Pre Departure Thoughts

Here goes - for those of you wondering why I am off to Kenya during the rainy season its certainly not a matter of catching a few sun rays. About a year ago I came across an organisation called Accounting for International Development (AFID) who were offering to place accountants like myself with NGOs across Africa and Asia. The great thing about AFID is that you can do it from 2 weeks upwards which is attractive for those who want help out but have other commitments that restrict them from going for longer (for more info go to www.afid.org.uk) . That was the easy bit. The difficult part was which NGO to be placed with. There was a wide range of organisations operating in enterprise, education and healthcare and in over 16 different countries. I chose enterprise - I liked the idea of working with an organisation that would eventually be able to generate some of its own income.

I finally decided on a placement with SMART, an agricultural NGO based in West Pokot, Western Kenya. West Pokot is traditionally a pastoralists' area - over the years over grazing has made parts of the district unable to sustain agricultural practices. With the increase in population and poor farming techniques the semi-arid zones are slowly turning arid. The SMART initiative is committed to the long-term sustainability of the area through using appropriate agricultural resource technologies.

You may be asking what my input is. With my experience as a chartered accountant I thought I could provide some valuable input by helping SMART improve its financial capacity (in short financial systems and management) to support its objectives. This is also key for any NGO and vital if it wishes to attract future funding - donors are more likely to provide funding if they know its being spent by a well run organisation.

I have a very early start tomorrow but am looking forward to the trip. My only concerns at the moment are waking up on time to get to the airport and hoping my luggage turns up at Nairobi - a previous volunteer was not so fortunate and had to wait a few days before his luggage (some of which had been pilfered) turned up. Fingers crossed.