Communications

Earlier this week we were graced by a visit from MCC communications. A writer and photographer made the trip to Ukraine from Winnipeg and Akron respectively. They are here for around 10 days and will be traveling around Ukraine to interview people and see a part of what MCC is doing here.

After spending their first couple of days in Zaporozhye they traveled to Kharkov (in the Northeast corner of Ukraine) to meet with some of the partners; the goal being to interview them and write an article on economic development and loan funds for The Common Place, the MCC news magazine. There were three interviews there: one with the manager of the loan fund and two with loan recipients. The two recipients were a family that is farming around 11 hectares of land and another family that is growing tomatoes in a greenhouse.

We then traveled to Donetsk/Makeevka and spent another half-day interviewing another loan fund manager and three more recipients. These recipients were a guy who raises roses in a greenhouse, two ladies that have a large garden and raise ducks and a guy who runs an auto parts store. This was especially interesting for me because MCC didn’t give a grant to this fund this year, and since I have been mainly working with those who were given grants, I did not have much first-hand experience with this loan fund.

We spent the second half of the day talking to people at Good Shepherd. It was very interesting to participate in these interviews because I was given a forum to find out some answers to a lot of my own questions.

I think the experience was generally positive for “communications” and was also interesting for me. We wanted these people to see and hear the best of what is going on here and I found myself reflecting on that a bit. One can make direct correlations between communications and fund raising, and we want our supporters to hear about all the good things that are happening here. But most things are more complicated than the “Wow, look at all the great things your contributions have done.”

I’m glad to show mainly positive things, but sometimes it upsets me that that is all we talk about. Focusing just on the positive results and thinking that if we don’t see them, the negatives aren’t there, results in an oversimplification of many situations. I am sure this will continue to be a difficulty in the future for me. In thinking back on time in Ukraine, I will probably glaze over the complications and remember only the positives, which is natural. And that is most likely a good thing.

Dave