Where there's a will - update!

Yesterday we finally signed the MOU with the local Ministry of Interior on the pilot project for increasing the capacity of the two child-care and development centres to enrol more migrant children over the next few years. We had been getting a bit anxious as they seemed to be stalling on the final signing, despite having started to press ahead with the recruitment of the teachers and language assistants, and we weren't quite sure what was going on.

Eventually it transpired that, in keeping with usual practice in Thai officialdom, they were wanting to make a huge ceremony out of it and were having difficulty finding a suitable date and getting it all arranged. We pointed out gently that, as we were about to interview the candidates we couldn't really hold off any longer on the signing, so they agreed to forego the pomp and ceremony and just get the documents signed!

The Administrative Chief was not available when we first got there, so all the other parties signed and then we went on to conduct the interviews. That was a fascinating process. The poor candidates must have been completely overwhelmed as we were such a large interview panel, with representatives from the education department, ME, VSO and the two centre directors. I did suggest at the beginning that someone should introduce us all and explain who we all were, but no-one bothered with that - they just launched straight in with the questions!

There was no planning of questions in advance and it all seemed a bit random. I was really only observing, with Zaw Zaw whispering in my ear to let me know what was going on, though I did throw in a couple of questions to try and get a better idea of their ECD experience and understanding. The only bit that was planned was a role play scenario that I had suggested to assess the level of Burmese and Thai language and the translation skills of the candidates for the language assistant role. Zaw Zaw took the role of a Burmese-speaking parent trying to communicate with one of the centre directors, and the candidates had to translate both ways between them. It worked really well and was invaluable in the final decision-making process, when I kept having to remind people that the one skill that the language assistants had to have was the ability to translate between the two languages!

After the interviews we trooped into the office of the Administrative Chief for the final, ceremonial signing of the document. This involved a lot of sitting around and smiling and laughing politely as he regaled us with anecdotes and witticisms. Eventually the deed was done!

Now that our main project activities with the centres are completed, we will concentrate mostly on getting this off the ground by supporting the teachers and assistants in their new roles and monitoring how it is going. So little time left!!