Before my arrival, I had a hard time describing to people what my average day would be like. A little over a month here and I can tell you that there is no average day. One day never looks like the other but I will try my best to paint you a picture….
I wake up every morning at 6:45am and have breakfast at 7:30am in the dining hall with fellow volunteers, staff and the students.
Then, I usually head to the office. A big part of my volunteer role is the same as what I had been doing for the organization at home- helping the infrastructure of the non-profit business. Even if an operation is considered nonprofit, it needs to run like a business. Nonprofits, like for-profit, rely on revenue - just not the typical convention. We rely on revenue through donations. So, in essence, the only department that is different than a corporation would be the Sales Team. Instead of a Sales team, a nonprofit has a Development Team and the development team is essentially responsible for educating prospective donors, foundations, etc about our cause and working hard to receive donations through fundraising practices (selling our cause, you could say). Other than that, however, a nonprofits operational infrastructure should ideally replicate corporations in order to ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability.
Daraja is currently not at the corporation stage- we are more like a start-up company. So, parts of my day are filled with exactly what you just read- learning and implementing ways to improve infrastructure. Matt and I worked together to implement Salesforce prior to coming here. It is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) marketing tool that allows us to do everything from track donations and campaigns to provide dashboards on the business’ revenue since its existence. Matt is looking to add an email marketing and analytics application to the system, and I have been researching on what the best practices are for that and how we can implement them as soon as that application is enabled.
I also work on helping to put together the monthly newsletter, updating the social media, answering emails from the board, donors, and volunteers.
Some of my time is also spent serving as a Daraja/MS Kenya liaison. MS Kenya, Danish NGO on campus, has been renting out land on the Daraja campus. They bring about 20 volunteers per month to the campus straight from Denmark- These volunteers get trained here before they go to their respective placements all over Africa.
My work with MS Kenya is largely on organizing collaborations. For example, this week Mr. Charles (science teacher) and I are meeting with MS volunteers about a tutoring program where MS volunteers work with the Daraja students every Wednesday for two hours. Mr. Charles and I manage that program and monitor the tutoring activities each Wednesday night 7pm-9pm. Another task is MS/Daraja socialization where we unite the MS Kenya volunteers with the students. Last month, we had a talent show. Last night, we had a treasure hunt. There were 7 teams of 10 people (MS and Daraja students combined) and they had to go from station to station-think Amazing Race- and whoever got the most points in each station wins. It was very fun!!
Also, a couple of volunteers and I have been spearheading various clubs for the girls to join. The girls spend time on clubs every Monday 3:20pm-5pm. I am leading the “Grassroots Girls” club. This club is meant to educate the girls on how to make a difference using grassroots techniques. We are going to apply these techniques to help the women’s groups that are located in the rural communities around the school. Next Monday, we are going to visit one of the villages and speak with a women’s group to find out how we can help them. Now, a huge inspo for these girls an amazing Kenyan woman named Wangari Maathai. Having just read her memoir, I mentioned to the girls that a lot of the change she has created is through grassroots efforts. Thankfully, that helped enrollment into my club increase...to a skyrocketing 5 people!! It's not as cool as Art Club or Drama Club but I think it will catch on...(fingers crossed!)
I also do ANY type of sidework- cleaning out the dorms, sweeping, tutoring, participating in PE, etc.
This is my role as of now. I’m sure a month from now, a lot will change! But as you can see, it’s kind of all over the place. Sometimes I plan to go work in the office, then find out we have no electricity so I have to change my schedule. Sometimes, I plan to go into town to get work done, then I find out I have an important meeting in the middle of the day. It’s unpredictable but that’s part of the adventure.
To be honest, I haven’t done much traveling. During the weekdays, the students are really busy. Their schedules are packed from 7:30am to 9pm at night. Therefore, the best time to spend with them is on weekends so I try to stay on campus during the weekends. The girls leave for a school break during April- Matt and I plan to do some traveling then!
For those of you who are interested (or just really bored at work), you can check out the following links and you will get a really good idea of what life is like here:
Daraja Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/DarajaAcademy
Daraja Twitter: www.twitter.com/daraja
Matt’s Blog: http://intheshadowofmtkenya.blogspot.com/
Daraja Blog: http://daraja-academy.org/blog/
To put things into perspective: Right now, I'm at an internet cafe doing work while Creed is playing on the cafe's speakers and Matt is tutoring Alfred (aka Alfredo sauce). Alfred is the young street boy who was not begging for money. In fact, he was begging for an education and really wanted to go back to school. LUCKILY, thanks to Matt's hardwork and the help of the Daraja staff and Alfred himself, Alfred has been accepted to a school! His first day of school is supposed to be Monday :) :) :)
