Day 2 update - Building a better working world in Shigar, Pakistan....building trust in the community

First off, I have to start with the picture of my breakfast, not the food, but the view...it's breathtaking! 

In fact, being here has made me realize how quickly we focus on the task in hand rather than taking time to appreciate the wonderful world we live in (the classic consulting phrase - 'the bigger picture') but actually, it's so true. We're fine tuned to block out the white noise and focus on the task, but maybe we're missing out...today I've tried to take the time to take in the amazing surroundings as you'll see from the photos below.

I was already excited about today, because it was our first chance to visit the local schools and meet the school children. I've often thought of being a teacher, but financially once you've entered into the business world, it's a tough decision to move...so the prospect of teaching here was one of the things I was most excited about. 

Walking through the town, you just soak up the atmosphere, although still greeted by confused faces, the kids are now waving each time they see us! Our first stop today at the local health centre brought me back to reality. I realized that the most basic parts of my life are now not even thought about. The prospect of going to the hospital and it not being able to treat me because of a lack of blood, lack of beds, lack of proper facilities isn't on my radar. But here it's a reality. The set-up is fairly rudimentary, the town has very few doctors, in this centre, there is 1. It was full of mothers with their young children. It's always hard to see children in pain, but seeing this along side a facility of this level compounded the emotional impact it had on me. The good news here is that things are getting better in Shigar. The Doctor showed us the infection and illness rates for the last 5 years, which is falling. Those of you old enough to have had to produce a presentation before Powerpoint would have liked it....a colored stacked bar chart on squared paper, It took me back to maths classes at school! 

Our first school visit today, a Government, all girls school. Greeted by a large group of young girls, communicating with them was a challenge. They were incredibly shy, especially the older classes. After a few basic questions, some sharing that we didn't actually know anything about physics and a lot of smiling, we did manage to start communicating with them, and the 8th grade Science class

were most outgoing, with the top student reciting Newton's theory of Relativity to us - no idea if it was right, but sounded convincing to me. The school itself still looked like the building work wasn't finished, although I expect it was. It is a reset of expectations being here but also a reset of what's actually required. The classrooms are basic but functional, a room with chairs and a board. No technology, little interactivity - I just kept thinking, imagine if they had a projector and You Tube...maybe something we can help with and educate them around how to use the internet, we'll have to see. Although the books are in English, the teaching I observed was in Urdu mainly with a scattering of English words. I'd been told that many of the teachers struggle with their own English language and tomorrow we're meeting all the teachers to plan a staff training for them - this should give a better insight into the challenges they have. Funnily enough, for the first time my English accent caused a problem with one teacher, who said, 'I can't understand your accent, can you speak in Pakistani English?'. 

The second school was a short drive away, we left the girls school in the middle of the town and travelled about 5 minutes through the fields to the next school. Wow. It hit me again. This place is absolutely stunning...just look at this view I took on our journey to the school...breathtaking.

This school is privately funded and straight away there is a difference in appearance with manicured gardens, flowers and trees surrounding the school building and playing field. Today was about meeting the kids and teachers and building trust, in preparation for us to begin teaching them from Monday onwards - as a team we'd had a few discussions about how we should build this trust, but with the constant language barrier proving a challenge for the non lingual ones of us, it has to be through experiences that we build a connection. 

Sport is such a fantastic way to break down barriers and connect with people and we arrived during the sports day. All the children were in immaculate uniform (they are in the cover picture), surrounding the pitch, with both boys and girls watching the activities. We were greeted by the headmaster who showed us to our seats on the touchline and again were greeted by a collection of eyes and a muttering of 'who are they' (my interpretation of their urdu discussions*). There was again the same atmosphere i'd experienced yesterday at the Polo match...a real sense of encouragement and positivity flowing throughout the students. First we had a ball skills demonstration from one of the team, who proceeded to juggle a ball on his head and back whilst removing and replacing his T-Shirt! Impressive!

