This blog aims to document not only the work I undertake in Ecuador, but the learning I accrue from it. It is about transformation. Chiefly, it is about how I will transform the way I see and theorise about the world by engaging in practice in a country and culture that is very different from my own.
As is visible from my profile, I have a background in both practice and academia. In my undergraduate days, my original plan was to enter into a career doing government research around social welfare issues. This was radically transformed in the summer of 2004 where I undertook a 3 month internship in Chicago, USA. I worked with socially marginalised children and young people using informal and non-formal education methods. I then returned to the UK to study a Masters in Social Research at the Department of Government at Strathclyde University. I used this opportunity to do my thesis on researching deprived children and young people's lives one area of Scotland. The seed was planted that I wanted to do hands-on work with children and young people in addition to research. Just doing research wasn't going to affect children and young people's day-to-day lives. I already had six years of academia behind me (BA, MA, MSc). So, I entered the workforce; doing sessional work, volunteering and agency work to get the relevant experience to be a good practitioner.
I stood out like a sore thumb in most of the settings due to my qualifications. But, I was generally accepted due to my class background (working class from a deprived area in the central belt of Scotland). I remember those years as hard graft; learning from observing others, and learning from my own mistakes. I soon recognised that to get employment in any decent positions working with children and young people, I would have to gain a 'professional' qualification. Synchronicity gave me a helping hand when an old school friend got in touch and said she'd been accepted on to the postgraduate course in community education course at Strathclyde University; starting October 2006. I applied, went for an interview and was accepted pending the completion of a successful portfolio and practice references. I gained confirmation of acceptance two weeks before the course started.
I emerged from this course as a qualified youth worker, community development worker and adult educator. I also emerged with a greater interest in community development following a four month work placement with the Australian Red Cross in Sydney, Australia. I had a tough choice in mid-2007 - whether to do a PhD (I had been offered one and had successfully applied for another) or whether to return to practice. In another mad dash of synchronicity, I was talking with the Education, Children and Young People Services manager for New South Wales at the Australian Red Cross, and he advised not to do the PhD but to travel. His own travels in Central America had cemented exactly what he wanted to do, and he had been building from this ever since. As a result, I returned to the UK, rejected both offers to do a PhD, and gained two part-time roles as a youth volunteer coordinator for a charity, and as an access and development worker for another charity that focused on adult education. And I saved up to travel to Central America. Where I did a variety of different development and education roles for three years.
There is much more to the story (I will write an autobiography one day). But, it's 2019 and I now have a PhD in community development. And I'm working in a full-time, permanent post in academia. But, I wanted to outline the above to highlight a productive pattern in my life - that I learn equally, but in different ways, from both practice and academia. I use both symbiotically to advance my own knowledge and understanding of the world, the worlds of children and young people across the globe, and what roles development and education have in these changing landscapes. So, I've decided to return to practice for one year to continue this growth. I find I stagnate in the one environment for too long. Being in the other reinvigorates me and I return with new insights that I can share with others. That is the why for why now.
The volunteering is for two reasons. One, I took a career break for a year which means I cannot take up a full-time salary or employment somewhere else. That would be a career secondment. Secondly, for the role that I have been offered. I will be professionally volunteering as the Director for Programme Research and Development for an international NGO. I will be doing both research and more hands-on practitioner work for the entire year I am there. This is a fantastic role and the INGO will be supporting me financially through providing my accommodation, food and VISA costs. So, that's why volunteer.
The why Ecuador is another example of synchronicity. When living in Nicaragua I had repeatedly heard about a great INGO who did some good work in Nicaragua. I got in touch with them and said they didn't have any paid roles in Nicaragua but had one coming up in Ecuador. I applied for that role but didn't get it. But, the feedback was amazing. The feedback was that I had true passion for development, education and children / young people, and that I should keep applying for posts that came up, although they did take a while to emerge. This is the same INGO I will be volunteering with in Ecuador. I never applied for another job with them, as I made the decision to return back to the UK to recuperate from glandular fever and to do a PhD.
As I look back on my life, I can see that I have made choices / turns at crossroads; and years later I have come back to a similar crossroad with the other choice / turn before me again. I have since interpreted this to mean that if I am supposed to do something, it will come back at another time and re-present itself to me. I could have stayed in Nicaragua longer; choosing to see out the worst of the glandular fever and rejecting the PhD path for the third time. This may have allowed me to work with the INGO in either Ecuador or Nicaragua shortly after. But, the PhD had re-appeared at the crossroads and it looked more attractive, and a better option, than it did four years previous. You could argue that the INGO opportunity in Ecuador is something that I was always supposed to do. This is why it has re-appeared at the crossroads eight years later. I believe this and that's why I have taken this opportunity. Because the signs are all there it is part of my journey in this wonder we call life.
So, this blog will document this part of the journey. Another chapter in the Book of Andie. It's not going to be easy. My Spanish is rusty and my vocabulary has constricted considerably. I have also been working in a western institution for eight years where I am used to certain ways of working. I am also a decade older than the Andie who rocked up to Nicaragua to volunteer for eight months and ended up staying for three years. But, I do have some more things to offer. I am a much better researcher and writer. My time management skills have also improved substantively and I can work on my own initiative more easily. Most importantly, I am ready for this. I am ready to open up to new ways of being, thinking and doing; and to learn from whatever comes my way. I am not asking this opportunity to give me a particular experience. I am allowing this opportunity to give me the experience I need. People say that the older you get, the harder it is to change. I've never found that. I've found that the older I get the more easily I'm willing to surrender to what life needs to teach me. As long as it doesn't try to make me become something I am clearly not, I will commit to that experience. However transitory or enduring it will become. I hope that is enough.
In just over seven weeks I will be in Ecuador. I hope you will find this blog interesting...
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