By Jackie Donnah Kamusiime
What started out as a robust recruitment process last June in 6 different countries only came to an end this month. Thousands of applicants from Pakistan, Liberia, Uganda, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Tanzania went through online applications, psychometric tests, Skype and face-to-face interviews, after which 17 suitable candidates were chosen to be a part of the International Young Professional’s programme.
This was BRAC International’s first ever cohort and I could sense the excitement and novelty of it all from everyone that we met throughout the entire process. To be quite honest, reading the YP advert on a local online job board was the first time I ever heard of BRAC. It was then that I did more research and discovered that it was actually the largest NGO in the world. Keen to carve out a career in development, this quickly became my second attraction after the idea that the programme sounded like a great learning opportunity and a chance to explore a whole other culture through the 4 month training in Bangladesh. Personal ambitions were clear, I was sold completely, ready to utilise all my knowledge fresh out of business school to contribute to BRAC programmes in Uganda. Two months in Mbarara, the Western region of Uganda provided insight into the implementation of BRAC’s holistic development model in execution countrywide. The theoretical rationale behind this model then came in much later during 2 months classroom sessions attended in Bangladesh. These sessions were led by BRAC University, delivered under Development and Management modules through lectures, PowerPoint presentations and talks from a couple of influential guest speakers like Dr. Hassan Zaman – Chief Economist, Bank of Bangladesh.
Conducted Monday to Friday, 9a.m to 5p.m in the same building where we were being accommodated, a BRAC Learning Centre located in Gulshan, left most of us feeling quite lethargic with a slight sense of cabin fever. Practical aspects to the training course were mostly felt through field travel experiences to the organisation’s various development and enterprise programmes in and outside Dhaka. Programme and function attachments at the headquarters also worked to provide foundational perspectives into BRAC International operations and the various departments we would eventually be assigned to when back in our home countries.
In between all this we had the opportunity to attend networking events where we met most of the Young Professionals and the wider BRAC Bangladesh and international community. Overall the training program was well thought out and organised to provide an in-depth understanding of BRAC’s 40 year journey from Bangladesh to its scale and outreach in other Asian and African countries. I understand that it was crucial for the training program to remain BRAC centric however I felt that this closed our minds to the global picture of development and where we stand as an organisation within our overarching role in tackling extreme poverty globally. Also, we were left yearning for a more hands-on practical aspect to all the theory. Perhaps where knowledge could have been applied, mind-sets stretched, challenged and changed. We hoped for more riveting events like the Frugal Innovation Forum that exposed us to a whole other dimension of thinking through intriguing topics from widely renowned experts.
So did we stay engaged for the entire 4 months? We managed fairly well. Although in the future I believe the training program could have much to gain from training simulations or more thought provoking training approaches.
Jackie Donnah Kamusiime is a Development Professional with the BRAC Uganda Strategy and Donor Liaison Unit. Her twitter handle is @jak_y.
