This Volunteering Life

I am volunteering here in Vanuatu for the 'Vanuatu Qualifications Authority', a government body that accredits training providers that run courses at the certificate level (like TAFE in Australia) for courses like 'Introduction to Cooking' and 'Basic Car Mechanics'.  But I should have known better: this work takes me right back to my Papua New Guinea days... the lack of initiative, lack of will power, lack of knowledge, resources, even no electricity. What is the point of building a database system?

I have decided to cut short the assignment by a month, since it is such a futile exercise.  I have built them a Microsoft SQL/Access system. The ‘big-man’ boss asked me yesterday to come back to  rebuild the website and connect it to the database, but it seems a ridiculous ask for a government office with 8 staff that do not have computer skills, computers, regular electricity or internet, no initiative and do not actually accomplish anything but give the big-man a car and status in the community! They are supposed to evaluate and accredit all the training providers in the country (40 of them), but at this point in time there is no data to go into the database as none of the training providers are accredited by this government office!

So sadly, I have failed my motto...