Volunteering at Rainbow

Wednesday 29th April will be our last day of volunteer work in Africa. Here is a quick summary of the main activities we have been concentrating on since we have been here at Rainbow. In our experience of small NGOs in Africa, Rainbow is well above average in terms of successful achievement of its objective (Hospital, School and Orphanage). The work we have been doing has been to try and further streamline already functioning processes to try to incorporate some 'tried and tested' commercial work practices.

 

Construction Project - 2 Extra Classrooms

When we arrived this project had been suspended. It had spent the total budget originally estimated and provided by the Italian sponsors (approx £12000). The sponsors were confused how the budget had been spent and the classes were incomplete. The estimate of a further £2000 had been given to complete the job.

Our initial task was to plough through all the receipts that had been spent to date and verify the total expenditure. We then needed to verify the new quotation. This was done by a thorough review with the foreman and the structural engineer. By planning the materials for each individual task we estimated that the cost to finish the job would actually be another £5000. This was the budget requested after we had obtained all materials quotations and secured the lowest prices on each item. This was signed off by the Italian sponsors. We then needed to plan the tasks and materials purchases according to the budget availability plan.

Throughout the build the time and materials were tracked.

Our biggest challenge was employee responsibility. The original estimates were given to the charity in order that the construction team would win the business. Because there is no formal operating contract here, if the build is not completed on time or the original materials estimate is incorrect, the construction team does not care. Given the complexity of the relationships in the tight communities, firing or the threat of is not an option. The charity will lose out and there is no real leverage on the builders. To avoid any difficult conversations, the builders would rather lie about

deliverables knowing there will be little or no consequence to them when we discover they are very wrong. Above left, the classrooms approx 3 weeks after we arrived. Above right, the classrooms just before we left (2 weeks before completion).

     

School Fees Administration

When we arrived, the school children that were sponsored received subsidised tuition. All pupils made a form of payment to the school for lessons (approx £4 per month for non-sponsored children, £2 for sponsored). As the record sheets for payments were all paper based, it was impossible to track payments and debts. In order to implement a computer based tracker for the fees we first needed to improve the spreadsheet skills of the two administrators.

Following this we developed with them a tracker for the fees. We discovered that the school was approximately £7000 in debt to unpaid school fees. After further investigation it was discovered that some of these children had left the school and their due fees were still being falsely recorded as due. Therefore the debt was much lower than first thought. The parents of the offending children were followed up and the majority of the outstanding debt was collected. However, this process had actually uncovered another couple of issues with the overall system. It was possible for children to leave the school without the management's knowledge; it was possible for some children to start school without ever paying fees or being tracked and it was possible for children to have large debt for months or years without being followed up. Improvements to this process in the following section.

The main difficulty with this activity was that we do not realise in our daily lives how much we know about IT and take for granted. When trying to teach someone the fundamentals of computers, it is difficult to step back in to the shoes of someone who does not use or understand the fundamentals.

School Admissions Process

The above issues were identified with the fees process along with others for admission: it was possible for children to be mixed up if they have the same names and it is possible for children to change their names. Therefore we realised it was necessary to implement an admission number process. This would be used for the administration of the child while they are attending the school.

Along with the head teachers and administration staff we digitised the student photos with new admission numbers included; created new admission/sponsorship forms to reflect the new process; created a communications process for feedback to the Italian sponsors and reinforced several school processes and policies.

New Photo Format with ID included

Hospital Digitisation

Before we arrived, all the patient records and drug stocktaking was paper based. The charity had expressed a desire to computerise the records and stock system for ease of operation.

  The initial stage of this was again to train the main operative in the fundamentals of Word; excel and computers in general. These new skills were then used together to formulate a process for recording patient treatments and the stock system for the hospital.

Picture below of Dee (the founder of Rainbow) with her adopted son Harry. He has foetal alcohol syndrome which means he has numerous physical and mental problems, the most obvious of which being his arms.

 

To the far right  in the picture below is a pupil who was housed at the orphanage and schooled at Rainbow. She has moved on to secondary school and is in first position in her year.  Her friends are admiring her exam results.