Sunday, May 27, 2007
Photos
Ive added a link to my photos. Find it to the right in the links sections. I hope you enjoy them.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Its 15 degrees in Punta Arenas - Is it a sign?
This Morning in Punta Arenas it started like any other. It was still dark, it was cold and it was windy. I drove like a maniac to get to the Policia Internacional to be the first of the day at the office to hand in my visa application and had to wait while they were having their coffee. After that i sent the application full of letters saying how great i am, and of course the necessary documentation. On the way back i noticed the thermometer in the car....and can you believe it was 15 degrees C. That's summer weather!
Anyway, back to work. Carine arrived. She arrived on Saturday after experiencing Murphy´s Law first hand, but she was still happy to be here. After some introduction talks, we have defined some of the things she will be doing for us. She is an HR person, so we hope to take advantage of this knowledge. For a start i have now got 4 applicants for the PW coordinator position. One from Chile, one from Colombia, one from Brazil and one from Belgium.....you might know him......
Based on this Carine and I are working towards a profile which we will then compare to the presented curriculum's. The idea is to make a standardized process for this. Carine will be taking this forward and then at the end of her stay we hope to have some kind of HR plan. Her presence should also help us develop our roles better, and define the minimum required HR at organizational level. To this end we now have an HR department!
We are busy looking through the business plans of SERCOTEC. There are 479 of them....so that's a lot! Initially there are some innovative ideas, but most are classical in terms of what product the entrepreneur wants to develop. There are some ideas from Williams but for ethical reasons Marnix will evaluate them!
We recently also received an email from CORFO. They are interested in talking to us about the project that was taken forward by the MF team. Ill keep you informed.
On a personal note, Andres is busy packing his stuff as he and murielle are moving to Santiago on Friday. This will be the end of an era in which he put a lot of effort into doing things for the people of Puerto Williams. I think its a shame he is leaving, but i can also understand that it may be time to move on.
On an even more personal note, Alejandra is also in Puerto Williams and she is also packing her things. Yes, she decided to close Hostal Coiron for good. This is also a shame, but she felt that she had reached an imaginary ceiling there. She couldn't do much else, so she preferred to try her luck in the same business but in Punta Arenas. Now we can also be together!
Anyway, back to work. Carine arrived. She arrived on Saturday after experiencing Murphy´s Law first hand, but she was still happy to be here. After some introduction talks, we have defined some of the things she will be doing for us. She is an HR person, so we hope to take advantage of this knowledge. For a start i have now got 4 applicants for the PW coordinator position. One from Chile, one from Colombia, one from Brazil and one from Belgium.....you might know him......
Based on this Carine and I are working towards a profile which we will then compare to the presented curriculum's. The idea is to make a standardized process for this. Carine will be taking this forward and then at the end of her stay we hope to have some kind of HR plan. Her presence should also help us develop our roles better, and define the minimum required HR at organizational level. To this end we now have an HR department!
We are busy looking through the business plans of SERCOTEC. There are 479 of them....so that's a lot! Initially there are some innovative ideas, but most are classical in terms of what product the entrepreneur wants to develop. There are some ideas from Williams but for ethical reasons Marnix will evaluate them!
We recently also received an email from CORFO. They are interested in talking to us about the project that was taken forward by the MF team. Ill keep you informed.
On a personal note, Andres is busy packing his stuff as he and murielle are moving to Santiago on Friday. This will be the end of an era in which he put a lot of effort into doing things for the people of Puerto Williams. I think its a shame he is leaving, but i can also understand that it may be time to move on.
On an even more personal note, Alejandra is also in Puerto Williams and she is also packing her things. Yes, she decided to close Hostal Coiron for good. This is also a shame, but she felt that she had reached an imaginary ceiling there. She couldn't do much else, so she preferred to try her luck in the same business but in Punta Arenas. Now we can also be together!
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Have i got news for you
The other day marnix and i decided to apply to take forward the evaluation of the business ideas, and subsequent evaluation of business plans for SERCOTEC´s program of Capital Semilla. I think you all may remember this program. For those in natales it is the program that JJ was always talking about, and in Williams you may remember the SERCOTEC consultants walking around now and then checking up on people like Cecila Mancilla. Basically, SERCOTEC is a government tool focused on business service development for micro enterprise. It is a subsidy that can reach 8000 US$ for start ups or scale ups.
