Captain Kali

When you sign up to volunteer at any of the A Rocha centres around the world, it’s best to be flexible – willing to take on tasks that you never dreamed of doing.

One of the unlikely jobs I have ended up doing here at A Rocha Kenya (ARK) is driving the recruitment process of a National Director. ARK has been given a grant by A Rocha International to recruit a National Director to lead ARK into a new phase – extending ARK’s projects to a national scale, raising funds to support and expand ARK’s work and lifting ARK’s profile both in Kenya and abroad. It turns out that even though I am not the most organized person (especially when it comes to work); I am good at organizing other people. Well, I am at least good at enforcing deadlines and chasing up people to make sure jobs are done. These are very handy skills when trying to get the overworked and often scattered Director, Colin Jackson, to follow through a complex process to its bitter/sweet end. Let’s just say he lives in the NOW.

My kali (fierce) enforcer face

A few months ago, I was given my 10-week mission with a 12-week window to complete it. What do I know about recruiting personnel? Very little – but I had as my guide the detailed notes, timetable and valuable advice of a seasoned A Rocha International advisor (and National Board members as we went along). Thus for the past 7 weeks I have been busy emailing the ARK National Board, preparing adverts, traveling 2 hours to pay for the advert, sifting through applications, reading CVs, replying to applicants, drafting up a written interview, short listing candidates, inviting them to interviews, arranging venues, and booking Colin a bus ticket to get up to Nairobi for the interviews on this Saturday.

It’s been a challenging but enjoyable job. My part in the process is almost over – I just need to organize a trip to Mwamba for the top 2 or 3 candidates (decided from the interviews on Saturday) and the final interview. The rest is up to the interview panel and ultimately God. We could certainly do with your prayer that God would lead the panel to the right candidate for the job. I have my suspicions of who that might be…