pre-departure training - week 3

Sorry for the lack of updates. Pre-departure training has been quite intense and has kept me on my toes. We are entering our third week here at the EWB house in Toronto (near Dundas and Bathurst). Time really flies by. In less than two weeks, I will be off to Zambia for a year.

My wonderful pre-dep training friends/colleagues/fellow change-agents include:

• Robin Stratas (former UWindsor Chapter) who will be heading to Ghana with their Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA),


• Ashley Good (professional) who will also be heading to Ghana with MoFA,


• Troy Barrie (former UBC Chapter) who will also be heading to Ghana with MoFA,


• Charles Cauchon (former LavalU Chapter) who will be heading to Burkina Faso and working with CEF,


• Noémie Paradis (former LavalU Chapter) who will also be heading to Burkina Faso and working with CEF,


• and myself Arthur Kong (Toronto Pro-Chapter, former UWaterloo Chapter) will be heading to Zambia to work with IDE (International Development Enterprises) in the Agricultural Value Chains sector on agricultural irrigation product market facilitation.

Working, living, sleeping and learning with all these folks have definitely helped me focus. To no one's suprise, each and every single one of them are extremely intelligent, knowledgable, ambitious, and supportive. EWB definitely chooses the right people to go overseas. It's definitely not for the faint of heart.

The past three weeks have been filled with challenging assignments, case studies, projects, and personal learning. I compare the work that we've been doing to work done by management consultants in Toronto: we are given a big pile of ambiguous data or case studies, then we use the problem-solving frameworks, our creativity, and our analytical thinking to draft up an intervention/solution, and then present our ideas and thought processes to important stakeholders. However, with all the case studies being in the context of international development, it adds an extra dimension of complexity and challenge. Creating positive impact for those living in poverty in developing nations has been a challenge for even the most well-known and talented development workers and change agents. There is no simple equation, and nor is there a "right" answer. Livelihoods are complex and are dynamic in nature. Quoting Robert Chambers,

"Objectivity in the social sciences is regarded as a mirage. Post-positivism, constructivism, and post-modernism variously stress the limitations of the "scientific" method in the social sciences, holding that objectivity is not possible and that we have multiple realities, each of us constructing our own." - Robert Chambers (Whose Reality Counts? - Putting the First Last, 1997)

After working in the engineering-design industry for over 2 years, I noticed myself lacking in such deep analytical and creative thinking skills. After many years of applying equations and stadardized designs to the worlds technical engineering problems, this new intiative with Engineers Without Borders will definitely help push me out of my usual comfort zone.

I will write more about the details of my overseas placement in my next blog post. Stay tuned!