Changing Lives » Consulting

Uniterra Leave for Change Volunteer Project in Nepal

Ian Selvarajah — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:05:00 +0000

What is “Leave for Change”?

Leave for Change is a subprogram of Uniterra, one of Canada’s leading international volunteer programs. The program offers individuals and companies the opportunity to contribute towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While Uniterra offers longer term projects, the Leave for Change program is unique in that it offers shorter projects that last 2-4 weeks. These are well suited for professionals who may not be able to take leaves of absence, but would like to offer their expertise as a volunteer. For more details on how the program works for employers and employees and how you can get involved, please visit the Uniterra website at www.uniterra.org.

Can someone make a difference in 2 to 4 weeks?

This is the most commonly asked question and the answer is “Yes!” The key strength, and what makes short term mandates work, is focus. Since the partners know the volunteer is only there for a short while, everyone works more efficiently to maximize their time. Most people don’t have the same sense of urgency to get things done when a volunteer is on a longer term project.

Knowing some of the complexities and challenges in humanitarian work, I knew I had big shoes to fill when the organizers kept telling me that the last short term volunteers were incredible! In the end, everyone was pleased with the results and I received these kind words from the partner I worked with:

“Your courage to choose a country that experienced a decade long civil war, diligence to get things done rightfully, a skill-set to adapt to a new environment and upbeat and pleasant personal traits in combination mitigated all challenges to make the program successful.”

What was your mandate?

The partner organization and I offered a “Business development and social entrepreneurship awareness” seminar to 8 of the largest NGOs in Nepal. The NGOs in attendance dealt with a range of social issues such as healthcare, energy, finance, forestry, media, etc. The participants also varied in age and experience so the audience was quite diverse. We presented business concepts in ICT, marketing and finance as well as recommendations around potential income streams to minimize donor dependence. The feedback received after the seminar indicated that it was a great learning experience for them.

Leave for Change mandates are focused on capacity building, so unlike a reconstruction mission I did after the Tsunami in Sri Lanka, this was more of a knowledge transfer/educational project. While this project wasn’t in the field at the grassroots level, as many volunteer projects are, the transfer of skills was still a very satisfying experience.

Who did you work with?

My project was a multi-partner placement; however, I worked primarily with Magnus Consulting, a social enterprise based in Nepal. Magnus has only been active in Nepal for 4 years, but, arguably, they’ve done more for the country than some NGOs that have been there much longer. Their current focus is to bring ICT to local farmers in rural areas of Nepal.

The founders’ courage and determination to push forward in a country that is experiencing significant political change is inspiring. Their core values of integrity, transparency, good governance and efficiency in everything they do, make Magnus a good example of why social enterprises are the way of the future in driving social change.

Would you recommend this program to others?

Absolutely! After my experience with Tsunami relief work in Sri Lanka, I feel everyone, at some point, should volunteer in a developing country. My experience in Nepal further cemented that belief. A short term Leave for Change project is ideal as it allows you to sample volunteerism. Although humanitarian work isn’t meant for everyone, Leave for Change is a great way to get your feet wet! It’s an amazing experience both personally and professionally; I highly recommend it!

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask as I’m happy to share my experience!

Social Entrepreneurship / Business Development Seminar

Ian Selvarajah — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 06:22:00 +0000

After some confusion around the audience of the seminar I was scheduled to give, we decided that instead of an ICT awareness training, we would be doing a business development seminar with a focus on social entrepreneurship and ICT instead.

The training was on Friday at the Tibet Hotel in Lazimpat. 30 people from 8 different NGOs were scheduled to attend. In the end, only about 20 from 6 showed up, but I was still pleased with the turnout. I was also happy to see that majority of the audience was fairly young, so most were very receptive to a new way of thinking about NGOs and social entrepreneurship. The NGOs that were present were CECI-Nepal, FECOFUN, FTG, IDS, HBTL, WorldView, MCF (part of NEFSCUN) and NTAG.

Here’s a picture of the training room and then Tika and I at the end of the day!

Results
I tallied up the feedback form results and the overall rating was 3.46/4, so 87%. Most of the less than positive results were because some of the people felt the training wasn’t relevant to them. Tika (my counterpart) and I knew this would be a challenge because social entrepreneurship is essentially a completely new way of approaching humanitarian work and we figured there would be some resistance to change.

