From the Ground Up

Wow, time flies.  It has been more than a month since I have added to this blog, and it is amazing how quickly October has sprung.  It goes without saying- I have been SUPER busy this past month.  With Pre-Service Training for the MAK20s, work with AIESEC Tetovo, and travel with my mother, there has been no time to sit at my computer and write a new blog post.

Rather than try to create a humongous post logging all that I was involved with over the past month, the next few posts will highlight the two most pressing topics- work with AIESEC Tetovo and PST, and traveling with my mother in the Baltics and Macedonia.  So here starts my work with AIESEC Tetovo and PST.

AIESEC Tetovo

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have decided to extend my Peace Corps service in order to restart the AIESEC Tetovo branch.  All of the members and executive board quit from last year, so besides the AIESEC office and help from a few previous members, rebuilding AIESEC Tetovo involves starting from the ground up.  Of course, this was part of the challenge, and the national leadership body and members from AIESEC Skopje had also promised to provide support for our operations, especially in the early part of the entity.

Strategies have been put in place since PLANCO in July, but the beginning of a youth NGO begins with one important resource- members.  Virtually alone, I decided to focus much of my efforts on recruitment in the private university of SEEU, since that is where the office is located, and since the students are supposedly more open to an American style of education, which means a likelier proclivity towards extracurricular activities and civil engagement.  As usual, the university’s website lacked any valuable information regarding enrollment of students and schedule of classes, but eventually the schedule for the orientation day was published, and I planned my first physical recruitment on the campus.  With the help of the former entity’s president, Kreshnik, we were able to distribute a handful of flyers and hang some posters around SEEU. 

The most crucial week coincided with the arrival of the new PCVs, starting from September 20.  This was very fortunate for me, since I was provided lodging in Tetovo during the most active part of the recruitment.  My role during PST is to provide Community Development technical training to the CD volunteers, and since our trainings that week were not scheduled until Thursday and Friday, I was granted the opportunity to dedicate the early part of the week to recruiting for AIESEC Tetovo. 

While the SEEU campus and the Wilson School (where PST training was held) were not far, I was not sure how to return to the Wilson School by kombi, so I resorted to using expensive taxis instead.  Additionally, I still did not have access to internet on the campus, so I spent countless hours sitting at a nearby café.  Although some days required me to walk back and for the between the campus and the center, I becoming accustomed to the town, how to navigate the transportation system, and getting used to its vibe. 

In regards to the recruitment itself, some days were successful, while other days were sheer disappointments.  For example, one of the first days when two members of AIESEC Skopje assisted me, a much larger number of students applied at our stand, gradually raising our number of potential members.  On the other hand, the campaign at the public university failed when the administration failed to review my email or return my phone calls requesting permission to recruit at the faculty.  Additionally, the Information Day that we hosted on the last day of the physical recruitment turned out to be an utter failure, with nobody attending, most likely because many of the students had returned home early to prepare for Bajram, an important Muslim holiday that I overlooked when devising the recruitment.

However, while I was out of the country, the online application remained open and an additional number of members continued to apply.  Overall, I was able to interview all but three applicants, and AIESEC Tetovo officially inducted 14 members, although that number may drop by 3 or 4 as we begin the training and operations.  Since I was traveling the week following the recruitment, I was unable to host AIESEC Tetovo’s first meeting.  On the second meeting, I had the chance to know the group better as a whole, and to begin the process of allocating each member by team.

Two outstanding factors distinguish this group of AIESEC members.  First, the diversity of ethnicities, nationalities, and languages spoken among the group is vast.  Two of the members come from Kosovo, one from Serbia; most of the members are ethnically Albanian, but two members are Macedonian and one is Roma; and while most members speak Albanian (except for the Macedonians and Roma members), two struggle slightly in English, depriving us of a common language in which to communicate.

Second, the zeal in which these students are interested in improving their society is inspiring.  In order to recruit new members, sometimes AIESEC markets the practical and professional experience one gains through the organization, or the ability to have fun and meet new people.  But many of these members are driven by the opportunity to engage leadership and positively impact society, a major tenet of AIESEC but not necessarily the most attractive.  For example, one member pondered dropping from AIESEC Tetovo after the first meeting, since it seemed that practical skills like marketing and management were being emphasized over leadership.

Deep down, I really enjoy working with this group, and I am excited for the year ahead.  While I am putting a lot of energy and time into this organization (I spent 7 hours this Tuesday just traveling by bus to and from Tetovo), I have come not only to care about the organization’s success, but also the development of each individual member.

MAK20s

As I mentioned earlier, training the MAK20s in Community Development is the other responsibility that is demanding time and travel for me.  The first week of PST was an enjoyable, yet strange experience, especially given how my service should be ending as these trainees begin theirs.  However, since I am moving to a new town and working with a different organization from November 1, this experience may not be as juxtaposing as for the MAK18 trainers who will be leaving in December. 

Otherwise, hanging out with the MAK20s was pretty fun, and it was refreshing to talk with them and feel their excitement about their new adventure.  Granted, they had a lot of questions- about food, safety, what work was like, what living with a host family entailed, about our experience, what we were planning for after COSing, how to use cell phones and purchase data plans, etc.  But I tried my best to not answer all of their questions, because discovering Macedonia on their own is part of the adventure.

CD Training on Scanning the Local Context

The head honcho, Eli

Since the first week, our CD team has also been tasked with training on the Hub Days in Skopje and in smaller groups at the training sites near Tetovo, Sveti Nikola, and Kavadarci.  All of this traveling, along with my work with AIESEC Tetovo, has reached excessive levels, but it is somewhat enjoyable to see other towns (Sveti Nikola is much bigger than I had thought).

Finally, our CD Technical Training Team has bonded well.  Our mantra, chosen during ToT, was to be “Efficient and Enjoyable,” and all of our work together has been just that.  Not much has changed in regards to the content we are discussing in the trainings.  However, it is revealing how much I have learned about community development with two years of practical work.  While topics including Project Design and Management, Appreciative Inquiry, SWOT Analyses, Monitoring and Evaluation, and applying for grants seemed like foreign topics that failed to “stick” during my PST, these concepts now feel second nature to me.  personally, being a part of the PST trainers is not only an opportunity to give back through my knowledge and experience as a MAK PCV, but to also gauge how much I have learned or changed in two years.