first two weeks of work

This week has been interesting and challenging - interesting in that I've now had the chance to see both sides of Accion Social's operations, and challenging in that I've been confronted with a system in which I still struggle to see any clear role that I can play. The coming week is based on the development of a role description, so hopefully in a week's time I'll have a far clearer idea of exactly what I'll be doing here...

One positive to come out of this week was that we finally got a chance to work directly with victims of internal displacement; unfortunately, this was still in what was essentially an administrative capacity. The service that the UAOs (Attention and Orientation Units) provide is highly process-oriented, and the majority of the interaction between the staff (including myself) and the victims of internal displacement is based on the collection of documents and the completion of forms. To me, this isn't social work, it's administration, and it provides little scope for the provision of psychosocial assistance. This type of assistance (psychosocial) is supposed to come later - what the Territorial Unit and the UAOs provide is essentially an initial point of call and a future point of reference for the displaced population. Over the course of the next week I hope that, with the help of my supervisor, I will be able to define a role that allows for a combination of this kind of administrative work (which, due to the structure of the project, is unavoidable), and more hands-on work - possibly with a social worker or a psychologist. I'm still not sure if this will be possible, but I guess I'll know within a week...