Making History
Once everyone left, Tika said: “I hope you realize we made history in Nepal today; no one has done a social entrepreneurship awareness training with this many NGOs at once!”. Unfortunately, at that moment, I really wished I could have done more or been a little more focused while I was preparing the training. In any case, the objective was to plant the seed and hopefully more organizations will consider social entrepreneurship as a business model.

Thank Yous
Now that my mandate is officially done, there are a few “Thank you”s that need to be said:

Anne-Jennifer – The person in my office who’s in charge of organizing the Leave for Change program. She seemed happy when I was selected and is always encouraging me to be an ambassador for Deloitte. She also provided some Deloitte paraphernalia that I was able to give as prizes during the training and as gifts to some people in the offices here!

CECI Montreal and Nepal – Specifically; Nathalie, Geetika and Hari. Everyone was incredibly helpful in getting everything organized and everything went much more smoothly than I expected! This was an incredible opportunity to do something I love and I was happy to be selected for it!

Magnus Consulting – My counterpart Tika was a really great support throughout the process and I was very happy to work with them. From day 1, I was amazed with how focused and driven this organization is in terms of making a social impact. They’ve only been established since 2004, but I would argue that they have made more progress than some of the organizations that have been around for much, much longer! Now do you see why social entrepreneurship is a better model??

Pascale Leblanc – Pascale was my pre-departure cultural awareness instructor and she has been incredibly helpful long after the initial training was completed. I’m grateful she was very proactive in offering help! She sent me some good information about teaching in a different culture and she really saved me when it came to creating a feedback form for the training!

The Uniterra volunteers – Craig, Monica, Moose, Paul, Salome, Charles, Courtney, Anne, John, Cathy and anyone I might have forgotten. Being around other Canadians with similar objectives of making a social change was refreshing and I was glad that those who attended the seminar were able to help guide some of the discussions. Thank you!

Now…off to Bangkok, Thailand for my real vacation!!

First Day on the job at Magnus Consulting

Ian Selvarajah — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:59:00 +0000

Since it was my first day, the driver came to pick me up in the morning and we headed over to Magnus Consulting, the organization I’ll be working with here. The firm is in Patan which is another part of town, different from where I (and the other volunteers) have been staying, so there is a chance I would have to move somewhere there.

I met my counterpart, Tika, who was very welcoming and thankfully, communications were quite easy and straightforward. He explained that I had a few options in terms of projects they’re working on, so I opted to create a Information Communication Technology (ICT) awareness and benefits training for some of the Uniterra partners. He explained how one of the main challenges to getting people to use ICT here is that they’re apprehensive of using computers, but once they get their hands on the system, they’re just fine. Apparently resistance to change is a common human trait anywhere in the world!

The plan is to take one or 2 of the Uniterra partners and to do a case study of how technology can bridge some gaps in their business processes and make them more efficient. If I do end up with some spare time, which seems unlikely, I would develop basic business development/entrepreneurship training for the partners as well.

We had lunch together and discussed several issues with development in general and I was able to share some of my experiences in Sri Lanka as well. The restaurant where we had lunch was connected to a bookstore, so I picked up The Monk who sold his Ferrari and have started reading that too.

Ultimately, what I really liked about the folks at Magnus is that because they’re a social enterprise (rather than an NGO) their mindset, approach and way of thinking are very different. NGOs are constantly dependent on donors and funding, whereas a social enterprise is run as a business, so of course they have true sustainability in mind.

The objective here is to demonstrate to the partners why they should invest in ICT and how it will help them become independently sustainable.

Profiled on the Deloitte Recruitment Website

Ian Selvarajah — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 02:43:00 +0000

A couple of months ago I was asked to complete a profile about the experience I’ve had at my firm so far. While I answered the whole questionnaire honestly, I made sure to give them enough to work with!

I’m not a fan of the picture, but I guess they wanted someone who looks REALLY happy!! ha ha The profile, however, is quite well done and I especially like the tag line they came up with: “Tackles humanitarian work abroad…and client challenges at home.”

