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Week 2 has now been and gone and has been a bit more difficult than Week 1. I've finally succumbed to the expected upset stomach, the effects of which are lingering a little longer than originally hoped for. My iPhone stopped working last Saturday so I had to rely on just using the wi-fi at the office to communicate with the wider world, which was fine during office hours but trickier in the evenings. Although the signal is still on, it was necessary to loiter outside and run the risk of being bitten by mosquitoes and other biting flies: my illuminated iPad screen being especially attractive in the gloom! Thankfully, after a few days of frustration, someone took me to the only Apple service centre in Nagpur and a system restore was completed without any problems. That only left the need to buy some more data! All mobile phones in India are prepaid so to buy data you have to physically go to a shop. Fortunately one of the young lads at the compound was able to take me by motorbike to a nearby shop to get this sorted – 165 Rs (about £2) for 1GB. The journey was mainly fine – I had a slight degree of concern when approaching a level crossing whose barrier gates were starting to close - and we just blithely carried on – but then they stopped to let us through! The railway is near the guest house and you can plenty of hooting of horns throughout the day and night – from that I would imagine the barriers are not always effective even when fully down! Although the compound is a pleasant place to be and it’s very handy, for example, to have a walk to work of no more than 150m, I am finding being on campus for days on end a little difficult including at the weekends – so far Saturday has been a working day. Being just outside the city limits means it can be tricky to get taxis to come to the site, so I’m really reliant on someone being available to take me somewhere. Having said that, the Lonely Planet guide to India describes Nagpur as an “isolated city which is well off the tourist track” so I'm not exactly sure where I would go! The guest house is also quiet, especially in the evenings. Mr Barse, the founder has been staying some of the time, but towards the end of the week he had to travel to Mumbai to enrol his adopted daughter Varsha for the next stage of her nursing studies, and so was away for a few days. I’ve been making use of my free time to make inroads into “A Suitable Boy”, Vikram Seth’s family saga set in India just after Partition, and the aforementioned wifi (and a little help from a VPN) meant that I was able to catch up with the televisual highlight of the week, the Great British Bake Off final, courtesy of the BBC iPlayer! As a fellow graduate of Sidney Sussex, Cambridge I was hoping that Andrew would win, but in the end it was difficult to disagree with the choice of Candice as a worthy winner. The work itself has gradually been picking up and I feel as though I'm getting a better idea of where the organisation is at from a financial management perspective. In a few days time, I hope to have drafted an initial financial management development plan to guide the rest of my time with Slum Soccer and, potentially, the work of any future AfID volunteers. It is an exciting time in the life of Slum Soccer, with an increasing number of opportunities to develop their work and it feels an appropriate time for me to be here to help them take stock of where they are and how they can develop further.
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The Slum Soccer compound is based in the village of Bokhara just outside the city boundaries and it has been a surprise to me to find out just how quickly things change from city to country. As soon as you leave the main road out of the city, things soon get fairly rural. Being in the country doesn’t mean a lack of people however – there are many making their way around on foot, working the fields by hand or with ox pulling basic machinery. There are families living under apparently makeshift shelters in the fields next to the campus – and I don’t think they are on a camping trip. Various smells and sights would suggest a degree of open defecation is common. The large guest house where I’m staying is quite uncommon for the local area. The majority of houses are small, basic and appear quite run down. Although I’m enjoying the relative quiet of the location where I’m living and working, it is slightly isolated and it will be good to get out and about to see more of the local area when I can.