We then watched the football final between this school and another school in the town, cheered on by their peers from both sides of the pitch. This could have been a scene from a school anywhere in the world, apart from that they played the match in the heat, wearing full uniform and ties! 

Given that we were chosen for a leadership program, it would be fair to say there is some competitive spirit among the 6 of us on this trip. Given this, it only seemed right that the best way to integrate ourselves with the teachers who be to have a game of 5v5 football against them! It was incredible and worked out to be an amazing ice-breaker and way to connect. They didn't go easy on us and they definitely had the crowd on their side, with the students cheering and hollering every kick of the ball. Even with super-sub, the local Policeman coming on in the second half, they won 3-2 (Zeeshan says we let them win to help with the trust building!). We ended in the school with a presentation of the trophies and group photo - looking at this again, the scenery once again makes me speechless.

The afternoon was spent meeting with the local non-profit agencies. They have a huge amount of projects underway, but the challenge is to try and understand how these are coordinated (if they are), how they are being run, what the expected outcomes are and how they are measured. This is a typical consulting way of looking at things, with a very untypical organization and team of staff...but, if we are looking for longer term sustainable change, this has to be a key element of making that change sustainable. They have a number of operational and governance roles across the community and with decisions being made on where to invest funds, it has to be linked to real, tangible, measurable outcomes - at this stage, I can't say how much that's the case, there is a significant amount of work underway, but is it the right work, we need to find out.

The evening was spent partly with the principal of the school we will be teaching in, discussing our plans for teaching. We're trying not to replicate what's being taught but bring some different approaches and methods of teaching into the school. A heavy focus on interaction and engagement through activities such as drama (i'm in my element!) and also trying to minimize the need for lots of English communication. 

After our showing on the football pitch earlier today, it seems we made an impression and we had a call from the local 11 a side football team captain, inviting us to his father's house to meet him and talk about the upcoming match on Saturday. The prospect of scoring the winning goal at the Shigar cup on Sunday meant Zeeshan couldn't contain his excitement! The captain's father turned out to be the recently retired head of health services for the whole region, a doctor of 40 years, trained in Leeds in the UK! Meeting him was a great experience, he has created a museum about his family (who ruled Shigar in the 1800s) and has a number of artifacts dating back over 250 years, including original, hand written and designed copies of the Koran - quite an incredible sight and an amazing look into the history of the region and my personal favorite, 200 year old guns produced in Shigar. His view was that education was key, but primarily it should be focused on nutrition. It appears that a lack of iron and iodine in the diet cause a number of health issues. He has authored books and leaflets explaining this and what's needed, but the problem still remains - so it's another thing for us to think about in the school education.

Today was all about building bridges and creating connections - we successfully achieved this. We also found more and more challenges and looking forward, our own challenge is going to be to focus on the areas we can have the most impact both now and over the longer term. On a personal level, I'm overwhelmed with the friendship and hospitality shown to us. Throughout the day, people have gone out of there way to make us feel welcomed...the basic human connection, even without language is so powerful and a smile can say a thousand words and touch you in a way that words just can't. 

Day 1 update here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/day-1-update-building-better-working-world-shigar-my-alex-collins 

Day 2 update here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/day-2-update-building-better-working-world-shigar-trust-collins 

Day 3 update here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/integrating-community-day-3-update-building-better-working-collins 

Day 4 update here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/creating-memories-day-4-update-building-better-working-alex-collins 

Day 5 update here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/instilling-passion-day-5-update-building-better-working-collins 

Day 6 update here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/creative-imaginations-day-6-update-building-better-working-collins 

Day 7 update here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/bonding-together-day-7-update-building-better-working-alex-collins 

Day 8-10 update here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/time-explore-day-8-10-eid-update-building-better-working-collins 

Day 11 update here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/snow-women-entrepreneurs-day-11-12-building-better-working-collins?trk=pulse_spock-articles