Here’s the full profile: Find yourself among our people

Working on a Local Consulting Engagement

Ian Selvarajah — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:07:00 +0000

Montreal’s Beautiful Skyline
I’m about to start week 2 at my new client here in Montreal. The first week was surprisingly busy and I have a feeling this is going to be a good project for me. I’m finally going to be doing actual SAP work, so I’m looking forward to it. This will also be the true test of if I actually like what I do.

I REALLY didn’t want to work on a local project. Read the following article to get a feel of what a local project is like for consultants: Hell on Earth: The In-Town Project. However, as usual, let’s look at the bright side(s)…

1) I haven’t had a summer in my home city (Montreal) since 2004. Last summer I was in Pittsburgh, in 2006 I was going around Europe and in 2005 I was in Sri Lanka. Summer in Montreal is always fun, so hopefully I should have some good stories as the summer progresses! I’ve only been out the last 2 weekends and they’ve already been quite eventful. Note: Some (probably most! ha ha) stories may be unsuitable for this blog!

2) If all goes to plan, I’m hoping to purchase my first property by the end of the summer. This is quite exciting to me as it will be the biggest purchase of my life! Being in Montreal will allow me the time to look around for properties. On that note, for those of you in Montreal, if you know of a duplex selling in a fairly central part of Montreal (St. Laurent, NDG, Downtown, etc.) please let me know!

3) The project is an implementation of the SAP Sales and Distribution module (the one I’m certified in) from scratch. This is a very rare opportunity because the SAP market is so mature that most of the projects these days are either upgrades or optimizations, not new installations.

4) The client resources are primarily French-speaking, so this is going to be a great opportunity to brush up on my French!

As always, things are working out for the best despite this not being my “ideal” project. I’m going to make the best of the project as well as the summer and remember the closing words of the article mentioned above:

“Just remember, it will be over eventually. Nothing lasts forever, not even the sour pain of a local project.”

Announcing: Generation Y Consultant

Ian Selvarajah — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:32:00 +0000

My blog has always been a mixed bag of random stuff. Since my personality is also quite random, I wanted to keep it that way as this blog is a fairly accurate reflection of who I am. However, I realize that this can become tedious for certain visitors because they never know what to expect. For instance, some of the top Google searches that bring people here are: age differences in relationships, inflamed liver, confidence vs. arrogance and life changing decisions. Very different topics; all on the same blog.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to be part of the blogger community at BrazenCareerist.com; see my profile here. I have ~~quite a bit of~~ more experience than the average 25yr old in dealing with a variety of corporate topics, so I might as well share my lessons learned! After much deliberation, I’ve finally decided to target a specific niche: Young Professionals and Recent Graduates.

Before you think: “Oh great, this is going to turn into another boring business blog…”, I have good news: I have an obvious personal attachment to this blog, so I’ve decided I’ll keep it going. This one will track my day to day (well, most likely weekend) shenanigans and I hope to maintain the randomness that I (and hopefully you) have come to love.

For those of you who want a little more focus and might be more interested in my professional side, I’ve launched a new blog:

Generation Y Consultant

That’s the blog where I’ll share things about what an IT [SAP] consultant does and general business/professional advice.

Needless to say, maintaining 2 blogs will probably be somewhat challenging, so I’ll probably “cheat” by pointing readers over there (or vice versa) every once in a while! I always value your feedback whether it’s positive or critical, so please share your thoughts! Thanks!

Goodbye Pittsburgh! :(

Ian Selvarajah — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 02:49:00 +0000

Pittsburgh Skyline from Pittsburgh Homes Guide
I’ve been on a project in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania since June 4th, 2007. I just got home from “the burgh”, as they lovingly call it, for the last time and am feeling a little sad [surprisingly]!

I felt strange packing my big suitcase, which I always leave in the hotel, this morning. I felt strange thinking that the routine I’ve been used to for the last 9+ months is going to change completely. I felt especially strange as I cleared out my desk this afternoon and prepared to say bye to my colleagues.

Everyone wished me luck as I left and several people (mostly those I partied/hung out with) said they would miss me! I met a lot of amazing people and made quite a few friends while I was there and I’ll certainly miss them!

I wonder if I’m going to feel this way every time I’m on an out of town engagement for an extended period of time. I pretty much lived there for almost a year and I know how sad I felt when I left Sri Lanka and Sweden after only 6 months!

