Learning from our mistakes: A collection from Overseas Volunteer Staff

The first aim of this booklet is to highlight a few of the challenges and mistakes OVS have made, and how EWB has grown and improved because of these experiences. The second aim is to generate a dialogue about overseas work in general, its challenges, and how EWB evolves after making mistakes. One difficulty that comes when reporting failures is that the goals of our overseas programs are for the most part very intangible and difficult to measure. This makes both successes and failures hard to be transparent about. This booklet is a start towards being more transparent about the work we do, the mistakes we’ve made, and the learning that’s occurred as a result. Another difficulty is that the work that OVS do is complex. Development is quite complex already, and because we are often at different levels – from individual field level (Dorothy), to organizational and institutional levels, to international systemic levels – giving the entire picture in a short booklet such as this is impossible.