The first part of the project charter is usually the high-level description of the endeavor. For this blog, it is the subtitle that tries to capture this: “Project Management Shop Talk on Youth-oriented and Socially-relevant Volunteer Construction Projects.” I wish to discuss in this blog two interests I have had for several years. One is project management. After working here then here, getting PMP'd,** and leading trainings on project management, my pedantic tendencies have been piqued by this area of knowledge, and have gotten me to try to talk shop in blogosphere (where you don't see people rolling their eyes in exasperation). It's like chess geeks talking about special moves only eleven people in the world care about, but perhaps a tad more exciting.
The other interest I always wanted to write about is the Workcamp. The Workcamp is a volunteer program for university students. It usually consists of two weeks of construction work for a community in need. The first Workcamp I attended was ten years ago, where we cleaned and cemented the sewage waterways of a community of farmers in Bukidnon. That was sort of a turning point for me. Before that Workcamp I was a cynical and bored teenager. After the Workcamp, I was still a cynical and bored teenager. But a good seed was planted in me. I think I started to realize that doing good is actually fun, and being good (or at least trying to) makes one happy. Perhaps the fumes from the sewage waterways had something to do with my epiphany.
So, after I got out of the corporate world early this year, one of the first things I did was to organize a Workcamp. The project had two phases. The first phase was the preparation. We had to raise money for the transportation, food and construction, as well as look for a site and people to sponsor us there. At the same time, university students had to be marketed to, selected and prepared for the Workcamp. The site we got was a typhoon-ravaged elementary school in Sto. Domingo, Albay. Two years after the devastation of super-typhoon Reming, most of the classrooms have already been reconstructed. They had walls and roofs, but that was pretty much it. When we asked the school principal what their biggest problem was, she said that when the sun is out, the ceiling-less classrooms are like ovens, and when it rains, they are as noisy as a steel drum pounded by a death-metal drummer (not her exact words).
The second phase of the project was the actual construction work of fixing the school. There were twenty-six of us volunteers, and we stayed Sto. Domingo for ten days. What we did was to install insulators (those 10mm foam sheets with a metallic foil on one side). These are more effective in insulating from heat versus a plywood ceiling. They should also be effective noise absorbers. They are also much, much more cost-efficient than plywood. The volunteers had to become experts in using the gun tucker, which is like the regular office stapler minus its lower jaw. Instead, it has a four-inch trigger at the back which you squeeze with your hands to shoot-out the staple. You could kill someone with the thing. There were two teams of insulator-installers. We got a carpentry consultant, Mang Seming, who is a local there. He helped us make coco lumber ladders, which the gun tucker guy would stand on to install the insulators. The insulators could easily get torn from the staples, so we reinforced it with diagonal lattices of metallic wires held by umbrella nails at the intersections. The staples were for quick installation; the lattice for longevity. On our first day, each of the teams was only able to install insulators on one-fifth of a room's roof. On the last day both teams jointly installed insulators and wires for the last room in half-a-day. They declared that they had an alternate career path in case their university course does not work out.
We also painted the interiors of the classrooms. Another team was in charge of this. The painting team first scraped-off the old paint using a tool which looks like a metallic credit card with a wooden handle. They then wet the wall with “neutralizer,” which is supposed to make the paint stick better to the concrete wall. This may be slightly biased, but after several layers of latex paint, the interiors of the classrooms looked pretty close to a mac store. The Workcamp last year was painting of classrooms as well. Hans, the one who organized Workcamp '07, was with us, so the learning curve for painting didn't have to be as steep as installing insulators. In the mornings, four members of the painting team taught local kids personal hygiene (one of them is a medical student).
The Workcamp is not all work. After our workday, we played basketball or football. Every other day, the volunteers were given short talks on leadership. On several after-meal get-togethers, the Workcampers got to share their musical and comic talents, with presentations and games. For those who wanted, there were traditional practices of Christian piety. On the last Sunday, the Workcampers went to the Cagsaway ruins in Mayon Volcano, and on the night before that, friends of the Workcamp who own a restaurant in the next city treated the volunteers to a Chinese multi-course dinner.
I plan do a project like this as often as I can. It is a small project compared to what I used to do, but it is not a walk in the park. However, if the Workcamp opens up new vistas of life, service, joy and appreciation of the finer points of hammering nails for even just one fellow—the way it did to me a decade ago—it is undoubtedly worth it. I plan to blog about the “lessons learned” in the project—another practice that gets hammered on you when trying to be a PMP. All contents of this blog is licensed under CC-BY.I could not talk about the Albay Workcamp 2008 without mentioning the people who made it happen. Thanks to our hosts, Dr. Manuel Lorenzo and Jess & Dette Abrera. This Workcamp is dedicated in memory of Dr. Patria Lorenzo. Thanks to our major donors—the anonymous friend of Fernan and Karlo, Metafoam of the Marañon family, and the Foundation for East Asian Development (FEAD). Special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Gregorio, Ma'am Reaso, Sister Merit, Architect Cesar Olmos, Josef Lim for the posters and brochures, Fujitsu, Philtranco for the discount, Mayor Boss Boy, Glenn Nares, and all the wonderful people of Sto. Domingo. Salamat!
Of course, this Workcamp wouldn't have been successful without the teamwork, creativity and hard work of the volunteers: Mark, Michael, Kevin, Fritz, Not-Not, Arvin, Kiko, Erold, Meyrick, Andrew, Aibar, Jonathan, Luis, Carlos, Kaiser, Cedric, Gian, Jezer, Jon, Kenneth, Jeremy, Miguel, Raffy and Charles. I hope that ten years from now, there'll be twenty-four new blogs that talk shop about project management of Workcamps :)
*The PMBOK defines a project as “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.” “Temporary” here means you have the intention of ending the undertaking at some point, and you have some idea when that point is. This blog doesn't have those characteristics. This blog, strictly speaking, is operational work. This is the example I usually give to differentiate projects and operations: a wedding is project (even the typically week-long Hindu wedding eventually ends); marriage is operations ('till death do us part).
**The pun, to a certain degree, is intended.
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