The second important event for Slum Soccer in week 1 was the gathering together of staff from both the Nagpur and Chennai (formerly Madras) offices for the first time for two days of team building activities and presentations. The team from Chennai had travelled for 12 hours or more by train to reach Nagpur – a distance of at least 600 miles - which gives a small indication of how large a country India is. The distance appears to cause the usual cross site communication challenges which are familiar to many dispersed organisations. One of the highlights of the two days for me was the opportunity to make short visits to some of the locations near to the Slum Soccer compound where football based sessions are delivered. Two of the sites visited were rurally based – the first in the courtyard of a run down village school, the second on some spare ground on the edge of a village. At both between 15 and 25 children were practising football skills after school. I suppose I had thought of slums as being in the city rather than the country – this may be true - but in India underprivilege and deprivation is not found in the city alone. Speed wasn’t a cause for alarm on this journey – this time in a microvan – rather the state of the roads which quickly deteriorated into narrow, rutted dirt tracks, with a risk in places of getting stuck in the mud! On Thursday it was necessary to travel into the city once again to register at the police headquarters. This time the journey through the traffic was on the back of a motorbike driven by Homkant – together with the scooter the motorbike is the most common form of transport here. It is usual to see two people on a bike but you do also see three people pretty often too – sometimes also with luggage! After a stop at a Xerox shop to get copies of the necessary documents printed, we arrived at the police station to find an empty foreigners desk… not a good sign although I'd already been warned that registration might be a slow process. As it turned out I think we got away fairly lightly after a wait of about 30 minutes - after the necessary amount of studied avoidance, shrugging of shoulders, discussions about how to proceed and apologies for poor service - which seem to be traits common to bureaucracies the world over!! Well it's been a week since I arrived in Nagpur to work with Slum Soccer. There's been a lot to take in, so I’ll just try to relate some of my initial experiences in the next couple of posts.
In terms of getting to work on financial matters it has been a very gentle introduction and a slow start. This was partly because early in the week, there was a lot of activity preparing for and then running a couple of significant events in the life of Slum Soccer, which actually ended up acting as very useful parts of my induction here. On Tuesday evening, Slum Soccer hosted an evening event to mark the recent presentation of the first FIFA diversity award and to celebrate with staff and local supporters. This was held at the International Peace Centre in the centre of Nagpur, about 20 minutes drive from the Slum Soccer compound. The journey there soon made me realise that my arrival from the airport was in fact rather a gentle introduction to the Indian style of driving – which very much seems to be: drive as quickly as you dare in whichever direction you want to go in, hoot your horn to let other road users know you are coming through, and only stop if you really really really have to – and stop at red traffic lights only if a policeman is present and you think he might catch you! Umesh, who brought me from the airport, turned into a racing driver as we made our way in his jeep (known as a “gypsy”) through the early evening traffic into town. I think he was joking as he said he learned to drive from watching the film “Fast and Furious” but the evidence suggested that it could certainly be true! The evening itself was very pleasant and it was nice to meet more of the team, to celebrate their success and to enjoy some delicious food. It was Abhijeet’s birthday so there was also a very elaborate and yummy cake for the guests to enjoy. I was honoured (if slightly embarrassed) to sit with the distinguished guests and to be invited on stage with them for a photo! In addition to various speeches of congratulations and thanks, guests were able to watch some inspiring films about the work of Slum Soccer and a playback of the ceremony held in Manchester in September 2016 at which Abhijeet received the award from the FIFA General Secretary Fatma Samoura. It helped me to see why he was so happy when I met him in Manchester in the evening after the ceremony! So why did I decide to travel to India to spend seven weeks sharing my financial management skills and expertise with the folks at Slum Soccer in Nagpur, India through AfID?
