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Here’s what some of the staff wrote about their experience of working in CEPA in 2008.
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, a Junior Professional in the PIM programme team says:
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When reflecting on 2008, I think it was a remarkable year for CEPA. Whatever the challenges CEPA faced over the last year, led to recognize her institutional capacities as well as her strengths and weaknesses. This led CEPA to tackle the challenges to a certain extent with a new focus of CEPA’s activities. This turning point gave her a space to get involved in various activities which are having more academic and policy value. The diversity of experiences/capacities of cepistas, gave her strength to tackle the challenges . At the same time CEPA was able to give various chances for her young professionals to improve/develop their academic/career interests. I think this would be the best learning of CEPA in 2008
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, a Junior Professional, very new to CEPA says:
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It was a year with full of excitement and learning for me. As soon as I joined in CEPA last September, as a fresh graduate, CEPA provided me enough opportunities to learn new things and develop my capacities. It was amazing to learn and work with a very diverse pool of people on sensitive and serious issues. CEPA showed me the best way of delegation, and empowerment by provided me lot of responsibilities through out the year, which made me believe in my self and work.
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CRISE dominated the last year with the same cycle of recruiting, training, data collection, drop offs. Any way it taught me the practical realities and the impact of logistical issues. It is very rare to get an opportunity to work in a very supportive and friendly team, I’m happy that I’ve got it.
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, a Professional in the PAC programme and working also on the CRISE project had this to say:
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When I think of the last year only the second half of it springs to mind because it was nothing but cra…zy! We handled one of the toughest and largest samples ever in the CEPA history, experienced small set backs and eventually success in the field work, had some very interesting discussions linking the theories and practice and most of all felt satisfaction by knowing that we have tried our best and put in our maximum effort into the work in hand. It was a close call in a lot of ways, but think we’ve managed to pull it off! I mean the whole year.
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a Professional from the PAM team says she got an opportunity this year to be involved in an assignment that fitted well with her interests:
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When reflecting on the last year, 2008 was year of mixed work experiences for me. I was involved in more logistical issues in the first three quarters which was a bit tiring. The involvement in COSOP study as the task manager and as a theme researcher gave me good experiences including a chance to use my academic knowledge directly and to participate in interesting timely discussions on agriculture and development in Sri Lanka. With all other challenges within CEPA, overall it was positive.
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And some serious and thoughtful ideas from CEPA’s senior professionals. (Team Leader, PAC) reflecting on change, says
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We’ve heard a lot about change lately, not least because of the over hyped and over publicised US presidential elections. One of the rather empty messages coming from these elections was “change we can believe in”. We’ve had many changes in CEPA in the last few years. We have reviewed policies and put in place new ones, we have seen changes of personnel and institutional structure, all in a relatively short space of time.
I think when we reflect on the last year it is important to remember that change is also for some purpose, and the success or failure of change is not how different something is after the change has taken place but the impacts that these differences have created…..what we have to reflect on is whether the internal changes that we have instituted will address this negative change in our financial position.
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, Team Leader of the PIM Programme, thinking back to 2008 sees it as a year that:
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pulled us in many directions – simultaneously. It was a year that we had to step up to the plate in terms of fund raising while already having our plate full in terms of assignments. However despite the pressures of a difficult financial year we gave our best effort to deliver a quality product for each of our assignments – with many discussions and deliberations – a forte of CEPA’s working style! The most significant pull factor however was the sense of shared responsibility, team spirit and commitment to the organisation shown by her staff.
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, a Senior Professional on the PIM programme reflects on what drove the year:
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More than anything else what last year showed is that money drives this world – and knowledge generation is also subject to that over riding force. It raises many questions about whose priorities are then reflected in our work, what is the role of local knowledge in driving local development policies and how much freedom we, as an institution, actually have to change our world. I think last year showed how little freedom/power we actually have to pursue our values and what we think are the values of poor people, to speak up on unpopular or unfashionable topics, and generally go against the dogmas of the development discourse. The real challenge lies ahead – can we balance the need to follow “trends” and be at the “cutting edge” of development discourse, while being true to our principles and values as committed professionals?
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, the Accounts Assistant from the Finance and Administration team, that experienced the departure of key team members says:
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2008… It was a year with lots of challenges, responsibilities, happy & sad moments!!! This was my second year at CEPA. Even though it was a strenuous year, when I look back, I feel really happy about myself as well as for CEPA. Due to financial difficulties, the finance department had to go through a difficult time. But we did our best to overcome the situation. I was able to improve and enhance on my knowledge giving a good support to the Finance team as well as to CEPA. I was assigned new tasks to perform and I look forward to doing my best.
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The Support staff saw it as a year where commitment pulled CEPA through. voices their collective view:
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