I’m learning a lot, really, a lot of things. As I said before, I’m learning about the different cultures, especially the Malawian culture. I’m learning about the world of NGOs. My biggest learning from the project and for me personally, it’s really that there’s more to run an NGO and an NGO well.

You need 2 different skills. They need really 2 different skill types. Skill type one is be good at your core business. Looking at YAIO which is supporting young people, setting them up for the path to success, and that’s something that they’re already very good at. That is skill, skill type one.  Skill type 2 is all about organizational development and being able to run an organization and being able to cope with all the paperwork, cope with all the administration that it’s necessary to receive funding. And those are 2 very different skill types. And we do expect NGOs to have both in order to succeed.

But the NGOs that are only doing one so are only delivering very valuable work to the community, but they’re not managing to do all the paperwork and administration and all the things that are necessary to receive the money from the big donors. They get left behind. And I think that’s a learning and an opportunity as well what I want to focus on in the future.