MODULE 3 - Section 6
Local Case Studies: Successes & Challenges
20 Minutes to complete section and related assignments
Introduction
Below you will find two short-term team stories. One story offers an example of a short-term team that uses a wide variety of healthy principles, efficient planning, and strong communication. The other demonstrates a team that overlooks these principles and does not fully engage in good planning and execution. As you read, see if you can identify some of the principles and practices (or lack thereof) from Module 1. These stories are not meant to be prescriptive. They are only examples. Every short-term team will be different and offers countless opportunities to do things well, learn from mistakes, and become aware of things you weren’t previously. It will be self-evident how much less impactful a short-term team will be when healthy practices and principles are ignored or forgotten. The goal here is to give you an idea of what a healthy experience looks like for all involved and what goes into making that happen.
Team A
The New Life Team arrived in the morning by airplane, flying into the closest airport, which is about two hours away from the community. Brittany, the community short-term team coordinator, has already pre-arranged for a van service to pick the team members up from the airport. To give the team a warm welcome while ensuring the team makes it to curbside pick-up safely, Brittany meets the team outside of the customs gate and escorts them to their van where she has some water and simple snacks waiting. Brittany accompanies the team to their hostel, which was selected in part due to its close proximity to the community-team office. Brittany ensures the team gets checked in without issue. It also gives her an opportunity to have a conversation with the couple who owns and runs the hostel, furthering the relationship she has already been growing.
The hostel is simple but comfortable, offering breakfast as part of the cost. In the center of its two floors is a large living room space, which team members can use for debriefing and relaxation time.
After giving the team some time to get settled, Brittany leads the team through a time of orientation. She reiterates the important aspects of the work being done, local culture, behavioral expectations, safety, and general location-specific guidelines. Much of this was in the short-term team community guide she sent to the team prior to their arrival, but she takes the time to reiterate some key items. She also highlights some new ones. As part of the orientation, Brittany had already invited the local elementary principal, a Jesus-follower and key local partner, to participate in the last thirty minutes of the orientation session. This allowed the team members to begin practicing listening and learning from locals, start relationship building with someone they would be working with throughout the week, and extend leadership involvement and dignity to someone who calls this community home.
The next day, Brittany leads the team on a walk through the community so they can begin to take in the sights, sounds, and surroundings. As they walk, she points out some of the places where they are trying to make in-roads and uses visual aspects of the community to springboard into sharing about some of its assets and challenges. She also introduces the team to a neighbor they come across. Later, she shares the story of how their neighbor used to be resistant to their local efforts, but God softened them. Now the neighbor is a huge supporter and a key volunteer at one of their weekly programs.
Education is a primary need for the community. English language skills are also highly sought after. However, local resources and training for teachers are minimal. Brittany leverages the skills of the team, all English-speakers, and two team members who are teachers, to plan a workshop for local teachers. Brittany also recognizes that the local teachers, who engage in tutoring after school hours, are consistently short-staffed and overwhelmed by the volume of students. The team engages the students with fun-but-informative life-skill activities, while the teachers tutor the students.
Brittany wanted local school leadership to be at the forefront of the workshop. The principal hosts the workshop and directs the schedule. In addition, local teachers have a panel discussion about the community, local needs and educational challenges and progress, which the team attends. This gives the team a great deal of insight into the complex layers of a society and its compound issues. It also helps them understand the community more and impassions them as they engage the staff and students throughout their stay.
Feeding the team was something Brittany wanted to address well as she considered the team schedule. Daily breakfast at the hostel makes for a convenient start to the day. Lunch during the workshop poses a great opportunity for the team to connect with local teachers. A couple weeks before the team arrived, Brittany approached a local café she had been wanting to get to know and asked if they would cater lunches for the school staff and team for the week. The restaurant is a highlight of the community, and the owner seems well-connected to many other businesses in the neighborhood. The local café agreed. This brought in more local involvement, supported local business, established another local relationship, provided encouragement to the local school staff, and offered a common space for the team and teachers to engage over meal time.
On the fourth day, a team member wakes up with what appears to be the stomach flu. Brittany walks through the steps in the Emergency Response Plan. She acknowledges the team member’s symptoms, checks that no one else is ill, shares this information with the Catalyst, determines it was likely due to the team member drinking water from the school, and works with the team leader to ensure the team member has adequate time and space to recover.
Most evening meals are at a local restaurant close to the hostel. This gives the team some recovery space to be with each other and their thoughts, though one evening the principal hosts the team for dinner. Again, the team and the principal have a chance to interact and learn from each other, while the team gets additional insights into the community and local culture as the principal shares about his time growing up and living there.
Each evening after dinner, the team returns to the hostel for a time of debrief. While the team leader leads, Brittany chooses to be a part of the debrief times every other night in order to gauge where team members were at in their processing of their stay and to learn from the team about what they are seeing and experiencing in the community. When the moments present themselves, Brittany takes time to address team questions and concerns to guide the team in their integration. It is just as helpful for Brittany to share about the impact the week is having on her as it is to hear the team’s personal development.
