Today was the second day of the partnership workshop with the Somalia country team. Similar to yesterday, we broke into pairs to brainstorm strategies which gave me an opportunity to work with each team member of the Somalia Country Team. It also gave me an opportunity to discuss my interests and skills in development, such as youth and livelihood and monitoring and evaluation. With the majority of the team being Muslim,our lunch break today was two hours for Friday prayer service. I used the time speaking to the governance program manager from the London office who unveiled to me how the system of paying technical advisors creates barriers to programs within the organization working togeyther such education and health. Each program has a technical adivsor, however, as we know it no one development initiative is limited to only the education and livelihood program. I find this to be systematic issue with many NGOs and believe it prevents a program or project from reaching its full potential. I will give concrete examples as my research expands.
I shared a taxi with the deputy director of the Somalia program to my friend's place and because it was rush hour we had plenty time to talk. I politely inquired about the DDP's family unaware that it would turn into a conversation about family planning. The DDP has 8 children and informed that for the first two years of a marriage according to his customs, the couple are allowed to preform the "natural" mode of birth control which is the pulling out method. I successfully managed to stop him from going into details and I politely said that I am a proponent of birth control options such as condoms, pills, etc. He was understanding of our different beliefs yet I was happy that we had reached my stop and I no longer had to clamp my mouth shut about the relationship between East Africa's ridiculous high birth rate and quality of life.
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