Well, we uploaded our bid to ChileCompra....and got the damn thing! So, what does this mean. Basically we are going to evaluate approximately 400 business ideas from the region, and then based on a selection made by the regional government, evaluate the remaining business plans! Pretty cool hey! We have to see how much work it really is, but it makes us some money....although we accidentally undervalued ourselves...(well....marnix did - but its a learning experience).
Also this week, i made a bold, not bald, decision to visit Mr. J. Vasquez of Lakutaia. I did this to see whether they would be interested in sponsoring one student in Puerto Williams. This in return for direct, or ¨free¨ work for Lakutaia in the themes of our interest. He thought about it and then agreed to it. What the volunteer would be doing is taking forward the day to day of a program based on local micro enterprise development. This is also great as i discussed how indirectly it would also be supporting Enviu because of what i said in one of my first posts. Next step would be to develop the position, and i think it may be a good idea to sign some kind of contract.
So....not a bad week so far....
Well, we uploaded our bid to ChileCompra....and got the damn thing! So, what does this mean. Basically we are going to evaluate approximately 400 business ideas from the region, and then based on a selection made by the regional government, evaluate the remaining business plans! Pretty cool hey! We have to see how much work it really is, but it makes us some money....although we accidentally undervalued ourselves...(well....marnix did - but its a learning experience).
Also this week, i made a bold, not bald, decision to visit Mr. J. Vasquez of Lakutaia. I did this to see whether they would be interested in sponsoring one student in Puerto Williams. This in return for direct, or ¨free¨ work for Lakutaia in the themes of our interest. He thought about it and then agreed to it. What the volunteer would be doing is taking forward the day to day of a program based on local micro enterprise development. This is also great as i discussed how indirectly it would also be supporting Enviu because of what i said in one of my first posts. Next step would be to develop the position, and i think it may be a good idea to sign some kind of contract.
So....not a bad week so far....
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Sambal Telor
I have come to see that in Chile, a simple ¨I'm sorry¨ is not easy to come by. Because of my lawyer, the process of legalizing our foundation in Chile has been delayed by 5 months. I was finally able to see him, and do you think he said that. Well, no, he didn't. He just said that he had ¨trusted¨ the system too much. What he is actually referring to is that he expected the process would be slow, so he didn't bother to check in the ministry of Justice whether the process was going or not! Well, issue is that they are getting the necessary papers to see why the process stopped.
We met up with CONAMA this week. We presented the waste management results from both PW and PN. Although the presentation and following meeting went well, i got the impression that these guys were not overflowing with ideas. Well, maybe they just keep them to themselves. Even so, we also discussed the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve, and the need to fortify the community participation component. As at the moment it is not so well developed and the whole concept of participatory policy development is not really being implemented.
I also reformulated the position for the coordinator role in PW. For your perusing it can be found using this link. This was distributed via Enviu NL, but also via the network of Fundacion Prohumana in Santiago. I have an applicant already from Chile.
Some other meetings were taken forward with the regional coordinator of the national network of volunteers. This was interesting although it seems that the network in the XII region is not so active. I also wanted to meet with Sergio Lausic from the university of Magallanes, but unfortunately he did not show up....what can i say.
For the moment it does not seem as if we will be able to get restarted by July. It looks like it will be september at the earliest. Although we had quite a lot of applications, the most enthusiastic ones have changed their plans unfortunately. But, well, the positions are still there, so if you know anyone just go to the Enviu website and check them out.
This week i received a great package from Holland! It was full of spices to make Indonesian food, and a recipe for Sambal Telor! Woopi!
We met up with CONAMA this week. We presented the waste management results from both PW and PN. Although the presentation and following meeting went well, i got the impression that these guys were not overflowing with ideas. Well, maybe they just keep them to themselves. Even so, we also discussed the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve, and the need to fortify the community participation component. As at the moment it is not so well developed and the whole concept of participatory policy development is not really being implemented.