I’ve always been someone who develops friendships quickly, so maybe this will be recurring as I travel. My next project will be local unfortunately, but more on that later…

Do I Hate My Job? – A Clarification

Ian Selvarajah — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:00:00 +0000

A typical “ideal” job is the intersection of the 3 circles

“What every man needs, regardless of his job or the kind of work he is doing, is a vision of what his place is and may be. He needs an objective and a purpose. He needs a feeling and a belief that he has some worthwhile thing to do. What this is no one can tell him. It must be his own creation. Its success will be measured by the nature of his vision, what he has done to equip himself, and how well he has performed along the line of its development.”
-Joseph Morrell Dodge

I realize that my last post and the upcoming ones might give the impression that I hate my job, so let me offer some clarification (or a disclaimer) of sorts.

I certainly don’t hate my job. I really, really like the people I work with (this was the main reason I selected this organization) and I really can’t complain about the perks (travel, hotels, cars, dinners, etc.). The trouble is, and has always been, the work (or lack thereof) itself.

The reason I’m exploring the idea of Boreout and Generation Y being correlated is as follows:

I’m typically the guy who asks the [difficult] questions most people are afraid to bring up. More often than not, it turns out that I’m not the only one wondering about something. In the end, we often find solutions (or workarounds) together and everyone is happy that someone brought up the issue. Hopefully I’ll be able to help others (not only GenY, but people who manage GenY) as I go through this process.

Based on the comments from the last post, I’m not the only one experiencing Boreout. I’m working very hard with my office to come up with a solution to this problem and hopefully, with your comments as well, we can come up with some ideas of how to approach our generation when it comes to work!

“Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today’s jobs with yesterday’s tools.”
-Marshall McLuhan

Networking Gone Terribly Wrong

Ian Selvarajah — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:24:00 +0000

Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge photo from Air Canada
Airport lounges are a great place to network as you meet lots of business travelers. However, I certainly wasn’t interested in THIS type of networking!!

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in the Air Canada lounge in the Toronto airport waiting for my flight home to Montreal. As I sat down, an older gentleman sitting across from me started talking to me. He seemed to be a nice guy, so we had the regular small talk of: Where are you going? What do you do? etc. He told me that he worked for a large oil and gas firm. Sure enough, always keeping my eyes out for a sale/contact, I asked if his firm used SAP. They did!

We spoke a bit more and as usual, my trip to Sri Lanka came up. It’s usually the direct comparison I offer between doing meaningful work and corporate work. Anyhow, we exchanged business cards and I mentioned that if they ever needed SAP work, that’s what we do, so to keep in touch!

Exactly a week later, I received the following email from said gentleman:
[my thoughts as I read the email]

Hi Ian

I just wanted to tell you that it was very nice meeting you in the Maple Leaf Lounge at Air Canada in Toronto last week.
[Cool, it was nice meeting him as well! Nice guy...]
You were very charming and interesting.
["Charming"? ...Strange coming from a guy, but...alright?]
Your stories on rebuilding the Church was heartwarming.
["Heartwarming"? I guess?]
I was wondering if you had any pictures of yourself to send me.
[WTF!?!!?? Why?!!? Maybe he forgot what I looked like?]
I would luv to invite you down to my home in Barbados, West Indies for a vacation if you wish.
[WTF!?!!?? Awwww…HELLLL NAWWW! NO way...]
Please keep in touch
[Yeeeeaaah, probably not...did I come across as being gay? I wasn't wearing my pink shirt?]

I was so stunned by the email, that, while still looking at my screen, I tapped my colleague on the shoulder, pointed at my screen and said: “Read that!! Is it just me or does that sound gay!?!”

Some funny comments from my friends:
“…so? Did you send him pictures?”
“Yeah, using the word ‘luv’ is about as telling as a rainbow tattoo on the small of your back…”

I was going to title this post “Do I Look Gay?” but I realized that would have killed the punchline. Is there any remote chance I’ve misconstrued this and he was just trying to be friendly?? Before you ask, no I did not email him back…I’ll probably just leave it at that.

Interesting Coincidence This Afternoon

Ian Selvarajah — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:07:00 +0000

Isn’t it strange how sometimes someone you’ve just met can provide valuable advice and speak to you as if you’ve known each other for years?

I have a couple of examples of this, but they just announced that my plane is boarding. I’ll be back…