14 September, 2020.
I had always known that I would do a project for my IDR, but what I did not know was the complexities involved in getting organizations to sign the agreement with the university. I was keen to do my project at organization X (the organization’s identity will remain anonymous), who needed to get a project going and I had started discussions with them in January 2020. This organization was happy to utilize my skills and help me grow the identified set of skills. I lived in this happy bubble until when I presented the agreement template that required signing by all parties (myself, the organization and RMIT). The department head was hesitant to commit and cited a couple of reasons, including the inability to supervise the work remotely due to the Covid-19 pandemic (this was in May 2020).
In June 2020, I was frantic to get a project in time for the second semester and I reached out to classmates who gave me great references. I approached two organizations who were receptive, but they were adjusting to the challenges presented by the pandemic and could not have me on board immediately. All their resources were focused on settling and providing support to their staff and working around the pandemic itself.
July came and by this time I was getting worried and had given up in securing a project. I thought that maybe I should wait until when we are out of the lockdown and get back to the organizations that I had contacted earlier. At the end of July, I reached out to the course coordinator and told him of my predicament. We spoke about my work experience and skills that I wanted to grow. We discussed an upcoming Global Learning Festival that was looking for a virtual learning festival project assistant. The position description ‘spoke’ to me and in as much as the first event was only a few weeks away, I thought that this was something that I was not only passionate about (event coordination), it also required my project management skills and to crown it, I would gain evaluation skills. I expressed my interest for the position in early August, had an interview with the organization, drafted and signed the WIL Agreement by mid-August, which was approved by 24th August with a start date of 7th September. We had to adjust the start date to a week earlier because I needed to participate in the global learning festival that was held on 1- 4 September 2020. The project runs until 31 December 2020 and the key output is to contribute to the development stakeholder survey and capture stories of impact for learning cities/communities involved.
From my experience, I learned that it is never too early to start planning for your IDR project, start it the moment you enrol for your masters. The process of having the WIL agreement may involve a lot of processes and depending on the organization, you may have to go through the legal department and face other hurdles along the way. Had I known that it would be such a challenge, I would have started this process within the first month of my first semester. The other lesson I learned was the need to be flexible and being open to new learning opportunities. In this case, I embraced the new project and I absolutely loved the idea of not only utilizing my skill set but also learning new ones along the way! This process reminded me that as a development practitioner, things do not always go as planned in the field and one needs to be flexible and innovative to make do with whatever resources available and deliver the project within the project constraints. I am looking forward to engaging with the learning festival’s project team and will utilize the challenges that emerge as learning opportunities.
And that is how it all began, on such a high note, and I had a week to wrap my head around everything and hit the ground running. The fun (not) part was setting up the blog, what they did not tell you is that if this was your first time you would end up with horrible fonts and awkward backgrounds, but we will get there 😊. Now on to proposal writing phase and jumping into the learning safari.
Stay tuned for updates on the event.
PS. Before you go, have you heard about learning cities? See more here, and look out for next years Global Learning Festival. Check out their site for ongoing learning opportunities and sign up for the Wyndham Learning Festival coming up 23-30 in November 2020. You can also follow them on Facebook to get updates and see the exciting events that will be coming up
Lessons and stories from the learning Festivals 