Pros and Cons of Working in a Local NGO

(first published in https://digitalsenior.sg/working-in-a-local-ngo/)

Working in an NGO offers many challenges and priceless lifetime experiences, more so international ones. They have long term programs and stable funding from companies, as well as government to support them, as their programs receive international recognition for giving positive impact for its beneficiaries.

It is the same with national and  local NGOs in terms of having long term programs and giving impact, but differences in funding and recognition create different stories. Despite various issues covered, the area of coverage and availability of local resources give different dynamics in local NGOs movement.

Working in an NGO with a great cause is good, but first, we need to understand its challenges and environment so that we do not have false expectations. Here are some pros and cons if you are considering to work in a local NGO after graduation.

1.     Valuable Experience vs Enough Salary

The main highlight of working in NGO are the experiences offered, from going to places you do not know of, collecting data in creative ways, to creating a program that’ll lasts for a long time. Since NGOs have to spend more for program budgeting, they usually keep  the amount of staff they hire to a minimum. This gives you more opportinities to be involved  in the programs and experience different things, without having to wait until you’re in a higher position.

International NGOs may still pay you a considerable salary, even providing volunteers allowances. Local NGOs are a bit different. Unlike big international ones, local NGOs often face shortage in funding. As most of their programs only cover certain areas in the region, they likely find difficulties in finding funds either from companies or Government. This often results in minimum salary on average, so definitely not the place to find gold mines. If you want to try working in local NGOs, you should look more at gaining valuable experiences instead of a high salary.

2.     Network vs Anxiety

NGO activities are highly dynamic. In fast-growing companies, it’s hard to see the implication of our work beyond whether we achieve our monthly targets or not. But in an NGO, which the works are mostly related to giving and empowering, your very actions and achievements affect beneficiaries directly. If you are interested in working as a fund raiser or in external relations, it is your duty to appeal to the funding donors. Companies and Governments can call you at their convenience, which makes you unable to confine your working hours to the typical 9 to 6. You have to maintain good relationships with them for the sake of the NGO you are working in. This brings about much anxiety, because there is no certain procedure to protect your personal time and space.

Related to the example above, plus side would be that also means you have opportunity to broaden your professional network. NGOs are the bridge between Governments and companies to people. They need NGOs to maintain their good image and share benefits to the environment or society. We are the ones who have field experiences dealing with people and know how they think. As the bridge, we might have the contacts of important or key persons of companies and governments in our phones and the privilege to keep in touch even after we are done with our jobs.

3.     Challenges vs Sanity

Protecting, empowering, conserving, preserving, and other positive objectives are usually what NGOs do. The target can be anything: animals, environment, people, culture, heritage, climate, etc. When companies pursue high return on investment in an ever-changing business environment, NGOs are the ones who make sure that nobody gets left behind. The mission leads to the challenges we face in dealing with people at the grass-root levels. The challenge itself includes how to make assessement to the locals without making excessive impression, conducting social experiment to raise awareness about certain local issues, and encouraging people to take action regarding said issues. NGOs which work in environmental issues also face the similiar challenges, since nonprofit institutions always rely on collaborations with local actors and resources to create movement.

No great fisherman was born in a calm sea. The challenges we face in working in an NGO will nurture us in the field of understanding peoples’ ways of life. Many people rely on NGOs to keep their aspiration and hopes in many areas because they think NGOs are the only one who cares about their well-beings. People come to us to find solutions to their problems. While you might not work directly with the beneficiaries, you will somehow always get dragged into thinking about them. At first you might get a bit neurotic and their heavy problems will tease your sanity, especially when working in humanitarian issues. But by the time you get used to it, it will fade away.

4.     Flexible Workload vs Do It Yourself

Many people ask me, “What exactly are you doing in your job?” when they know I work in a local NGO. Since my office only has 10 people, we often have to do some works outside our job description, such as cleaning the office and furnitures, selling souvenirs and local products, playing Uno Stacko or filling crossword puzzles in the working hours. People begin to become curious because we seem too relaxed to be called office workers.

Local NGOs, especially those that conduct social research and development programs in rural areas, barely have office duties except administrational or paper works. The rest entails legwork outside the fence. We can’t make people follow our daily schedule, therefore, we have more flexible workloads and working hours, as long as our objectives are achieved. It is quite comfortable if you are the type that likes working outside and doing work at your own pace.

However, most duties must be fulfilled on your own. Small scale NGOs and local NGOs mostly use their limited donor funding to fund the program, not for the staff. As I have mentioned, many local NGOs face manpower shortages. That is why NGOs often open recruitment for volunteers to help manage their projects.