First a few details about myself: after graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in Natural Sciences, I spent a gap year working for a church in Easterhouse, Glasgow in Scotland – one of the most deprived areas in the U.K. I subsequently trained as an ICAEW chartered accountant with Deloitte in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, mainly in delivering audit and risk services to clients in the public sector. As a Christian who follows the God who showed the ultimate in love and service in sending his Son Jesus to die for the sins of those who by nature reject Him i.e. everyone, I have a strong desire to use the gifts and skills I have been given to serve others, whoever they are, and so as my career has progressed I’ve been keen to use my accountancy skills in contexts which seek to fairly directly provide social benefit. Much of my career has been spent in the education sector – first delivering and managing audit services for funding bodies and latterly as a senior manager in the UK Civil Service providing financial management support to large Government education programmes. I also recently became a governor of an outstanding school. Recent circumstances have provided me with an opportunity for a beneficial career break after many solid years of the '9 to 5'. Although I’ve travelled a lot in Europe and visited the USA, I have not been to Africa or Asia before and I felt the opportunity to volunteer overseas through AfID was too good an opportunity to miss before most likely getting back on what can be the treadmill of working life. Shortly after applying to AfID I was provided with a range of interesting opportunities relating to my skills and interests – at a school in Tanzania, at an agricultural enterprise in Kenya and here in India. I chose Slum Soccer because I wanted to see something different to my previous experience, India is known to be a fascinating country and the city of Nagpur appeared to be slightly less remote than rural Africa! I am also a football fan and interested to know how the beautiful game can be used for better ultimate purposes than the money soaked Premier League would suggest is possible! So here I am! I’m pleased to report I arrived safely in Nagpur early on Saturday morning after a long day’s flying with a short stop in Doha. I was surprised by the very large welcoming party which Slum Soccer had put on for me at the airport. There was a crowd of many hundreds of people – at about 3am in the morning – waiting for the flight! Sadly it transpired that this was for a large group of pilgrims on the flight from Mecca rather than for me!
Being probably only the third Western traveller on the flight meant that it wasn’t difficult for Umesh and a couple of other coaches who’d come to pick me up to recognise me, although we had exchanged photos just in case! An interesting 20 minute drive through the deserted streets of Nagpur to get to the Slum Soccer compound ensued – skilfully driven by Umesh – especially to avoid the freely wandering cows on the poorly lit roads. It was interesting to reach for the non existent seat belt too! I’m staying at the guest house on the Slum Soccer site, which is comfortable and very handy for the office, two minutes walk down the road. After a few hours sleep then breakfast, it was straight into a round of introductions. The team are making me feel very welcome, led by Mr Vijay Barse, who started the work which is now Slum Soccer about 15 years ago. His son Abhijeet now leads the day to day work and he and his wife Mahima arrived later in the morning to welcome me too. Slum Soccer hosted a major inter state football tournament for the last couple of days so Mahima led a review meeting with the young coaches to celebrate what went well, review what could be improved and ensure everyone knows what they need to do next. Abhijeet also began to explain how Slum Soccer has grown and what some of the current issues are. I’m looking forward to learning much more about the business in the coming days as we agree what I can do to help during my time here. Welcome to the "Oranges and Tigers" blog! I'm shortly going to be volunteering my skills in financial management to Slum Soccer, an NGO based in India. Slum Soccer uses football as a tool to bring about positive social development in the lives of street dwellers in some of India's biggest cities and my assignment has been arranged by Accounting for International Development (AfID). AfID enables accountants from around the world to offer their skills and expertise on a pro bono basis to small social enterprises which are working to bring about positive changes at grass roots level in developing countries. I'll be based in the city of Nagpur, India. Nagpur is famous for its oranges and is located near to a number of India's top tiger reserves, hence the choice of name for the blog! It's very centrally located, being pretty much equidistant from the east and west coasts and from north to south - in the time of the British Empire, all distances in India were measured from Nagpur. And I expect the weather to be pretty hot and sunny, although I'm assured that this is the best/ coolest time of the year for me to visit! This will be my first trip to India and I'm looking forward to learning lots of new things as I experience a new culture and meet new people, whilst hopefully being able to use my accounting skills and expertise to help Slum Soccer to develop their work. I'm planning on writing up some of my experiences on this blog every few days so please follow along if you're interested. I'd also be very pleased to hear from you! |
AuthorJonathan. Chartered Accountant from Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Spending a couple of months as an AfID volunteer working with Slum Soccer in Nagpur, India. Saved by grace through faith to do good works. ArchivesCategories |