Strategic Visioning & Planning
This is a certificate from a seminar I took on finding grants online and the best way to find a grant that meets the needs of your organization. There are so many grants out there and so many different needs it can take a lot of be able find a grant that will provide for a particular need your organization is trying to address. There are many requirements that come with each grant and being able to meet them is something that can take a lot of skill. This certificate address this and the best places to find these types of grants.
ADP Paper is a form that helps strategize and plan ahead of things. It is a guide map and it helps you know what you need to do over a longer period of time and how to accomplish small steps in order to complete a larger task. It is a planning tool that can be used for a lot of different projects. It is important to be thinking about planning and all the elements of a project long before you have to do them. This is a great tool for that, keeping everything in an organized pipeline.
I am always trying to plan and vision things a head of time. I am always looking for ways to improve and ways to get a head start of things. This is an email between me and the director of the organization I worked for in Haiti. This was early in our time working together we had been talking for a few weeks, decided what I was going to be doing for them, they wanted me to visit to take pictures and videos and work on some projects they had on sight. This was an email me explaining they would need to fill out some forms for my school requirements.
This is an example of my notes on things I had to do, ways that I could help, and projects I could work on. I have a hard time remembering things, especially when I am working on more than one project at a time, so I like to take a lot of notes. If I write even the simplest of things down I can then remember them later. It is easier for me to organize my thoughts.
HR Management
I worked on adding HR resources for the staff of the university while I was in Malawi. This was in order to make resources readily available to everyone. One of the biggest projects I worked on while working for Malawi Adventist University was creating a new website for them. We wanted it to be very user friendly for not only prospective students but current students and faculty as well.
I completed a seminar on things that Nonprofits should know before working abroad. It is important for nonprofits to be aware of rules in the country they are going to work with. It can be a complicated when there are many different governments coming into play. It is something that needs to be thought about and can quickly become an HR issue for different organizations. Cultures, languages, customs, religions are all things that can become and issue for organizations especially with mixed cultures of people and employees.
We worked with a variety of people while we were at Malawi Adventist University. We worked with students, faculty, and staff on a wide variety of projects. When working with people it brings up the issue of Human Resources. People have a lot of different experiences and knowledge and it is something that can be used to the advantage of an organization and something that we wanted to use in our trainings. We wanted to get discussions going and group activities because it brings different points of views together.
Employee Handbook is a book that I created for the employees at the Beehive Haiti. We wanted to created a set of rules that were used for everyone so it was clear what was expected for everyone. This is something that is used in every organization or company in their HR department. It is important that everyone is on the same page. Employees need to be aware of their rights and what is expected of them from the organization.
Volunteer Management
We tried our best to rally volunteers for our trainings
whenever possible. We had a variety of trainings that
we tried to gather support for. I worked with a lot of
different types of students on a lot of different types of
projects. I conducted trainings we well as group projects
with students for the website. It can always be complicated
when dealing with people and it is important to handle
them appropriately.
I worked with a group of marketing students that wanted to write descriptions for the website as a part of their portfolio. I also worked with a variety of other people to gather content for the new school website. It involved a lot of communication. I called, texted, and emailed a lot of people to gather information and opinions, support, and help. I had a team of people working with me and it took a lot to be able to make sure I got all the information I needed in order to put it on the website. A website is basically a collection of information and putting that all together and gathering it all takes a lot of work and a lot of people to help.
I had some volunteers model products from our organization in Nepal. We wanted to get some pictures of the products being warn and I had some girls model them off for me. The organization hires women to make textile products. These products are mostly women's clothing. We wanted to have some nice professional looking pictures to put on the website and use on social media as advertising. I worked with some girls to model the products.
I had the privilege of working as a volunteer for this project while in school at the states and then got to work for it on the ground in Haiti. It was a special opportunity to be able to work on both ends of the project. Being able to help fundraising and working at events, and advertising for the project in order to raise money and then helping with the pouring of the floor and helping with continuing to raise money for the rest of the building to be finished.
Teambuilding
We had some local guys come from an organization
in Haiti that worked as translators and extra help on
projects around the property. They did a variety of
things from digging ditches to preaching at church.
They were very helpful to have. They fit in very well
with our group.
Co-Learner Evaluation there are several times in the program when we are asked to evaluate our co-learners. These were particularly when we worked as teams on group projects. This is a way of team building because it allows us to look at how each of us is working and how we can continue to work together as a group and what might need to be changed or improved upon. I think evaluating and assessing is important especially when working in teams or groups of people.
Team Building Paper is a paper that talks about the importance of team building and ways of creating a strong team that can get things accomplished in an organized manner. Being intentional about building a team and a good team is important because the more planning and intentionality you put in it the better. Working with teams can be helpful but it can also be difficult because team members may not always get along. Planning how to work through issues before they arise can help build a stronger team.
