Sumanta Basu- NWAFA, Gambia

At the end of eleven months in The Gambia, it seems to me that I have been oblivious to the evolution-taking place both in the work field and also in me!

My job description stated my role as that of a ‘Marketing advisor’ to NAWFA. During the initial months, I was strictly working in that domain. But, gradually, as I started to identify with NAWFA, I found myself working in various work groups to help build up the capacities in other functional areas of NAWFA. I chipped in helping the organization in trying to put a financial system and structure in place; develop a fundraising strategy; to address the issue of organizational development and change management, in brief.This became vital for NAWFA with the donor agencies becoming more conscious about the actual impact being created at the target groups and changing their own style of functioning.

Second, the behavioral aspect of my colleagues also underwent subtle changes. Initially, I was not privy to all aspects of the functioning of the organization. But, as we got used to one another, I became fully accepted in NAWFA.

In a nutshell, my work area has become more engaging and vibrant from the point where I started in The Gambia. I found myself drawn more to the association with the ‘Development’ world after the first-time experience in life, says Sumanta with a bit of smile on his face

Last year Sumanta Basu was working in Kolkata as a senior marketing executive in the corporate sector. Today, he is a VSO volunteer, working with the Gambian NGO the National Women Farmers Association (NAWFA). This is the story of a life-changing journey.

As a grade A high-flyer, with an MBA under his belt and over five years’ experience working at senior level in the IT and banking sectors, Sumanta wasn’t lacking options for a bright future. But he was looking for change and challenge, an opportunity to help those less fortunate than himself and so put in an application to volunteer with the iVolunteer Overseas (iVO) programme. IVO is a joint initiative of iVolunteer and VSO that offers a unique opportunity for qualified and experienced Indian professionals to share their skills with disadvantaged people in the developing countries of Asia, Africa and the Caribbean/Pacific regions.

Having successfully negotiated his way through a selection day and a series of pre-departure training courses, Sumanta started looking at the volunteer placement options open to him around the world. With his expertise in areas such as marketing, research, brand promotion and strategizing, he was looking for an opportunity that would make good use of his skills.

A few months before this the Gambian NGO NAWFA had approached VSO to ask for a volunteer and they had a clear idea of who was needed to develop their organisation - an individual with over 5 years’ experience in business and marketing, a person with high professional standards who was open and willing to share his skills with colleagues. NAWFA is a relatively young organisation, formed in April 1999 to facilitate the economic empowerment of women farmers across the country. Their key objective is to support a network of 74 independent Sesame Growers Associations (SGAs), which are dynamic rural women farmers associations based on a grassroots membership. The Association has a total membership of 48,000 individual small-scale women farmers and they were looking for the support of a volunteer like Sumanta to develop their national marketing strategy.