What is this blog for?

Hello!

As this is the first post for my new blog, I thought I'd better explain why I am doing it, and what you can expect to see here over the next 8 months.

I have been given a really exciting opportunity to take part in a project run by the charity Challenges Worldwide (www.challengesworldwide.com) in Sri Lanka from January 2008 for six months. The project sends professionals over to NGOs in Sri Lanka working to deal with the aftermath of the tsunami. CWW sends people skilled in a range of different disciplines, from business development to law to marketing and communications.

Because of my experience in campaigns and communications for the voluntary sector in Scotland, I have been accepted to go to Sri Lanka to work advising an NGO on their communications. CWW are currently setting up a project with a suitable partner organisation to place me in, and I am hoping to hear from them very soon exactly what the organisation is, and what my remit will be. I'll be really excited to finally find out where I will be placed, and am really pleased that Olof will be placed with me (he is going to be doing business development work)

Despite a lot of physical reconstruction having taken place in the three years since the tsunami, there is still a lot of work to be done in the affected areas in ensuring that progress is sustainable and that the longer term work that is so badly needed can be provided. For this reason, CWW places skilled volunteers to help NGOs with skills that they might not have so readily available (communications skills, like writing in the English language , marketing and media training in my case). This allows local people to gain skills that they might not have access to, and the ultimate hope is that the volunteers will no longer be necessary in the long term.

The project is part funded by the Scottish Government, as part of its international development budget, so I will receive food, accommodation, insurance and my visa for the six month period. However, I need to raise money for the flights, vaccinations and for a donation to my project. I estimate that this is roughly £1500 in total (more on fund-raising in a later blog entry though!)

So, I thought it would be good to use this blog to record all my thoughts, fears and hopes in the run up to, and during the project, in order to keep a record of this really amazing opportunity. Over the next three months, I will mainly be reporting on how it is going raising my target of £1500, and how the preparations for my departure are going. Once I get out to Sri Lanka (which should be around 16th January 2008), depending on access to a computer and the internet, I'll keep this updated with photos (hopefully some with the amazing wildlife I will see!) and reflections on my time there.

Bye for now!

Norny xx