The end of October marked the end of my first quarter here at Africare and the start of the second quarter seems to have brought with it all types of change. In the office we are currently in the midst of several big changes, the biggest being the addition of a new CDC funded home-based care project. Africare will work with some small Civil Service Organizations and existing community structures to provide home-based care for people living with HIV/AIDS. The start up of this project has required a lot of time and energy, including interviewing for about 20 new positions. With between five and ten candidates being interviewed for each position, you can imagine that this has been a very time consuming process. Everyone from the Country Representative, to the program's Chief of Party, to the junior staff has been pitching in to assist in the interviewing process. I've been working very closely with the Human Resources Officer to test the candidates' practical skills, compile summaries of interview results, and create briefings of panel recommendations to be reviewed and approved by the Country Representative and our headquarters in Washington, D.C. I even had the opportunity to sit on the interview panel for a few of the positions and it was quite a different experience being the interviewer instead of the interviewee. One of the new staff that has been hired is the new Program Assistant, Gloria.
She and I have worked together to create a new internal monthly newsletter, which was a hit in the office. We're also working together to draft Africare Tanzania's first Annual Report. The Africare organization as a whole puts out an annual report every year and some of the country offices also produce annual reports. Africare arrived in Tanzania in 1994 and has not produced an annual report yet. Gloria and I are very excited to be working on these new additions.
In addition to the newsletter and annual report, Gloria and I will be working with the Admin officer to create a resource center where staff can access reference materials in one centralized, organized space.
So, between the addition of a new project, lots of new staff members, a new newsletter, the creation of a resource center and the first ever annual report, this has certainly been a period of change for Africare Tanzania.