Sharing an International Interest

Guten Morgen (German), Buenos días (Spanish), Muraho (Kinyarwanda), Habari za asubuhi (Swahili)

There is a real buzz in the office today ahead of tomorrow’s Queens Award Ceremony (more on that later.) This is due to our overseas regional staff having arrived - Rachel from Kenya and Hugo from Costa Rica, and a producer customer of ours from Mauritius, Gabriel (Craft Aid Mauritius) which adds even more of an international flavour to the cultural mix we already have in the Shared Interest office with staff members from Germany, Ecuador and Venezuela.

I took the opportunity to chat to Rachel about the importance of involving the people we work with in every stage of our project. It turned into quite a lively discussion about the importance of involving beneficiaries in every part of our overseas work.

We aim to work closely with those people who will directly benefit from Shared Interest Foundation and its investment arm the Shared Interest Society (usually the farmers and the handicraft makers.)

At the beginning of each Foundation project, we start with a stakeholder meeting as local communities and businesses often have a clearer idea of the solution to their problems and are aware of any obstacles that need to be overcome before getting started.

For example, through the Shared Interest Rwanda project, we plan to run training in 10 districts throughout the country. However, before we can even set foot into many of these areas we need to seek approval first from the District Officers. We may not have known this unless we had the inside knowledge achieved from working so closely with people on the ground.

Rachel and I both agree that working closely with fair trade businesses in their own communities helps us to understand these types of issues including funding needs, as well as being able to evaluate the effectiveness of projects, plan for the long term future and target the most needy.

Although we talk quite often on Skype, it is great to talk to staff from our regional offices face to face like this and draw on their everyday experiences in Costa Rica and Kenya, which in some ways are very similar but in others very different to our own here in Newcastle.

• Post to:
•  del.icio.us
•  Digg
•  Newsvine
•  Nowpublic
•  Reddit