What I Am Supposed To Be Doing All Day

Surprisingly, the job has turned out to be almost exactly what I applied for, which from what I have heard, is quite rare in development internships.

My job title is the Community Safety and Violence Prevention Officer. The job can be broken down into three main parts:
The first (which I am currently working on) is conducting a ‘community audit’ of the districts that CAYO works in. CAYO stands for the Counseling for Adolescents and Youth Organization, the organization I work for.
A community audit is a fancy development term for conducting research to determine the demographics of a community, and the issues that are facing it.
The question being answered is what makes young women vulnerable to physical and sexual violence. As well as focusing specifically on how violence impacts the sub-populations of sex-workers, teen mothers, and widows.
Right now I am designing questionnaires and discussion guides, and I hope by next week to be going out into the communities to gather information. I will be using three mechanisms to gather the information: focus groups, individual interviews, and discussions with key informants from the communities (like chiefs or teachers). Slightly overwhelming organizationally, but very interesting.

The main obstacles right now are language (I will need a translator), and identifying the participants. The current process is that CAYO approaches the chiefs and they identify the sex-workers and teen mothers for me to talk to. But I am concerned that then includes the chief’s own bias in the selection process. But I am not sure how to avoid that while still following the proper protocols…….

After the research is gathered it will be compiled into one report. Ideally I will be able to see the dominant trends in gender-based violence in these areas.

Part 2: Plan programs that address the issues.
Part 3: Implement the programs.

That is the game plan.