As the team’s stay winds down, Brittany plans space and time for the team to engage in their final debrief. While she didn’t feel the need to be a part of their time, she chose to hold a final debrief of her own on behalf of the field staff and community before the team engaged in theirs.
Brittany remembers what it was like to be a short-term team member herself and how it was helpful to hear how to take what she had seen and heard in-community and make it a real part of her life when she returned home. Brittany also knows that this is a key moment to invite the team to tangible opportunities for further engagement in the community and long-term transformation.
The next day the team departs, and Brittany uses the same van service to take the team back to the airport. Brittany had plans to travel with the team again, but that morning her daughter woke up with a sore throat. There was a local staff member the team had been working with all week and Brittany asked if they would be willing to travel with the team. Thankfully, they were available and the team had someone to guide them back.
Before the team departs, Brittany takes a moment to inform the team what to expect going through customs and thanked the team for their time and investment in the community.
Team B
The Sunhill Team lands in the morning without event, but upon reaching customs, they discover there is an entrance fee to get into the country. During the preparation conversations, Megan forgot to share this information with the team. The snag sparks some nerves as they don’t have local cash on hand. Fortunately, the team is able to pay with a credit card. After getting their luggage and some confusion finding the pick-up location, the team is grateful to see Megan there to take them to their place of lodging.
Megan had opted to take two taxis from the airport to the hotel as that was a more readily available and cost-effective option, but underestimated the amount of luggage team members would be carrying with them. This requires waiting for another taxi to become free in order to caravan together. The team leader has to go back into the airport to get additional funds from the ATM to pay for the extra cab since Megan only has cash for two.
The team eventually arrives at the place of lodging, a cozy hotel in town on the opposite side of the river from the community center where the team will be engaging each day. Megan gives the team an hour to drop their bags and grab a snack before orientation. While she is gathering her thoughts, she realizes that while the accommodations were quite nice at the hotel, there is no meeting area where the team can sit comfortably to have orientation or daily debriefs throughout the week. Megan decides to take the team across the street to a café.
While she is able to highlight the community, the work being done there and key aspects for team members to be aware of, the café ambiance is a bit distracting and, while not going to break the budget, it does add an unexpected expense to the budget early in the week. She wonders how much of what she shared was actually received.
That evening, Megan and the team talk about one of their community engagement projects - the grand opening for the community center at the end of the week. The team will be organizing the event alongside local volunteers and existing staff. Leading up to the event, the team will serve dinner at the local soup kitchen in the evenings and then eat with the attending locals afterward.
For meals, Megan takes advantage of the included continental breakfast option served at the hotel. Lunch is purchased each day at the café and carried to the service location to be eaten later as a sack lunch. While at their service location, they are approached by a community member, who happens to be a chef at another local café. They ask Megan why the team does not have meals at their café. They would have been honored to serve the team. While the local café across the street is convenient, Megan forgot to consider if any local relationships could be utilized in planning the team schedule.
The team makes the long walk across town and the river each day to get to the community center to prepare. It is a bit exhausting after a few days, but turns out to be a good time for the team to converse with Megan and ask questions. She talks mostly about the challenges around town, but admits she doesn’t know much else about what is happening around the community outside of the neighborhood she works in. After a while, the team stops asking questions about the community and starts joining in about all the things they don’t see in the community and what they miss back home.
On the third day, a team member mentions they are feeling ill. They have a headache, low-grade fever, and nausea. The team member wants to push through and continue on with the day’s activities. Megan think they look pretty ill and wants to take the team member to the clinic to be sure the illness isn’t something more than the stomach flu. Megan sends the other team members on to the day’s project and accompanies the ill team member to the clinic. When the Catalyst arrives on site that day, Megan isn’t there and neither are any local staff. The only local person there is a volunteer and since Megan also serves as the translator, the team is doing their best to communicate with them and figure out how to set up for the event. Megan had forgotten to communicate with the Catalyst, her teammate. When they are finally able to get on each other on the phone, Megan says she will be delayed three hours getting back from the clinic and has to relay directions over the phone with multi-layered instructions for setting up the activities.
Each night after dinner, the team walks back to the hotel for a daily debrief. Megan sits in on the debriefs and notices some exhaustion and frustration coming from the team after a few days. There are also some narrow-minded comments about the local culture. Megan notices these attitudes appear to be affecting interactions with locals too, but hates engaging in conflict. She decides she will try to make things better by doing better herself the next day. While her self-awareness is a good catch, she unfortunately misses out on a timely opportunity to course-correct the team for the days ahead, as well as share perspective about local culture.
The community center launch event ends up a general success. There were several instances where the team was unsure who was leading the setup and execution - them or the volunteers - but the team worked hard to be flexible and figure things out along the way.
With the team’s visit winding down, Megan decides to participate in the team final debrief. During that time, she expresses her sincere thanks for the team’s participation and engagement throughout the week and wishes them well in returning home. After all the team did to pull off the event, she doesn’t want to take any more of their time and decides not to talk about their summer internship opportunity and a key program they are hoping to launch in three months out of the community center.
After the team leaves for the airport, Megan wonders if the team felt like they contributed to the work happening there and would consider returning. She figures that if it is meant to be, they will reach out again in the future and decides not to follow up with the team.
