AVC: All Volunteer Conference
By Ian Allen
This past May, Peace Corps Rwanda hosted its first ever All Volunteer Conference [AVC]. The two day event brought together over 70 PCVs from all around the country in an attempt to share ideas and best practices, as well as tackle different problems Peace Corps Rwanda is facing. The Conference also served as an outlet to discuss Peace Corps service and explore working in the development field.
AVC took months of preparation but, after two days filled with volunteer-led sessions, an Olympic event that will go down in the annals of history, and enough free food to make any PCV happy, many agreed it was a huge success.
Planning for the AVC began back in 2012. A group of Volunteers became passionate about the idea and began floating the idea to Peace Corps staff, who were initially hesitant to support it. According to Steve Miller, Country Director at the time, Peace Corps AVCs have a rather contentious reputation amongst CDs. While some have proven successful as a forum for sharing ideas, other AVCs have devolved into chaos and debauchery. As a relatively new post at the time, the Peace Corps Rwanda staff asked for the idea to be put on hold until they could ensure it would be a success.
In early 2013, the Volunteer Advisory Council adopted the All Volunteer Conference as one of its main projects. This involved collecting any plans previously discussed and gathering lessons-learned from AVCs in other countries. One of the best success stories came from Uganda, whose AVC schedule inspired much of the programming at the Peace Corps Rwanda conference.
This time, when the proposal was made, Peace Corps Rwanda staff were welcoming to the idea and at the end of 2013, news from Washington came through that the funding for the first Peace Corps Rwanda All-Volunteer Conference was approved.
The next few months involved contacting the various committees within the Peace Corps Rwanda community with an invitation to plan sessions which highlighted the work their groups have accomplished as well as informing PCVs of different ways to get more involved. In this way, the majority of the sessions were planned and facilitated by PCVs themselves, which according to the post-Conference evaluation, was one of PCVs’ favorite aspects of the Conference.
But the Conference wasn’t all sitting through sessions. Each night, there were a variety of events including a trivia contest, talent show, and dance. For many of these events, PCVs were engaged in small groups comprised of volunteers from all different training groups and country regions. The idea was to create unity across Peace Corps Rwanda, in order to combat the fragmentation that can happen when volunteers work in different project sectors and long distances apart.
On the final day of the AVC, there was a Rwandan Olympics that incorporated some of the toughest skills a PCV has to learn in this country; such as hand-washing a dirty shirt or choking down that two-day-old irindazi you paid ijana for!).
By the end of the Conference, even the Peace Corps Rwanda staff were impressed. By giving PCVs control over the event and allowing them to utilize their skills and experiences to help teach the greater PC Rwanda community, we put on an even that will be remembered for some time. Though the planning process was long and difficult, staging a successful AVC will make the next conference an easy event to organize and get approved.
As someone who played a small part in planning this All Volunteer Conference, I look forward to reading about future AVCs here on the SOMA website!
AVC took months of preparation but, after two days filled with volunteer-led sessions, an Olympic event that will go down in the annals of history, and enough free food to make any PCV happy, many agreed it was a huge success.
Planning for the AVC began back in 2012. A group of Volunteers became passionate about the idea and began floating the idea to Peace Corps staff, who were initially hesitant to support it. According to Steve Miller, Country Director at the time, Peace Corps AVCs have a rather contentious reputation amongst CDs. While some have proven successful as a forum for sharing ideas, other AVCs have devolved into chaos and debauchery. As a relatively new post at the time, the Peace Corps Rwanda staff asked for the idea to be put on hold until they could ensure it would be a success.
In early 2013, the Volunteer Advisory Council adopted the All Volunteer Conference as one of its main projects. This involved collecting any plans previously discussed and gathering lessons-learned from AVCs in other countries. One of the best success stories came from Uganda, whose AVC schedule inspired much of the programming at the Peace Corps Rwanda conference.
This time, when the proposal was made, Peace Corps Rwanda staff were welcoming to the idea and at the end of 2013, news from Washington came through that the funding for the first Peace Corps Rwanda All-Volunteer Conference was approved.
The next few months involved contacting the various committees within the Peace Corps Rwanda community with an invitation to plan sessions which highlighted the work their groups have accomplished as well as informing PCVs of different ways to get more involved. In this way, the majority of the sessions were planned and facilitated by PCVs themselves, which according to the post-Conference evaluation, was one of PCVs’ favorite aspects of the Conference.
But the Conference wasn’t all sitting through sessions. Each night, there were a variety of events including a trivia contest, talent show, and dance. For many of these events, PCVs were engaged in small groups comprised of volunteers from all different training groups and country regions. The idea was to create unity across Peace Corps Rwanda, in order to combat the fragmentation that can happen when volunteers work in different project sectors and long distances apart.
On the final day of the AVC, there was a Rwandan Olympics that incorporated some of the toughest skills a PCV has to learn in this country; such as hand-washing a dirty shirt or choking down that two-day-old irindazi you paid ijana for!).
By the end of the Conference, even the Peace Corps Rwanda staff were impressed. By giving PCVs control over the event and allowing them to utilize their skills and experiences to help teach the greater PC Rwanda community, we put on an even that will be remembered for some time. Though the planning process was long and difficult, staging a successful AVC will make the next conference an easy event to organize and get approved.
As someone who played a small part in planning this All Volunteer Conference, I look forward to reading about future AVCs here on the SOMA website!