Why I’m in the Maldives

Care Society office is in central Male’, and we’re based on the first floor with eight or so general Care Society staff (check out a picture of me and Gemma in the office via the ‘photos’ category). Downstairs is the Care Development Centre (CDC), the only rehabilitation centre/school in the Maldives for disabled children, on the floor above are all the Tsunami project staff, and above that, flats that Care Society rent out for income. Care Society has expanded massively since the Tsunami – it’s one of the only NGOs in the
Maldives and before December 2004 was working on advocacy for marginalised groups; women and children and the disabled. CDC was a core part of its work. When the Tsunami came, it was well placed to begin rehabilitation efforts, and secured a grant from ActionAid [link this] which lasts until December 2007. Care Society’s focus has shifted over the last couple of years as a result away from CDC and towards supporting the Tsunami projects. Everyone at Care Society has been really welcoming. They host a couple of international volunteers like ourselves each year who, with the participation of Care Society staff, have produced a variety of good strategic documents like 5 year plans and fundraising strategies. However, actual implementation of these fancy documents is a slightly different matter, mainly due to the current all-encompassing Tsunami projects focus of Care Society. The three of us from the NHS are working on different projects: Andy is working on updating the fundraising strategy and then actually implementing some of it, since the last one was written a few years ago and no action has yet been taken on the recommendations made. Gemma’s focus is the development of Community-Based Rehabilitation projects based on 2 islands, and mine is evaluating the work of the Care Development Centre based in this building and producing recommendations for its direction over the next 5 years. So it’s not all tropical islands and white sands – we are actually doing some work, honest!