I have never felt so part of a group as I did with
this group. I was welcomed so quickly and we
worked well as a team. I think it is important to
make team members feel welcome and valued.
It is important to make everyone feel like they
have a unique skill to add to your team and there
is a place for them on the team. The times things
go south it is often because members of a team
don't feel like they are valued or that their
work is needed or appreciated. Helping people
feel that from the start and helping them continuing to feel that way and offering constructive criticism in a kind way is the best way to keep teams strong.
Time Management & Work Organization
ADP is a way to plan things ahead of time and manage things in a timely manner. It is an important tool especially with bigger projects. It is a great way to keep projects organized and going on a timely manner. It is something that can be easy to loose track of. Days quickly turn into weeks and then months and then you realize you are behind on your project.
ADIP is a tool to that helps map out steps in a project and how to break things down into smaller pieces and allows it to be broken into a time schedule for better planning. When we were in intensive classes we created an ADIP in order to make sure we got all our assignments done during our practicum in Malawi. This was a very helpful tool to have and to make sure we had our assignments done and we had enough time to complete them all.
This is a time schedule that I lived on for awhile in
order to make sure I was getting school and work
done. Online school was something I was really
excited about because it is more flexible. However,
it become too unstructured for me. I found myself
wasting a lot of time so I needed to create a structured
routine for myself in order to make sure I was getting
all my hours in for my requirements.
I always keep a detailed to do list in order to make sure I am getting things done in an appropriate time frame and to make sure that nothings falls between the cracks. It is important to stay organized and make sure that you are not forgetting anything. I also like to keep things on paper because technology can fail you sometimes and then you can't access your list or your information. Whereas paper is always available.
Conflict Mediation
I wrote a script for a video and it was rewritten by my boss, this bothered me at the time because I felt like what I had done was good and the new one was wordy. But sometimes it is good to get another perspective. I avoided a potential conflict situation. I think it can be easy to get defensive when someone criticizes your work. However it is important to stay open minded.
We ran a training for student leaders on how to deal with conflict between students and administration. They had previously not had any training on now to effectively deal with conflict. There is often conflict between the students and administration and the students do not know how to effectively express their concerns to the administration without going on strike from class which does not help them. Skipping class only hurts them.
When I was in Haiti we had some conflict between
groups of people who would cook things and then
leave the dishes around for bugs and things to get
into them. It causes some drama but I was able to
help in how to deal with conflict between different
types of people. I think culture can play a big part
in conflict. Sometimes we don't see something as
an issue because of the way we see the world around us
but someone from a another culture does see it as an issue.
Group Project Contract is a written understanding on how to deal with conflict between groups before it happens. This is a great thing because it deals with drama before it happens so everyone is aware what the consequences are before it happens. The best way to handle conflict mediation is to have a plan set up at the beginning that way once something does come up everyone already knows how to handle it.
Empowering Vulnerable & Special Populations
Macro Groups Paper is a paper that talks about what macro groups are and how they are reached. It is important to be aware of different groups of people so you can know how to reach all different kinds of people. Knowing different groups of people means also knowing what they face, this also helps you reach them in a unique way that will best benefit them in their unique situations.
Homelessness Paper is about homeless and how they are a vulnerable group that needs help just as much as people overseas. They are a group that can be reached in our own backyard. I think a group of beneficiaries in the development world that is often overlooked is hopeless communities. There is so much that can be done for them and so much that can be done in urban development.
In Nepal we hire women to sew and make products
that we can then sell and give them a portion of the
profit. We are also starting micro loans and creating
other benefits for these women. The women we hire
often come from very poor background and often live
in very small village communities in the mountains.
They travel great distances to stay in the city to go to
sewing school.
In Haiti we worked with a school that is open for students that cannot afford uniforms. In Haiti, if you cannot afford the uniform you cannot attend school. So there are students that are not in school simply because they cannot afford the uniform. So this is the poorest of the poor in Bohoc Haiti. These kids were so precious and loved being able to learn and go to school. They showed up very early in the morning and waited outside the gate waiting for someone to let them in for school. They deserve a chance to go to school just as anyone else.
Critical & Independent Thinking
This is a discussion question that was about the Kenya Election and the rights of the people. I think it is important to have opinions and to think about things from different perspectives not just take what people say at face value but to challenge the status quo. I think this is how we grow and change as a society.
Advocacy Evaluation this is an evaluation of the advocacy training we completed while we were in Malawi. These students are in a vulnerable position because they are often unable to speak up for themselves however we tried to give them tools to empower themselves. We tried to encourage them to think for themselves and to question things, but in an effective manner.
Marketing Plan is a document of a marketing plan I created for the Beehive Haiti and ways that they can get their name out and gain more funds and support in the county and in other places as well. They have been doing the same type of thing over and over again and have very little marketing in place right now. They constantly have fundraising projects going on and need people to support their projects. I tried to create a good marketing plan for them in order to grow their support base.
