A while ago, I wrote a post that was part love note to yoga and part musings on the sometimes-wandering path that led to where I was at the time, a project manager for a healthcare IT company. Now, as I am settling into my new home in Mozambique, preparing to start teaching and finally beginning to really appreciate what an amazing position I find myself in, I am once again reflecting on what led me here. I think that the primary factor has been a willingness to stay open to new opportunities, even when I think I have a goal in mind and even when an opportunity may appear at first glance to be sending me in a different direction.
First, a little on where “here” is. Yes, a little more than three months after arriving here in Mozambique, I can finally write some about what I will be doing for work. Although I came here and went through training to be a secondary school Math teacher, I lucked into an opportunity to work with a university in one of the larger cities in Mozambique. Classes still won’t begin for another month, but now that professors and administrators are returning from vacation, preparations for the coming semester have begun.
My director has been really open to working with Peace Corps volunteers to determine roles that will not just help the University grow and develop, but will do the same for the volunteers. I had expressed a preference for teaching business classes over math classes – although I love math, it is more likely that I will pursue work relating to business or entrepreneurship in developing countries post-PC than something math related. After meeting with the head of the MBA program and the University’s director, we decided that I would start out by coordinating the Communications for Development (Comunicação para o Desenvolvimento) department and teaching a Business Management (Gestão de Empresas) course within that department. I will probably pick up modules within the MBA program eventually, too. The MBA is taught in English, and occurs in 4- or 5-week modules with the class meeting three hours each evening.
Although my formal education is not in communications, my director wants to have more faculty members with graduate degrees heading up departments, and I do have plenty of work experience relevant to the administrative nature of the role, as well as work experience in communications and marketing. But most importantly for me, I am really excited to learn more about “development communications,” an area that is relatively new as a field of formal academic study.
The UN Development Programme provided me with the definition determined at the World Congress on Communication for Development:
A social process based on dialogue using a broad range of tools and methods. It is also about seeking change at different levels including listening, building trust, sharing knowledge and skills, building policies, debating and learning for sustained and meaningful change’.
Put simply, Communication for Development (C4D) enables people, particularly the most disadvantaged in society, to participate in shaping decisions that affect their lives.
So while communication media are an important area of study within development communications (community radio is huge), the real focus is on creating dialogue between the power structures in developing countries and those deeply affected by policy decisions who may struggle to have a voice. Information should be flowing in both directions. It needs to be disseminated to marginalized populations: they need to be aware of their rights, of services that are available to them, of pending changes to laws and regulations that may affect them. Farmers need market information. Everyone needs health and family planning information. But also, these populations need channels to make their voices heard. Decision makers need to understand the lives of those their decisions impact. Development communications is all about facilitating these information flows, along with horizontal information sharing between communities.
Needless to say, I am nerding out something serious on the whole subject. I found as many articles and case studies as I could. I was thrilled to discover that my alma mater, UMass Amherst, is home to a center for Communication for Sustainable Social Change, headed by a professor of some renown. He was kind enough to send along some additional reading and link me to his blogs. Once I get through a few more articles, time to start learning all the Portuguese vocabulary!
The other part of my job with cooler-than I-ever-could-have-hoped-for potential is that my school is a good ways along in planning for a new radio station, which would be managed from the university side by the Communications department. As someone who always wanted to work at UMass’ station, but never had the guts to get involved (and, truthfully, had no interest at the time in any activity that would require waking up at ungodly early hours), this is a kind of dream come true. There are quite a few steps to go before the station is actually up and running: final licensing by the government, renovation of the studio space, equipment purchasing… but I am optimistic that it will happen within the two years I am here. And I think just being part of the planning will be a fantastic learning experience.
What I think is really the coolest part of where I find myself, though, was best stated by the local Bishop at a ceremony to mark the opening of a new part of our campus. The general idea was that, although Africa is politically independent of the former colonial powers, true independence will come through education, especially technical education. And that is the real mission of the school. The campus here in Chimoio is the Faculdade de Engenharia, or engineering campus. The flagship program is Engenharia Alimentar, or food engineering, focused on improving food processing and conservation methods. For a country with huge swaths of fertile land that imports most of its processed food, this is so important. There are also Civil Engineering, Public Administration, Education Management, Information Technology and Public Health programs, along with my Communication for Development department.
During training, I wrote some about the many educational challenges Mozambique has faced since independence, so I am beyond excited to be part of a higher ed institution working to create locally-trained, Mozambican professionals in areas that the country really needs. I am so excited be part of a program focused on improving methods of communication for development professionals, where those develpoment professionals are actually from the developing country in question. Moreover, most of the faculty and administration of the university are Mozambican as well. Obviously, as a relatively priviledged American here in Mozambique trying to help the development process along, I think we all can have a role to play (I won't even start in on my musings on the politics of development - that is for another blog, or better yet, a private converstation), but all the buzzword-heavy claims of "participatory communication needs assessment" and "local content" and "stakeholder dialogue" and "empowerment" and "giving the voice," sound less like buzzwords and more like good ideas when being taught by Mozambicans to Mozambicans.
So I am pretty happy "here," at the start of what promises to be a very interesting year. And all the stops on my roundabout path contributed getting me to the final destination, but it was definitely staying open to opportunities as they arose that guided the journey. Really, although I had ideas of what I wanted to get out of Peace Corps, I never would have ended up with such a great opportunity if I had insisted on following those initial intentions. Entrepreneurship and small business development was my primary focus, and I had the option of insisting on entering the Peace Corps' Small Business Development program, but my recruiter convinced me that education needed my Math degree and that I could pick up secondary projects relating to entrepreneurship. Now, I find myself in a position where I will be using expereince from nearly every phase of my life: teaching, administrative work, communications, project management, language, research... While at the same time I will be learning so many new things!
So, here is to staying open to what life throws at you and to not letting a plan keep you from ending up somewhere way cooler.
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