Un Verano de Aventuras

I am going to be working with Plan International on a research evaluation of their education in emergencies programs in El Salvador, Peru, and Ecuador this summer.  Besides travel to these countries for about 10 days at a time for the actual primary data collection, I’m also expected to conduct desk research and regional interviews in Panama City, where I’ll be staying at first for a few weeks.  

This is a great opportunity to get consulting experience on program evaluations and also to get to travel and use my Spanish a lot.  I’m also lucky enough to be traveling and conducting the evaluation with a fellow graduate student from my program, Leilani, who is focusing on education.   It’s always nice to have company when traveling, especially when doing something this complicated and new for the first time! I feel very lucky to have this opportunity, and although I’m sad to be saying goodbye to James (who is going to spend the summer working at Fonkoze’s office in Haiti) and my friends in D.C., I’m confident it will be a great summer. I leave on Friday, so at the moment I'm concentrating on getting final papers for class written and everything that needs to be packed packed. I’ll try to write soon and often and share my experiences with you as I go along!

Below is a snippet from the Terms of Reference about what I’ll be doing while abroad: 

PROJECT:  Evaluation of Plan’s Regional Office for the Americas’ Work on Education in Emergencies

TASKS:

1. Conduct a desk review of previous evaluations, reports etc… that include education in emergencies in El Salvador, Ecuador and Peru.
2. Based on previous mapping exercise conducted, interview key Plan staff at the regional and country levels.
3. Work with Education in Emergencies Specialist and Plan’s Regional Disaster Risk Management Manager to design a detail plan for the research as it pertains to each of the above-mentioned countries.
4. Collect data on the impact of Plan’s Education in Emergencies response in 3 countries: El Salvador, Ecuador and Peru. This will include qualitative and quantitative methods.
5. Compile and analyze data, pulling out key results and patterns for each country and then for the region.
6. Develop case studies on the innovative approaches to education in emergencies within El Salvador, Ecuador and Peru.
7. Other Tasks as required by the regional office.

DELIVERABLE(S):

1.    Report on the key results and patterns for each country and the region.

2.    Short Case studies on Best Practices/Innovative approaches

3.  Short report to present to potential donors