The Interdisciplinary Chronicles 118

Engaging in volunteer work?provides you with a sense of purpose and fulfillment. It allows you to grow personally by stepping out of your comfort zone and challenging yourself to make a difference.

At the end of my orientation process at SNV, I choose to volunteer in the livelihood program. This was motivated by a couple of reasons; firstly the program was implementing a project on non-timber forest products livelihood value chain development and my village of origin was a target because of the Oku While Honey Value Chain; a typical livelihood value chain which has now become of international interest as far as cloud mountain forest conservation is concerned as well as indigenous practices. Secondly, I had the opportunity to work with an expatriate in order to increase my intercultural competences. My immediate supervisor who was the head of the program was an expatriate from Asia. By spending a lot of time working with others and using social skills, like active listening and relationship management, I had the opportunity to develop my future personal and business relationships during my stay at SNV.

My volunteering at SNV gave me a chance to talk to new people and sharpen my social skills. I acquired the knowledge and competences to start up the process of developing an application file for registration of a nonprofit association in Cameroon while providing me with access to a network of other organizations from which I could learn from. ?I had access to archives so I could study the administrative files submitted by different local NGOs seeking for meaningful partnerships. This gave me an orientation on how to develop a complete application file for legalization of an association and what internal guiding policies were relevant to the growth and sustainability of nonprofit organizations. I also prepared questionnaires for scoping studies and participated in field visits to administer the tools in order to get data and information for a report to hierarchy for decision-making. This took me to over 10 communities and 2 regions in Cameroon. A local NGO was assigned to work with us in the process and I took the opportunity to ask questions to their lead. I also made contacts with many other organizations in the field. By the time my service was midway gone, I had resolved not to be disconnected to such a network. I requested to be redeployed to my village community. It was a great opportunity for me to also serve people from my very own roots.