SDI: What organization is this?

First: I am safe and sound! I have plenty to eat, a real toilet, electricity, and am healthy and taking my malaria medication. Phone calls are very expensive – calling cards don’t seem to exist and you need to make calls in town.

I am starting to wonder if Social Development International is a legitimate NGO, or just a group of people living off of grants and donations from others. Before coming over, everything seemed to be in order: they had a decent website, a business plan, a list of volunteers. They were focused on a variety of programs. They required a strong statement of purpose and a CV. Finally, the cost seemed reasonable: $300/mo for food and board, which is similar or less expensive from other groups in the reason. I got relatively frequent correspondence and no requests for large sums of money. In short, there were no signs of any scam.

But I should clarify. There were no signs of any Nigerian-Western Union-money-locked-in-estate scam. But that doesn’t mean that the true purposes of the organization were being revealed to me. I failed to see that there are multiple ways of being fleeced than trying to drain a person’s bank account. It is starting to look and feel that, in least in my case, SDI has received enough money from me to feed around 5 people every day – 3 meals a day – and that they are content to leave it at that.

But I get ahead of myself. Let me state the facts:

1. I have looked at the SDI Constitution. The SDI Constitution seems well-written, although board-heavy: 12 people on the “Executive Board” and 19 additional “Invited Board of Advisors”, of which an unknown number are actually on the Board of Advisors. From what I can tell, the Executive Board does basically nothing; they were part of a group of people that took an e-class sponsored by the World Bank, and Suliaman Turay (my host) is the co-founder and executive director. I met one board member named Martin today; more on him later.
2. I viewed the 2008 List of Cameroonian Organizations. There are 27 registered private NGO-type orgs which assist children in the district which has a size of approx 75k residents. This seems like a lot.
3. I viewed the 2008 and 2009 Objectives. These are lists of activities that SDI has proposed for each of the respective years. In 2009 there are 15 just for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC), although that’s the only one I have, with a total estimated cost of $158,000. All of this money is supposed to come from Hope for Children, Global Giving, Ministry of Social Affairs for Cameroon, and InterConnection. As of right now, SDI has received a bit over $500 from Hope for Children and that’s it. The 2008 Objectives are for far far more activities, likely because it’s not just for OVC.
4. I have not seen anything documented about specific program results, although apparently they exist somewhere – the offices just moved a week ago, so some things are in boxes. Also I asked for financial records, which I’m not sure exist.
5. I have met 5 people that have been introduced as volunteers. One of them is a social worker who works at the Social Center – a center paid for by the government – whom I was talking with. She started to hint that I needed to get her a laptop. And that I should leave my laptop here when I left. And if there was some way to send her one from the States. She was talking about laptops because I gave one to Turay who promised to pay me for it when I arrived. It’s not much: $250 or so used. Apparently the money will be here next week. But he did advance me 10,000CFA today! – I think around $20.
6. As I mentioned before, I met for the first time Martin, who is the head of the Training Unit. From what I can tell he has not trained anyone. He spent last week in a different province apparently doing some training, but it’s hard to say how much. And the training was not with SDI. Martin was very interested in how I liked Cameroon, the weather, the people, and working at IBM. He did not seem to care much about what I was going to do at SDI. He also said he could take me on tours and to night clubs to meet women. He was a very smooth talker.
   

So that was all before Turay came back from doing some work at the computer lab. There he was trying to look through applicants who would volunteer doing some online work with the United Nations for SDI. More on this (also) later.

I had told Turay I wanted to interview him also this evening. It was originally supposed to be at 3pm, but he wanted to do that computer work. I think he returned at 7pm or so. One of his volunteers had some questions for him, so I didn’t start the interview until 8:30 or so, and went until around 10:00. I didn’t tell him my views on some of his ideas – kept it mostly informative. I took notes, and I’ll list most of them here:

• Accomplished within last 2 years:
  • Trained 15 youth on ICT (Information & Communication Technologies) with a computer lab which was setup. This died 4 months ago, as computers were leased and ran out of funds. Training was basic typing, Office, etc. Subsequent follow-up was that youth would stop into office looking for work
  • Sensitization training – health & family planning – in schools, with help of Social Center (remember, Social Center paid by gov’t)
  • Support 3 OVC children, trained in tailoring, I think found some homes
  • Presented 5 seminars, not many details on what that did
  • Brought HIV material from government to Social Center
  • Operated call boxes – a person with a cell phone which you can rent to use. The purpose of this was to make money to pay for other things. But a couple volunteers stole everything.
  • Professional training / advice for youth – no more detail on this
  • Identification of 390 elderly for counseling. None were helped – apparently no funding
  • Some stuff having to do with environment education with biomass, using charcoal for cooking, solar energy
• Active members are 5:
  • Martin, who I met
  • The program coordinator, living in another city
  • An admin assistant, who recently left because of insufficient funds
  • Osan, head of the gender unit (unclear what this person has done)
  • Suliaman Turay
• Then I asked about the volunteers. Apparently the people I met are former students who stop by once in awhile and run some minor errands and do cooking. They seem like nice, intelligent people, but unclear if they have actually done any work.
• The 2008 Operational Plan has accomplished basically nothing which was proposed. Reason: insufficient funding (I forgot to ask how much funding total has been received!) Apparently most NGOs with funding available ask for an Operational Plan, which is the huge list of activities.
• Short-term goal is opening up an ICT training center so that people can learn skills to be self-employed and involved in the global market. Want to open a Vocational Training school where they teach advanced software skills (software dev / business / maintenance), social entrepreneurship, bookkeeping, health, social responsibility.
• How to pay for this? By opening businesses:
  • Internet Operating Center – basically a for-profit Internet Café, and …
  • A bakery.
• Proceeds from these two businesses allow people to go to the vocational school for free.
• Also, get money from the government:
  • Give office space
  • Pay for social workers
  • Pay for basic utilities
• My role in this? Talk to existing ICT groups in the area and see how to overcome challenges such as lack of funding. Look for potential partners. Come up with a project proposal which meets objectives. Submit the project proposal for funding.
• The “UN online volunteers” (I think http://www.onlinevolunteers.com) mentioned previously? There are more than a dozen of them so far, whose role is to write funding proposals and to recommend policies. These proposals are then sent to an organization who will then hopefully send money. So far has raised $0, although one proposal was sent to Staying Alive Foundation and is currently under review.
• Asked if there was anything else I should know: SDI is currently having trouble paying for 1) previous rent 2) phone lines 3) back-payment for assistant who quit
• Another big cost has been preparing paperwork for the government in order to get funding. Paperwork cost 85,000CFA (around $170US) to complete, which includes what work the org has already done, etc. I asked to see this, because I thought it would be very interesting. Oh, also corruption is very common in Cameroon (he didn’t say that at this point, but I’m reading between the lines). And when I asked where the money came from, he said the living stipend I sent partially paid for it. Not to worry! There is enough money for my 10 week stay.
• Finally, what is the plan for the next 6 months? Answer: “At all costs” create an income-generating activity so that we don’t have to ask other groups for money. Specifically the afore-mentioned Internet Café, with 4-5 computers will make 10,000 CFA/day. SDI is “very close” to a partnership with miva-net-alliance (something like that) which would provide a satellite internet connection. (Note: there are already a number of existing Internet Cafés, so would not be providing a brand new service).
  

And that was the interview. So … today has been an eye-opener. Add up the total number of people really helped: I think 3. In 2 full years. With 12 people on the Executive Board. And a bullshit (probably) statement of Objectives. At this point, I think that the options are a) SDI just wants to make a living for the people running it, or b) Turay is naïve and really thinks he can get all this funding. Turay is a really nice guy, and I have a key to the place and my door is locked and there is always plenty of food. The place is quite clean and nice – for Cameroon standards at least, which means no running water – Turay and I are both staying at the SDI headquarters.

Which brings me to: what do I do now? I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about my options – I’ve spent most of the time typing this all up to you, dear reader . But I have 2 suitcases and 2 bags worth of stuff. I have more than 9 weeks that I’m supposed to be here. When I asked originally if I could get my money back if it didn’t seem like a good match, he said that would be fine. But with the money already spent, it seems doubtful. I currently have only the 10,000 CFA advance for the laptop, so I need to try to find if there is an ATM anywhere.

In short, I’m a bit concerned. Stephanie – you were right. I didn’t look into this enough. I feel like an idiot. I just went by my gut feeling of this being a legitimate organization, and I feel my gut has more than likely led me wrong. And I feel like I’ve come all this way and don’t see any way in hell I can make a difference within this organization. I suppose if option b) is true I could try to change the entire direction of the org, but of course there are major problems with that as well.

On the positive side, it is a big learning opportunity, to see how people in Cameroon live. But there’s no way I could just do that for 9 weeks and treat this like a big holiday. I can also see what is really needed around here: microcredit – but I can’t see setting up a microcredit operation in such a short timeframe – with no funding. There are also other organizations in the area, but all I hear is that Cameroon is majorly corrupt, and it’s quite likely that corruption has filtered into all the orgs as well. I could just leave the whole thing early, but what a waste that would be. Anyone have any thoughts or recommendations?