This Blog thing is not working

Clearly this blog thing is not working out for me. Blogs are for recording personal stories and sharing them with the world. I don’t do that. I barely share stuff with people I know and like, let alone the world. Besides, it is too time consuming and the way I work leaves little time for sharing. Maybe that will change after the one year mark when things slow down a bit. Or maybe it will have to wait till I am 70… I am slogging through the work here but loving it.

Frankly non-profits are pretty dysfunctional and so are governments. Personal efforts do make a difference but it can seem incremental. Apart from the complexity of the relationships and situation, the Red Cross has rarely if ever been in a position where we have the funds to do the work. And we are the largest single funder of recovery work in Sri Lanka. We about to enter into a working arrangement with none other than World Bank - to co-fund $25 million of grants to home owners to rebuild their own houses through a government reconstruction program. Red Cross is also negotiating another $37 million arrangement to build houses with Sri Lanka Red Cross Society and UN Habitat. Throw in a Red Cross project to build 61 health centers and hospitals for another $49 million and another $100 million in rural and municipal water system re-development projects.

All this takes a lot of maneuvering through government and bi lateral donor systems and dealing with construction consulting firms, international suppliers, lawyers and staff that have never done this sort of things before. No wonder this blog thing is not working out for me.

Not sure why, but I do love it.