cowpattyengineer

Article for SCALA Thank You Booklet By Lisa White on August 9th, 2005 I can’t believe that my time in the Philippines has come to an end so quickly. The past 3½ months have passed in a flash - it doesn’t seem so long ago that I was sitting on the plane to Manila wondering what in the world I had gotten myself into! What an experience this has been, and I was only just getting started! From my short time here, I have learned more about myself, leadership, and development work, the intangibilities of which are impossible to put into words. So I thought I would impart one particular experience of mine while living in Iloilo City, where I was helping to set up a SCALA center for 7 weeks, that encompassed a great deal ... read more

Having finished my placement in Iloilo City and started work with Sarah at the national office, I have had a chance to reflect on my experiences (and mistakes) from the past several months. Overall, I believe that the main thing I have learned thus far is what makes a good leader. In my opinion, this is particularly important for development work, especially since capacity building depends to a great extent on how good a leader you are. So I have revised my original idea of what a leader is. Some of it is still classically what I consider a good leader, but I also procured some of the most important traits from people that I know are good leaders. So the following is my list of what I think makes an effective leader:  Someone who ... read more

There's a huge market very close to where we live here in Manila and I thought I'd share some pictures of it with you. It's called Commonwealth market, and as you might suspect, it's along Commonwealth Avenue. As part of trying to live like Filipinos do (which I can never really do - after all, I know that I can leave anytime that times get really tough and I never really have to worry about going hungry or not having enough money to buy food for myself and my family), we try to get our food at the market instead of the grocery store at the mall. The grocery store is alot more expensive, although it does have some of my favourite foods like cereal (which I am trying to wean myself off of) and peanut ... read more

So the SCALA crew had a debriefing (sharing session) after our first placements this past few days in Bohol (province of). We arrived in Tagbilaran after taking an overnight ferry from Iloilo City (Andrea and I, that is), and then we headed of for the short trip to Panglao Island and Alona Beach. Awesome place! We could sit and have our meetings with the beach in the background and the sea breeze on our faces. It was great! And we got alot accomplished as well. I think it was the best set of meetings we've had so far. I learned alot on my placement in Iloilo and it was nice to have the chance to be able to share my experiences with the other SCALA volunteers and learn from theirs as well. It was also really ... read more

So we had another meeting where we made Girl Scout promise cards. I was wrong about the scarves - the solid colours are for the younger girls and the stripes are for the older girls. And they have their choice of several colours of scarves - yellow, pink, blue, and green, I think. Their leader tells me that if they feel really adventurous, they'll try to get everyone wearing the same colour scarf on the meeting day! :) We also sang some songs. It's funny because with all of my travelling, I've never hooked up with a Girl Scout group that didn't use English as a main language. So last week I sang songs with them, but didn't give them a copy of the words on paper. IT was a disaster! They had no idea what ... read more

Okay, this is for my family and friends who want to know exactly what I am doing in the Philippines. What the heck am I doing in the Philippines, anyway? Well, I am working with Engineers Without Borders (EWB, www.ewb.ca if you want to check it out) on a project called SCALA (shared computer access locally and abroad, at www.scala.ewb.ca or http://proxy.dswd.gov.ph/scala). It is an ITC (information technology communication) project designed to give out of school youth (OSY) both computer and life skills training so that they can either go back to school or get a job. OSYs are between the ages of 18 and 24 who have dropped out of school because they can’t afford to pay the tuition or because they’ve had to start working to support their families (usually in very poorly paid ... read more