A new beginning

I decided to start writing this blog in the main because of my "life situation" at the moment, so I suppose the best place to start is by describing who I am and what that is.
I am a 36 year old Electronic Engineer by trade, I finished University at the age of 23, and then worked in the Digital Design industry (Networking Hardware, Scanners, Telecommunications) for nine years until 2005. Inspired by several overseas trips, mainly to countries with a high percentage of poor population, I decided to head to Mexico and Guatemala to try and work with organised community groups working in fields such as traditional textile or food production (I hope to write a future blog about this).
I ended up beginning a collaboration as a "consultant" with a group of women from a community of Guatemalan refugees, who were granted land as part of the Peace Accords following the end of the Guatemalan Civil War in 1996. These women were using locally grown peanuts to produce peanut butter (the previous blog, which I had completely forgotten about, was about a peanut sheller I organised for them), a process they learned from a Mormon couple who lived in the community for almost ten years, apparently as a safe-guard that the community was not harassed by government, private interests or neighbouring communities following their repatriation.
This collaboration led to further contacts with groups in similar situations, and I spent over three years living in the country fulfilling a role as an advising consultant and more active "sales representative" for community groups and their products in local Guatemala markets. I was also involved in other social movements and programs within the country, mainly those related to the promotion of local, community-organised and structured groups of producers.
I found this work incredibly motivating, personally satisfying, invigorating, and I couldn't get enough of it. I started projects of my own with these groups, trying to further both their ability to secure a future for themselves and their initiatives, and their outlook on collaboration as a way to achieve these goals (by that I mean collaboration with other like-minded groups). What began as an "experiment" to see if I could really engage myself in such an unknown environment became a conviction that this type of work was what I wanted to continue to do with my life.
A point came when I believed I had done as much as I could with my current projects, and that my presence was hindering the ability of the groups to develop rather than helping it (by development I mean in the context of developing self-management- that I was simply taking away tasks that they could have been learning or doing themselves). I returned to Australia to try and find funding for a project that would capitalise on the improvement that the groups had made over the years, and that would enable the groups to continue to grow by offering products to more markets, including potentially international ones. Unfortunately that quest for funding proved fruitless, perhaps simply too much for one person to draw up and manage by themselves.
Personal circumstances (i.e. my girlfriend ;-) then led me to Germany, in which I arrived almost exactly a year ago, and where I now live. I believed at the time that it could also be a positive move for me in terms of continuing my development as a professional in Community Development work, being as there are many government and non-government (principally church-based organisations) that sponsor and oversee development projects in many countries around the world, including Latin America. Alas, there have been some obstacles that have been a little more difficult to overcome than I imagined, the language barrier being among the greatest. Yes, most younger Germans speak good English, but most organisations that answer to the German government or German sponsors require YOU to speak and write professional German.
I continue to look for a job in the area of sustainable or community development, but now I must also look at the possibility that further study in a German University might be necessary to broaden my employment possibilities if a position in Latin America or other developing country doesn't eventuate.


And that is pretty much a condensed version of my story. I decided to write this blog, then, to remind myself of what inspired and inspires me so much about this field, why I am so interested in it, and why I am convinced I want to continue to work in it. I hope it will become something of a way to look back at what I did in Guatemala, and something to enable me to expand on the topics that are relevant both there and in "first world" countries such as Germany and Australia. I hope it to be sometimes personal, and sometimes a good factual read.
Oh, and I need to practice my German translations, so some parts should also appear in German. I really should be using my Spanish more as well, but translating to two languages for every post might just take up too much time. Hopefully I'll get to reminisce about my time in Guatemala a little in Spanish though...