendous amount about small business/ NGO management and operations. I am also getting to play a large role in determining what GRS Kimberley will look like this year and what GRS Kimberley will strive to accomplish this year.
There are a few things that will be different in Kim this year and I am excited about these changes. For the first time in almost a year Kimberley is going to have a full staff. When Trevor and I arrived in Kim in August, we arrived at a site that had a Site Coordinator who had to split his time between Kimberley and another site. We arrived at a site that had no Master Coach (the person that is supposed to be in charge of curriculum and coaches development). And we arrived at a site that was supposed to have three interns, but ended up with only two. In short, we arrived at a site where 3.5 people would have to do the same amount of work that other sites do with as many as 10 people.
But in 2012, we will be getting a full-time Site Coordinator, a full-time Assistant Site Coordinator and a full-time Master Coach. Mandla, Kimberley’s current Site Coordinator, is moving to Johannesburg to manage GRS Soweto, but Thuso, the current ASC – the guy at the office who I have very entertaining insulting/ sarcastic/ derogatory/ amusing interactions with – is going to become the Site Coordinator. The new ASC will be Chief. Chief was a head coach who worked at GRS Bloemfontein last year but because Bloemfontein was closed in December (for good) due to lack of funding, GRS asked Chief to come work in Kim. I am excited for Chief's arrival because he is a guy who can get shit done (excuse my language). And last, but not least, Kimberley welcomes the return of Master Coach Thembi who had also been working in Bloemfontein prior to the site's closure.
Kimberley was also given money in our budget to implement HCT (HIV Counseling and Testing) Tournaments. I have heard a lot about such tournaments from other sites and I think they will provide us with a fantastic forum to not only get people in the community tested, but also to increase awareness about GRS and what we do.
2012 will also bring a lot of change for me. Skillz Street is going to be completely revamped and I will get to play a large role in designing and implementing the programmatic changes, as well as attempting to monitor the effectiveness of our changes. I think I will also be doing a lot more regarding the monitoring and evaluation of our programs. For example, I want to run a lot more focus groups with coaches and with participants and attempt to measure the effects that our programs are having.
There are also things that I am determined to achieve this year. For one, I want to be much more aware of our budget and do my best to save money and practice effective spending. As I mentioned before, GRS Bloemfontein was closed in December because there was a lack of funding. Even though GRS South Africa started in Kimberley (it began in Daniel Skuil, where Thuso is from), there is a possibility that we could be the site that is next. Why? Because statistically other regions in South Africa are more affected by HIV than the Northern Cape. And also because Kimberley is located in the middle of nowhere, with just one tourist attraction (the Big Hole), it is hard to attract funders. But I’m going to do my best to manage our funding appropriately so we can attract support from GRS HQ as well as external funders. In fact, I spent almost an entire day last week pouring over our budget and making adjustments to it that were then sent to Cape Town.
Another thing I want to do is provide more resources for our coaches. I am going to work very hard to come up with new activities for our coaches to do during Development Sessions so that they can learn about the resources available to them and also so they can grow as coaches and individuals. I have a little over six months to do this and already have several ideas I’m hoping to put into play.
I know that was a bit of a dull blog, but I wanted to let you know what exactly I’ve been doing recently. None of it has been particularly fun or interesting, but it has definitely been important and has helped me figure out what kind of mark I want to leave on GRS Kimberley.
No comments:
Post a Comment