After eight months...

When I was participating in the trainings VSO is offering before your placement, they were telling us that the first six to twelve months it is very hard to get anything done. Now that I am in Nigeria for eight months I do definitely agree. The trainings we did with our national volunteers in the first months were nice and useful. But if you look at the higher level, nothing was really happening.

It is only now that I can see things starting to move. On the one hand it is because the ‘oga’s on the top’ of the Ministry are getting more and more aware of the program. They see what is going on and how we try to help them. At the same time, I also see that I start to understand more and more of the program, the Ministry and the situation in Kwara.

I can see more and more challenges in secondary education here, but also more and more possible ways to do something against these challenges. I don’t have the illusion we will solve it all. But if we can solve one problem for a few students, teachers or even one school, that is quite something!

Personally I find it very useful to live as a ‘normal’ Nigerian, in a house with often no light, a street that floods when it rains and so on. I saw a company from Lagos presenting new educational methods to the Ministry this week. Their program looks great, but it needs a digital whiteboard. I have seen quite a few schools in this state, most of them are happy if they have an old-fashioned blackboard and chalk. Many schools have no light, there are no teachers or textbooks. And then you want the Ministry to invest in digital whiteboards and expensive software?

Hopefully, as a VSO volunteer, working very closely together with my Nigerian colleague, we can think about some projects which will really work well, and will be easy to copy to other schools. So, projects which don’t need elaborate technological materials or big investments.

But to make anything happen, we will need more time than the four months my initial contract would still be. So, most likely, I will extend my placement here and stay in Nigeria. This will mean my colleague and I can continue working together on the future of the Nigeria Graduate Volunteer Program, and we can support VSO and the Ministry in developing more projects in the state. To be continued!