Project Design & Management Workshop..

My counterpart and friend Endrit signed up for the PDM workshop held by the Peace Corps in Tirane. Our project plan is to renovate the basketball courts in the middle of town by having a clean-up day for the community, replacing the basketball goals and rims and painting the area, overall, just making the area safer and more easier to play on than it is now. The basketball courts are in the middle of the town and it's the first thing that foreigners and locals alike see when they get off the buses. We both think that it is important for a beautification project to be implemented as well as renovate the courts to help provide healthier life choices for the youth and start up the neighborhood basketball teams that were in place in previous years.

The PDM workshop was so helpful for this. I mean I learned a lot of this stuff during PST but since I had no idea how it was going to be at site, what my co-worker's reception of me would be, what the community's needs were, etc. it was hard to actually visualize any of this helping me. During this workshop we go through all the necessary steps to creating a successful project (on paper), with our Albanian counterparts which is a great opportunity for us to work together and create a project together.

I think the entire workshop was a huge success and I was so fortunate that I got to attend with my counterpart. I realized this week too how fortunate I am to have my counterpart because he not only keeps me informed with what's going on at the Bashkia but is so supportive of my own projects as well, and speaks really good English which is always a huge help. Now, hopefully, when I return to site, we will be as motivated and productive as we have been this week. None the less, I think what we learned this week will definitely benefit us with our current project and all projects in the future. Stay tuned for project development. I also learned today that the Peace Corps Partnership fund for the Outdoor Amabassador's group has been fully funded! Urime! Shume sukses. It happened quicker than we expected and I can't wait to see what our next step is for this training.