“If you are inefficient, you have a right to be afraid of the consequences.”
― Murad S. Shah
My IDRP project was to take place in Sri Lanka with Habitat for Humanity. The organization was founded in 1976 by Millard and Linda Fuller. It is a non-profit Christian Ministry which strives to assist those living below the poverty line in terms of housing. Its office in Sri Lanka was born in 1995 and has had 20 years of experience working in the development sector as a major actor in the housing industry. It has provided houses to those victims of the tsunami of 2005 and also continues to assist those affected by the 30 year conflict that plagues the small island nation. Reading all about the inspiring work they were involved in I was excited to say the least to begin by 40 day journey with them.
Upon arriving at the Habitat for Humanity Sri Lanka head office for my first day at the office I was startled to find that no one there seemed to know I was coming and the lady I had been interviewed by and on contact with would not be arriving for an hour at the very least. I was asked to sit by the entrance and wait. My first question was in an office as small as this how was it possible not to know about new recruits? Was there no communication amongst the staff? Surely there must be some system to keep employees aware of organizational changes etc. As the hour went by I was at the receiving end of several suspicious looks util Anjali the head of the Resource Development unit and my new boss turned up. I was ushered In to the conference room given a five minute introduction in to the organization and then given a list of tasks to complete one of which was to compile a list of past projects for the website they would be relaunching. I asked her where I should be looking for this information and expected a straightforward answer but instead was given a few names of people to talk to. Eager as I was I went over to the first name on the list as asked for any and all information and was told extremely bluntly that he stopped collating information on the projects because no one seemed interested so he had nothing in terms of archives of any old project which came under his purview. This went on for the rest of the day and I was left shocked. How did an organization manage to be accountable and transparent without a system information collection. This was not an organization which came into existence a month ago but had been around since 1995 did they not see the importance of information storage for future reference and use?
This brought me to questions regarding the organization’s effectiveness in the face of such clear inefficiency.
Most NGO organizations have a system of archiving. It is not merely to have a track of all past projects but also so that they might refer back utilize successful methodologies previously implemented or learn from past mistakes. Habitat for Humanity showcased a severe lack interest in this regard as they had for the past twenty year of existence not considered a document storage system a priority. In the case of present projects information was scare and often the head of project management had but one copy of Mous and past assessment and monitoring reports. All this and it was just week one. To say I was afraid of what was to come could only be described inadequately so as an understatement.