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| Submitted by Julia Meek on July 4, 2010 |
I joined Wokai last Monday as Chief of Staff, a brand new position that means that my days will be a mixture of, among other things, talking to our chapters all over the world, a bit of number crunching here in Beijing, management and motivation, and presenting Wokai and microfinance at public events.
It’s been a really busy and enjoyable week, as I’ve learnt more about how Wokai works on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour basis to alleviate poverty in China. CNN ran an item on us on Wednesday– a boost for team and for donations. A retreat at the Great Wall on Thursday and Friday also packed my already buzzing brain with our objectives for the next year, as well as leaving me a little sunburnt!
Since graduating four years ago I have worked in the UK social business sector, helping set up ClearlySo, an online hub and resource for social business and investment. ClearlySo is for profit, but with a strong social mission, and this is my first real experience of the not for profit sector: Wokai does not make any money from the money it directs to borrowers in rural China and all its operational costs are covered by optional donations. I’m really interested to work out what the cultural differences are between the not for profit and for profit world- and whether there should be any! More on this in later blogs.
Finally, as the only British representative in the Wokai office I am beginning to realize that there may be some difficulties in communication between me and the rest of the team (who generally speak American or Canadian English). So, as a postscript to my blogs, I promise to have a glossary of words and phrases to help the team, if not the readers, understand what I am saying.
Until next time,
Julia
Glossary
Full on: Overwhelming, intense, with total commitment
Disambiguation: Not ‘forlorn’ (Canadian pronunciation), and not ‘full-frontal’ (American interpretation)
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