I also reformulated the position for the coordinator role in PW. For your perusing it can be found using this link. This was distributed via Enviu NL, but also via the network of Fundacion Prohumana in Santiago. I have an applicant already from Chile.
Some other meetings were taken forward with the regional coordinator of the national network of volunteers. This was interesting although it seems that the network in the XII region is not so active. I also wanted to meet with Sergio Lausic from the university of Magallanes, but unfortunately he did not show up....what can i say.
For the moment it does not seem as if we will be able to get restarted by July. It looks like it will be september at the earliest. Although we had quite a lot of applications, the most enthusiastic ones have changed their plans unfortunately. But, well, the positions are still there, so if you know anyone just go to the Enviu website and check them out.
This week i received a great package from Holland! It was full of spices to make Indonesian food, and a recipe for Sambal Telor! Woopi!
Monitoring & Evaluation
This is pretty heavy topic. As a new NGO it has become necessary to create the framework within which we want to work. Although this is quite similar to the one of Enviu in the Netherlands it is important to stipulate our road map for both internal and external purposes. Bit by bit we are trying to finish this for the end of the month. The mission and vision have been formulated, we have written up our geographical focus areas, our approach and we have stipulated 4 organizational objectives. Based on this we have formulated our core business.
Now its time to see whether this can be evaluated or monitored. What will be the impact. Although i think it is fairly straight forward to set up some simple qualitative and quantitative measurables, i am not so sure what they will say about the effectiveness or impact of the program. I want to know this, and would not feel comfortable without having at least some idea about it. Can this be measured? I have looked through a lot of NGO websites to get some inspiration, but have found that none really mention how they monitor their activities.
What i did find was some literature on the topic which has been useful so far. For a start i have seen that we all face the same issue. Secondly, this is the topic a large amounts of research and investigation, thirdly, there are many different proposed methods. The best literature i have found come from the big institutions like USAid, and the following interesting website; www.mande.co.uk.
At first glance it seems that we have to design two levels of monitoring and evaluation. The first responds to the objectives, and if we are reaching our objectives. The second responds to our impact. The latter is a little more difficult to measure although initial indications recommend a scorecard system which will allow for comparison over time. In both cases it is important that the evaluation process is participatory in that it include our stakeholders and a consensus is found between opinions. This is actually how our last evaluation was taken forward about a year ago.
Ok, well ill keep going and see what i come up with.
Now its time to see whether this can be evaluated or monitored. What will be the impact. Although i think it is fairly straight forward to set up some simple qualitative and quantitative measurables, i am not so sure what they will say about the effectiveness or impact of the program. I want to know this, and would not feel comfortable without having at least some idea about it. Can this be measured? I have looked through a lot of NGO websites to get some inspiration, but have found that none really mention how they monitor their activities.
What i did find was some literature on the topic which has been useful so far. For a start i have seen that we all face the same issue. Secondly, this is the topic a large amounts of research and investigation, thirdly, there are many different proposed methods. The best literature i have found come from the big institutions like USAid, and the following interesting website; www.mande.co.uk.
At first glance it seems that we have to design two levels of monitoring and evaluation. The first responds to the objectives, and if we are reaching our objectives. The second responds to our impact. The latter is a little more difficult to measure although initial indications recommend a scorecard system which will allow for comparison over time. In both cases it is important that the evaluation process is participatory in that it include our stakeholders and a consensus is found between opinions. This is actually how our last evaluation was taken forward about a year ago.
Ok, well ill keep going and see what i come up with.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Proposals, and some bad news
So i don't mean to be a downer for you guys but this week has brought me some bad news. The first one is related to the formalization of Enviu in Chile, and the other has to do with Andres.
I got in contact with the Ministry of Justice last week and found out that the process of formalization, or getting the Personalidad Juridica, was actually stopped the 12.12.06. This is due to the fact that they had sent a letter with observations about our application to our lawyer, and he never responded. This is strange as the little contact i had with my lawyer was actually after this, and he didn't say anything. What a bastard. At the moment i am trying to see how we can get the process going again!
the news about andres is that he decided that he is leaving at the end of May. He was going to leave at the beginning of July, but his trip to Santiago changed all that. This does have implications for me at least, and maybe even our work in Puerto Williams. I need a replacement pretty fast. Initially i have sent wouter a position to distribute through his network in Europe, and i sen the same position to Fundacion Prohumana in Santiago to do the same within Chile. I hope we get someone.
