Job dilemma: food & beverage or books?

Posted by Janine

I got a job offer! After quite a few weeks of intensive searching and ‘selling myself’;) and meeting with more than 10 different organizations and companies…this one came out of the blue. Like it usually seems to go: by pure luck, via my housemate. In theory, I could have just chilled in my hammock sipping smoothies for the last 4 weeks (maybe I did?) because so far my efforts have only been rewarded into promises that ‘they will get back to me’.

BUT as I said, I did get an offer (to start 'yesterday'), by a great woman my age who owns a company selling schoolbooks! A bit of background: In Rwanda, the government changed the teaching language from French and local K’nyarwanda to English last year. From one day to the other… Imagine, it would be the same as being a teacher in Europe and you suddenly have to continue your work in, let’s say, German. It’s pretty crazy. Anyway, they are doing it somehow.

But there aren’t many good books yet. And by far not enough (1 book for 5 pupils). So she saw a niche in the market and contacted the biggest company in the field of educational books (Pearson from the UK), spent months gathering teachers to write the books, adapted to the Rwandan context etc. Now it is time to distribute the first 50.0000 ordered books throughout the country (they are supposed to be for the year 2010, so they’re pretty much in a hurry) and she is desperate to find someone to organize all this…

The fun thing is that after the first distribution (which will take a month), they need to make plans and implement programs to actually support and train teachers in using these books, and to motivate them, as most teachers can hardly survive on their salary. That sounds like a nice challenge.

Still, I haven’t taken the job offer (yet). I’m not sure! Who knows, after all these efforts, one of the other job options in the field of CSR /sustainable food will actually get back to me with a positive reply. In theory, I could receive a phone call from Heineken, Starbucks, the Dutch embassy, MANA foods (making protein bars for undernourished children), SNV, IFDC, a chilli pepper trader or Inyange industries (the biggest Rwandan fruit & milk company). In the case of SNV and Starbucks it is quite likely although it will be unpaid work, both in sustainable coffee production. In the case of the Dutch embassy there is also a chance, because Rwanda has just been announced as a ‘donor country’ so there is lots of development work coming up. And in the case of IFDC, an international rural development organisation where I had a meeting yesterday; there is an opportunity too, although it will only be an assignment for two weeks.

Decision-time is running out: these schoolbooks need to get out there FAST, so that english explanations of math and geography can be 'consumed' by eager rwandanese children who -if lucky- know how to say 'Good moning how aayou'. As you can tell, I am not yet convinced if these books will make a difference for them?

Conclusion: I am in a dilemma this weekend. If anyone has any brilliant advice on how/when to decide, write me, please!

Janine

PS. Greetings from Mikkel. He's had no time for blogs - too busy working...