From the Field

Here’s a picture I took en route to Tchintabaraden...only in Niger, huh?

I’ve been out in the field since last Saturday visiting the regional offices where CARE is distributing food rations to villages. At this time, CARE’s response to the food crisis is limited to the regions of Tahoua, Maradi, Zinder, and Diffa. In Tahoua, Maradi, and Diffa they are distributing food rations supplied by World Food Program and Niger’s government. In addition to the distribution, in Tahoua and Zinder CARE is opening feeding stations in select villages to aid moderately malnourished children. There are other NGOs who are also distributing food rations, but in terms of scale of operation and the number of people served, CARE’s operation is among the largest. They might have an advantage over other NGOs because they have been working in Niger for such a long time and already have a lot of resources on the ground and built up capacity in their staff. Also, being a large NGO with a worldwide presence, they can call upon experts from other field offices to help. I’ve met CARE employees and contractors on loan from CARE USA, CARE Germany, CARE France, and CARE Haiti.

So far, my primary role has been getting CARE’s field reporting operational. I’ve spent most of my time in front of a computer working with the various forms and reports that CARE is obligated to produce to satisfy the donors who are helping fund its operations, as well as to document and evaluate its actions during this period. Not very sexy, but I feel like I’m playing an important role. (Kristen wrote in an email that she was glad I’m doing important work; she would be pissed if I was just running the XEROX machine.) I have another week or so to go in this tour of field offices before I head back to Niamey. Once all the reporting tools are finalized, I’m looking forward to my secondary role: writing qualitative narratives, collected from the field, about the beneficiaries touched by CARE.

I've stolen some time to get this posted and now I have to relinquish the precious VSAT connection for some real work, so I'll sign off now. I'll try to post more soon.