Growth

The CIDA internship is a great experience for one to apply what he/she has learnt in school and utilize and strengthen those skills to a new level; gaining much experience for future employment opportunities. It creates an awareness that truly allows someone to see their fit in the world, and part of something truly larger than what we once thought were part up. This is a citizenship, a global citizenship that all people are interconnected and affected by one another. This interconnectivity as a system would described by Joshua Cooper Ramo as a sand pile, with numerous variables all unpredictable and all independent but part of a larger entity. Viewing a business, society, nation,  and world as a macro system is what really allows one to gain a true perspective of how reliant we are on one another and how all of our actions have impact.

I began the Internship with CIDA with an understanding of global citizenship, cross-cultural differences and a level of respect that I would have considered weapons entering the development world. Then, I went to Peru. It is my first time living outside of Canada and my first time to be completely submerged in a new culture. The weapons I came equipped with helped a smooth transition, but little did I know how little I knew. I came to Peru with the belief of creating an impact and right away felt as if I was the one being impacted on a consistent basis. This was a strong feeling of awe at all times. I anticipated culture shock and thought it might have been a mixture of feelings and confusion. Instead, culture shock was nothing but remarkable. In fact so much that it didn’t take long to start planning for my return or change in location for future employment.

We were told about how patience is an important virtue to have and to be honest other than what I expected from culture studies. I have not had to really exercise patients to much while here. I felt as if at home, around many great people; some who have almost nothing and will still give you the shirt off their backs if asked. I can’t ignore the difference with time perspectives though, this is something we can work to improve or adjust our work ways to create a more efficient and productive day.

At this moment I am working at Nexos with Ronny, and Audrey. Only three of us and the amount of work is piling up. This is actually a great feeling with many challenges. Our trio is the perfect combination to grow and learn. I am working with two very bright people who have completed many things in their lives and have so much to offer for my absorption of new skills and approaches to business. The two of them could not be a better set to work with in Urubamba. The beautiful thing about working for an organization is the ability to showcase your abilities. An even more beautiful concept is the actualization of your weaknesses. This actualization is an amazing thing to identify and work on.

Therefore, the internship has caused more opportunity for growth, more than I could have ever imagined. What this has done was caused some confusion in what direction I will go in the future. I would not have it any other way. So I thank Niagara College, Nexos Voluntarios and CIDA for making this happen.

Villa Marcelo

The past couple weeks have been flying. The reason for this has been due to increased responsibilities and involvement with Nexos Voluntarios projects. This has been a great opportunity to really exercise and develop my own capabilities. I have generated ideas that I would love to do and complete for Nexos.  To complete what I want to do will take much homework and learning. In development, processes c an be slow and push the limits of your patients to new levels. The key to this is finding ways to be productive and further develop my own competencies and skill sets.

In the past two weeks we have been working with doctors, nurses and nutritionists in regards to the health of the Media Luna community and more specifically the health and nutrition of the children of the school named Villa Marcelo.  We had a meeting with Medico (Doctor) Victor in regards to our projects. The Doctor set up a meeting with an Enfermera (Nurse), Soraida. We spoke to her about evaluating the health of children attending Villa Marcelo. The meeting took place at Puesto de Salud on the main road, close to Casa Andina, a nearby hotel. We were also given the name and number of a nutritionist in Cuzco, Neli.  Soraida agreed to do this evaluation on Tuesday September 13, 2011 in the morning. She also has some statistics of a previous basic evaluation of roughly 60-70 students in Villa Marcelo from June. This evaluation we were not aware about and would be something to talk to Hector the (“Director” of the school) about. Information such as this should be presented to us when working with the school.

On September 13^th the nurse came to Villa Marcelo where we spent the morning recording data and evaluating the health and nutrition levels of 102 students. We are now waiting for the result of our analysis. Our next step is to educate and increase the capacity of the mothers of each student. The mothers will be cooking lunches for the children three times a week with. The meals that we have created are a balanced diet that will enhance the nutrition and hopefully improve the performance levels of the each child. The ultimate goal is to cause a spill over effect of our balanced and properly cooked food plan to the homes of each child. To start this capacity training we will be taking a small group of mothers to Cuzco for training and later bring a nutritionist to Villa Marcelo to further train the mothers.