to thewind? Caution - University of Edinburgh Business School

special featureMaking a big changeELLEN CRABTREE(CLASS OF 1995)TALKS ABOUTHER DECISIONTO BECOME AVSO VOLUNTEERTO SUPPORTPEOPLE LIVINGWITH HIV, ANDHOW THE MBAEQUIPPED HERTO MAKE SUCHA RADICALCHANGEAmid-life career change is hardly unusual. Morethan ever before, people have two or even threecareers in their working lifespan. Although I havealready had at least three careers before this one, themoves have been more evolutionary than revolutionary.To go from marketing global high net worth investmentproducts to providing psycho-social support services topeople living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa cannot becalled a career evolution by anyone’s definition. On theother hand, are the skills and competencies employedreally that different?When I started my MBA I was in advertising sales. Oncompletion, I made a career move into marketing lifeinsurance and investments, reaching the level of SeniorMarketing Manager at Scottish Widows before I decidedI’d had enough of corporate life. I then became a freelancecopywriter, editor and marketing consultant,predominantly for financial services clients, with a ‘hobbybusiness’ as a personal chef on the side.For a while, this seemed to tick all the boxes for me,but something in me was bored and dissatisfied. I feltthat, apart from raising my children, I hadn’t doneanything with my life that would make a blind bit ofdifference after I’m gone. Volunteering in the developingworld had crossed my mind when I first left corporatelife. I enquired about VSO then, but it was to be anotherfour years before personal circumstances allowed me topick up and go overseas for two years.When I started work at the Reproductive Health andHIV Research Unit (RHRU) of the University of theWitwatersrand in Johannesburg, initially the hardestadjustment was working to an organisational timetablerather than my own. RHRU is one of the pioneers in HIVresearch and management in the southern hemisphere.We have been at the forefront of anti-retroviral (ARV)roll-out in South Africa and produce evidence-basedresearch that informs and influences government policy.| ABOVE: Gender-based violence is a major factor in the spread of HIV in South AfricaLast year, we provided voluntary counselling and testingservices to about 60,000 people, and initiated nearly12,000 people on ARVs. That’s 12,000 lives saved, putbluntly, because without ARVs, people die of AIDSrelatedillnesses. My role is to run our Community CareCentre, a hub of NGO activity in a deprived inner cityarea providing psycho-social support to people affectedand infected by HIV.This job is radically different from anything andeverything I’ve done before. I was recruited for mymanagement experience: in an organisation full ofresearchers, doctors and nurses, social workers andpublic health experts, basic organisational andmanagement skills are in short supply. Specifically,the Community Care Centre was in need ofprocedures, systems, and capacity-building. Sowhere on earth was I to start?I soon found that I wasn’t as out of my depth as Ithought. Chairing meetings, taking minutes, developingDid youknow?By 2010, the numberof children orphaned byAIDS in South Africa isexpected to reach2.3 millionaction plans, event management –these were all things I knew. Publichealth and HIV I didn’t know, but I hadthe wherewithal to find the informationand do the self-briefing necessary. Then it was a case ofdetermining goals, setting objectives, and garnering theresources required. The ‘product’ is irrelevant, becausethere are qualified specialists to deliver the actual product.For example, in one recent week I organised twocommunity workshops, one on migrant and refugee rightsand one on nutrition. I don’t know much about migrantrights in South Africa and I’m not a nutritionist, but apartner NGO has a Refugee and Migrant Health andRights Programme and another partner supplies us with anutritionist. I do the marketing and sort out all thelogistics (and come up with the idea in the first place).Not such unfamiliar territory.Another example is data management. South Africa hasa register mentality. At every meeting and event a paper‘I AM LOVING MYJOB SO MUCH,AND FIND IT SOFULFILLING THATI HAVE ALREADYCOMMITTED TOA THIRD YEAR’Ellen Crabtreespecial featureCHALLENGES OF VOLUNTEERINGVolunteering is a never-ending process of learning andadapting – learning about a new field, a new culture, anew country, new languages, and learning about yourself.However willing you are at the outset to do whateverneeds doing, to share your skills wherever they can beutilised, eventually the ego does assert itself.Once you are accepted by VSO you are offered aplacement, and based on the placement description youeither accept or reject it. If you accept it, you complete avery detailed form matching your skills and experience tothe placement description and then the employer says yesor no to you (they rarely say no, as VSO is very good atmatching suitable volunteers to placements). You don’tapply for placements in the way you apply for jobs athome, so you have less control over what you will bedoing, but most volunteers are open minded about theprocess, wanting only to be put to good use. This is verynoble in theory.I was initially due to go to Nairobi to work with agovernment department on disability rights. I was excited,but then disappointed when VSO suspended its programmein Kenya due to the political situation. But I was thrilledwhen I was offered the placement in Johannesburg – mydream had been to come to South Africa.I love my job, but sometimes I find myself resenting notbeing more senior in my organisation. In career progressionterms, I have stepped down a rung or two on the ladder. Iwant to contribute at the level I did in my previous career,and to be more involved in the organisation’s strategicdirection. I forget that I am a volunteer and my role iscapacity-building, not strategy development.If I stay here permanently will I have to climb thatladder all over again or will I be able to move into a rolemore suited to my abilities once I complete my placement?I have to remind myself regularly that I came as a volunteerwilling to do whatever needed doing, and specifically toshare my skills. My own ambitions are irrelevant. I wasn’tprepared for this, and humility and patience are just someof the things I am having to learn.register of attendance is taken. Service delivery in theCommunity Care Centre is captured in separate registerbooks. So the end-of-month statistical report is anightmare to compile, involving a trawl through thevarious registers to come up with numbers of clientscounselled, number given information, given nutritionalsupplements, etc.And of course because each register is discrete andthere is no de-duping, we double- and triple-count,measuring services rendered but not clients. We have noidea how many clients use the centre in any given month.I have been slowly encouraging electronic record-keepingand have taken it one step further and written arequirements document for a client register to be built inMS Access, so that we can track each client’s journeythrough our service provision and over time. Then we’llhave intelligence we can actually use, both with fundersand for our own management and planning purposes.Hard to get used to and often a source of great28 | aluminate | april 2009 www.alumninet.man.ed.ac.ukwww.alumninet.man.ed.ac.ukapril 2009 | aluminate | 29