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Lessons for life

We catch up with former Development Worker, Caroline Horne

Caroline Horne volunteered with International Service from 2004 to 2006.  She now manages a charity called Cecily’s Fund which supports children in Zambia who have been affected by HIV and AIDS.

She tells us about her time overseas, and how her experience as a development worker helped her get where she is today…

Tell us about your placement with International Service’s partner in Burkina Faso. What was your role?

I worked with an organisation called Handicap Solidaire (which means Solidarity with Disability). They are an organisation for physically disabled people based in Ouagadougou – the capital of Burkina Faso.

At the time I worked there, its activities included literacy classes and numeracy training; training in photography, sewing, music, drawing, and computing; welding workshops in which disabled tricycles were produced; providing crafts-people with access to markets through a shop and the fair trade markets in Switzerland; support for disabled musicians to release albums and tour Europe; microfinance programmes to enable disabled people and their families to start income-generating activities; and disability sports competitions such as basketball, table tennis, and wheel chair track events.

My role was ‘Fundraising Capacity Builder’. This meant providing support in the areas of fundraising, project management, and monitoring and evaluation. In reality it involved sharing all sorts of skills which I hadn’t even considered myself to have until then.

a wheelchair basketball match in progress

Can you describe a typical day?

Depending on the weather, I would arrive at the office on my bike anywhere between half past seven and nine. Personal greetings are an inherently important part of Burkinabe culture, as in many African countries, and this is how the day began.

In any one day I might work with my closest co-worker on a project proposal, on the organisation’s strategy, or on developing and refining project management tools. I would also work with Mariam, the secretary, to develop her skills in book-keeping.

Most people in Burkina Faso go home for the lunch siesta period. For the physically disabled people with whom I worked this was not usually feasible, but siesta-time was taken seriously nonetheless. I was renowned for working through the siesta period, although I did eventually succumb and would find a corner to take a nap.

I was involved in a project to develop craft people’s skills. Preparation work involved conducting a study of the needs of disabled artisans, identifying the communities in which we would work, and interviewing and selecting participants. We were on the road a lot of the time, visiting the different localities in which the project was taking place.

What made you want to volunteer and become a Development Worker?

I had wanted to work in some capacity in international development since the age of 14 - long before I knew there was a term to describe it. Despite being advised by the school’s career department that I could never make a career out of charitable work in a developing country, I persisted and spent all of my holidays volunteering in the UK and in Africa.

Before taking up my overseas placement, I was working for the British charity the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) in the corporate fundraising department. I was fortunate to have an excellent manager who supported me to develop my skills, and I built up my knowledge of deaf issues and disability rights.

When I saw an article about International Service in the Third Sector magazine, I looked on their website and couldn’t believe it when I saw a Development Worker job for a Fundraising Capacity Builder to work with a disability organisation in West Africa - the job description seemed to have been written with me in mind!

What did you learn during your experience?

I learned the language in Ouagadougou, which was invaluable for communicating with disabled people and also helped me integrate with friends and neighbours. Through the language, I gained an incredible insight into the people and their values.

I learnt that whilst human rights are - and should be - international, people’s perspectives on them depend on a number of factors. I arrived convinced of the importance of preventing disabled people from begging at traffic lights. The more time I spent with disabled people, the more I realised that I could not box people into categories - many people who were begging chose to because it was the most profitable activity in a society of high unemployment.

The most rewarding experience was seeing the impact that a little bit of support, effort and joint working could have on individual people. For example, seeing the face of Irene, a disabled girl who had always worked for someone else, on the day we opened her sewing workshop complete with signboard and sewing machine; and greeting three of our disabled athletes at the airport as they returned from a disabled sports competition in Belgium, and hearing their genuine surprise at having met people in the West facing similar challenges to them.

Caroline and the team at Handicap Solidaire

What is the most important thing you learned as a Development Worker?

There is no financial motivation in volunteering, you have to be driven by the work you are doing. And you inevitably have preconceptions about what you will find and what you will achieve. You gain an incredible amount as a volunteer - just as much as you give, if not more. I think this is the most important lesson to learn. It is an incredible learning experience for the person involved.

The experience of working as a Development Worker in Burkina Faso was really a break for me in terms of my career. I now run an international charity which supports over eight and a half thousand vulnerable children in Zambia. I would not have even been considered for this position without the experience of being a Development Worker and of working directly with a local NGO.