Besides that i met up with the director of INETEC in Punta Arenas. This is a new incubator for business ideas that is hosted by INACAP and paid for by CORFO. INACAP is a private university network in Chile. I am thinking that we may be able to work together by complimenting each others work, as they are also looking for ideas that respond to the triple bottom line. The next step would seem to come up with a concrete proposal.
I also had some lenghty conversations with SERNATUR, (Servicio Nacional de Turismo). These were pretty good. Klaus was really happy with the copy of National Geographic that i handed to him with the article about us and this region of Chile. After that we discussed the brochures we made, but also the possibility of presenting a project to the BID based on tourism on PW. this is actually not a bad opportunity. Lets see if it develops. For now, we should make a proposal for June.
We also attended a participatory meeting organized by CONAMA in Cerro Castillo. The aim of the meeting was inform and create a dialogue around the quality and use of the Rio Serrano in Torres del Paine. Surprisingly CONAF didn't show up, and neither did the Municipality of Cerro Castillo. Never the less it was a good chance to get to know CONAMA a bit more, and next Wednesday we have meeting with them and present the results of the waste management work done by us.
Also. Carine Hordijk, (a new volunteer), will be arriving the 15th of May.
Well, that's enough about my work! I am well, but it is a bit cold down here. Alejandra is doing well and she is developing a project in tourism her in Punta Arenas. I really hope it works out, as that would mean that we could both stay here...which would actually be really useful.....i cannot tell you how much my productivity has increased since i got a fast Internet connection!
I got in contact with the Ministry of Justice last week and found out that the process of formalization, or getting the Personalidad Juridica, was actually stopped the 12.12.06. This is due to the fact that they had sent a letter with observations about our application to our lawyer, and he never responded. This is strange as the little contact i had with my lawyer was actually after this, and he didn't say anything. What a bastard. At the moment i am trying to see how we can get the process going again!
the news about andres is that he decided that he is leaving at the end of May. He was going to leave at the beginning of July, but his trip to Santiago changed all that. This does have implications for me at least, and maybe even our work in Puerto Williams. I need a replacement pretty fast. Initially i have sent wouter a position to distribute through his network in Europe, and i sen the same position to Fundacion Prohumana in Santiago to do the same within Chile. I hope we get someone.
Besides that i met up with the director of INETEC in Punta Arenas. This is a new incubator for business ideas that is hosted by INACAP and paid for by CORFO. INACAP is a private university network in Chile. I am thinking that we may be able to work together by complimenting each others work, as they are also looking for ideas that respond to the triple bottom line. The next step would seem to come up with a concrete proposal.
I also had some lenghty conversations with SERNATUR, (Servicio Nacional de Turismo). These were pretty good. Klaus was really happy with the copy of National Geographic that i handed to him with the article about us and this region of Chile. After that we discussed the brochures we made, but also the possibility of presenting a project to the BID based on tourism on PW. this is actually not a bad opportunity. Lets see if it develops. For now, we should make a proposal for June.
We also attended a participatory meeting organized by CONAMA in Cerro Castillo. The aim of the meeting was inform and create a dialogue around the quality and use of the Rio Serrano in Torres del Paine. Surprisingly CONAF didn't show up, and neither did the Municipality of Cerro Castillo. Never the less it was a good chance to get to know CONAMA a bit more, and next Wednesday we have meeting with them and present the results of the waste management work done by us.
Also. Carine Hordijk, (a new volunteer), will be arriving the 15th of May.
Well, that's enough about my work! I am well, but it is a bit cold down here. Alejandra is doing well and she is developing a project in tourism her in Punta Arenas. I really hope it works out, as that would mean that we could both stay here...which would actually be really useful.....i cannot tell you how much my productivity has increased since i got a fast Internet connection!
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