This is the fourth of five posts from Team Dayā member Chevan Nanayakkara about his experience Building Change in Nchetana, Malawi. Please subscribe to receive future posts.
- Please donate to my Team Dayā fundraising effort – all funds go directly to building schools.
- If you are curious about Building Change with Team Dayā, please contact our Head of Recruiting Jaryd Knutsen.
Find all of Chevan’s posts here.
By Team Dayā member Chevan Nanayakkara
Start-ups – little companies with a big potential growth trajectories – are really, really hard to work in but can also be really, really fun. There’s a sense of purpose within the team, an orientation towards action and a feedback loop from seeing change that is unusual to experience in a bigger company or corporation. The day-to-day can be really meaningful, even if the strategic goals are aspirational and/or far-away. This can be the same with being involved in community service or human development, even on a single-project basis. In my last post I talked about the importance of choosing projects that are sustainable but in this post I want to talk about how my Team Dayā experience generated the same kind of actionable feedback loop that makes working in start-ups so exciting and meaningful.
Our day-to-day life is full. Setting aside time for service in your local community is hard enough, let alone trying to plan to be a part of an international service project. Operationally, the aspect of my Team Dayā experience that impressed me the most was how well planned and organized the experience was. There was a lot of support and coaching to help with fundraising, planning and coordination calls to get us ready to be in-country and a well structured agenda to follow once on-the-ground. Participating in a service activity in a far-way, developing country sounds disorienting and challenging but Team Dayā goes to great lengths to help participants be prepared for the experience, transition into the project and stay focused on the experience while in the community.
Bringing people from different cultures, economic systems and traditions together for a joint-activity is no easy task. The preparation and planning doesn’t just happen with project participants. On the community side, conversations probe into whether there is a need for a school, if the community will be active in the build and if they will ensure use of the school and attendance by their children post-build. These conversations and this prep-work happen for months before volunteers arrive in-country. All of this pre-game is done to ensure that there is a well-defined day-to-day structure and plan for everyone involved.
Of all my volunteering efforts, I’d never been immersed in a foreign culture so quickly and simultaneously felt so comfortable. As they say, the devil’s in the details, and I can definitely say that Team Dayā is on top of all of them. Once our time in the field is completed and after we head home, there is follow-up and communication to ensure we are updated about the work by the community all the way to completion of the school. Malawi marks the 4th Team Dayā school and at this point there is an engagement model and operation that “just works”. If you’re considering being a part of Team Daya, I can tell you from personal experience, that you’ll be getting involved with an organization that is effective in its mission and delivers a meaningful experience you’ll remember for a long time.
I was blessed to participate in this Team Dayā activity with the following people, who provided me with an unforgettable experience and were also sources of unending inspiration, support and joy. Please reach out to any one of them to hear more about Building Change: Davina Kent, Riley Jacobson, Kerri Olson, Nicolle Pangis, Vib Prasad, Lauren Rosen and Jay Sears.
This is the fourth of five posts from Team Dayā member Chevan Nanayakkara about his experience Building Change in Nchetana, Malawi. Please subscribe to receive future posts.
- Please donate to my Team Dayā fundraising effort – all funds go directly to building schools.
- If you are curious about Building Change with Team Dayā, please contact our Head of Recruiting Jaryd Knutsen.
Find all of Chevan’s posts here.
