A SPA

To PCVs a SPA doesn't mean relaxation but Small Project Assistance grant writing. I spent the majority of last week learning about how to effectively write project proposals with the people in my village. People used to always ask me, 'so, what exactly do you do with an organizational communications major?' I guess this is it. Although the process of identifying a need/priority in the community, planning, proposal writing, implementing, record keeping, monitoring and evaluation is all very familiar, it was exciting to see my counterpart light up at the work that goes into project development. She's young and enthusiastic and I am excited about the work that we have ahead of us.

We've drafted a community questionaire and recruited students from the youth action club to distribute them door-to-door. I would do it myself, but I can't go anywhere in the village without being invited in for an hour conversation and a cup of coffee.

Before I was most intimidated by the fact that a lot of what I wanted to do was not community initiated and I didn't feel that I could effectively build capacity alone. It's exciting to see, however, that once one person buys into your plans or ideas how others begin to follow. Now that I've got an engaged counterpart (an 'in') I'm hopeful about the potential for our work.