IICD, IT at his best

A second week of preparation has ended, and now departure is almost there. Today we had a great goodbye party with our family and yesterday some of my best friends took me out for dinner which was awesome. On wednesday we fly to Nairobi, so than working abroad becomes reality. Missing Talitha will definitely be the hardest part, but on the other hand I'm really excited to get this project started.

Last week we were in The Hague for the final training at the second company which is involved in the program, IICD. This stands for International Institute of Communication and Development. It's a Dutch government funded organization which focusses it's projects on ICT improvements in development countries, to make significant progress in areas which have stayed behind for a long time. They work in 11 countries, where Kenia is one of their countries where they are active.

This company has really got my interests, because it's very close to my regular job. Implementing ICT-tools and run optimalization programs. But the great thing in IICD is that the results are enormous. They have projects like sending marketprices through sms to local farmers, so that they are aware where to sell their products for which price. Also simple administration system in clinics and schools, which have huge results in time savings. In this way these organizations become much more capable of keeping track of the patiënts or students and have more time to spend real time on patiënts or students.

We got some training on how to use ICT to make changes in certain communities possible. Tools like building games, setting up sms structures, using facebook communication etc. The possibilities are tremendous. We have are full of great ideas right now. Our main task will be to use these tools to improve the information sharing around Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). The big question to our team is now to focus on specific target groups in Kenya which we will tackle and where we will try to improve their situation related to SRHR.

We closed the week with a teambuilding activity, climbing in Amsterdam. Nothing stands in our way to climb to the Kenian mountains to reach top goals and make great things happening. Looking forward to work in Kenya, so only packing and saying goodbye are on my planning for the coming days. Next time I will write will be in Kenya ;). Weird idea actually ;) ...