I can assure you that working in an NGO, whether big or small, will give you a great deal of experiences in professional work. If you are interested in doing good and have a strong inclination towards doing so, NGOs might be the best place for drawing out your fullest potentials.  Otherwise, working experience in NGO can be used as a stepping stone to your other goals. Most companies ask in their recruitment interviews if we have experience in nonprofit organizations or projects because they know what kind of place these are. They will give you extra points since you have shown them one thing: you care beyond your own benefits.

7 Things That Make Me Really Happy

I am trying to start my weekly writing by following writing themes from 30 Days Writing Challenge. The first theme is to write 7 things that make you really happy. It should be 10, but I can't find the rest. Having a plain character, I usually don't have certain condition for that, but since the theme requires me to write about it, here I am squishing my brain to think about some happy situations:

1. Solo Trip
I never knew the joy of solo trip before going to Cambodia last May. In 10 hours transit in Kuala Lumpur, I suddenly had an urge to visit my old friend near KLCC, which is 1,5 hours from the airport by bus. She told me to take the new airport express train to save the time and even though I'd never been alone in foreign country, I still went anyway. In those 30 minutes, I felt ultimate bravery and excitement from looking out the train window and to expect new things at the last station, without having to talk to anyone.

2. Book Shopping
Who doesn't love going to a book shop? Looking at those pilled up books really is fulfilling. How could some words describe our mind so accurately in a way we couldn't think of? Each cover promises us different stories. Only looking at those book shelves is enough to make my day, moreover if I bring the money to buy some. One of my life goals is to visit as many book shops as I can at many different countries. So yes I need to travel the world to do that!

3. Youtube Streaming
Lying on the bed for a whole day watching philosophical discussion, Korean variety shows, or as simple as scrolling through the trending topic on Youtube can be relaxing. Despite of the sole of entertainment is to be left alone in my room, streaming Youtube is an effective yet easy way to find happiness. Nowadays Netflix is all over the entertainment channel, but since my device doesn't support it... What? Will I be more happy if I have Netflix? Of course! I can watch Narcos, Elite, and other fun and high quality series without having to wait the bluray version :p

4. Movie Re-Run
90% of my laptop's memories are filled with movie files which I have watched since high school. I simply can't delete them. Most of those movies gave me long lasting impression. Strangely I never get sick of re-watch them. Some of the lists are: Pride and Prejudice, Pirates of Caribbean, Batman The Dark Knight, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Our Brand is Crisis, You are The Apple of My Eye, Kimi Ni Todoke, and Memoirs of Geisha. I can spend a whole day in front of my laptop. I'll write about each of them one day.

5. Gardening
It's a new hobby that I found lately. If I feel depressed or need alone time, gardening works like magic! With my hands busy trimming the plants, I can free my mind from thinking about works or personal matters. It's also satisfying to see the seeds transform into tiny sprouts and as the time goes by, fruits and flowers will appear. Some plants inside my little garden are bitter melon, chili, pumpkin, yellow mirabilis jalapa (bunga pukul empat), peppermint, cassava, and some wild flowers.

6. Manga Marathon
I remember the time when I rented a whole volumes of One Piece in high school and spent only 3 hours to sleep for several nights. A veteran manga reader can read a volume of manga in just 10 minutes or less. It is annoying to read cliff-hanger ending and has to wait the next volume to be published. That's why I choose to read mangas that already have many volumes. Unfortunately, nowadays I can't do that in the same frequency anymore. More and more workloads have been given to me. Audio-visual entertainment also pushes my habit to watch more instead of reading. But the happy feeling when doing manga binge-reading is still lingering.

7. Quality Time with Close Friends
Do you have those special friends whom you can talk any topics with without realizing how much the time has fled? Since I rarely meet many people and personally introvert, having quality time to talk with the right people is really satisfying more than anything else I mentioned here. Most of my friends are working outside the city, so holidays are something that I secretly wait for. They will come home and ask me to join them in having coffee or just lie down in someone's bedroom catching up with our lives.

Those 7 things are not difficult things to do, I know, but they do make my day.

Mencari Tuhan di dalam Kosmos

Sejak dilakukannya pengukuran keliling Bumi oleh Eratosthenes pada abad ketiga SM, manusia mulai menyadari bahwa Bumi tidaklah tak terbatas. Abad-abad berikutnya dihabiskan manusia untuk berusaha memahami posisi mereka di atas bumi dan posisi bumi terhadap matahari, yang dalam perjalanannya ternyata ditemukanlah planet dan benda-benda angkasa lain yang sebelumnya tak terbayangkan.

Penemuan-penemuan tersebut tak hanya mendorong semangat ilmiah dan penjelajahan lebih jauh, melainkan juga perubahan dalam dinamika sosial. Otoritas kenegaraan dan keagamaan yang saling terkait mengalami guncangan ketika wahyu yang mereka yakini ternyata dianggap tidak lagi relevan dengan fakta-fakta ilmiah yang ditemukan. Otoritas Gereja Katolik abad 16 M yang masih meyakini bahwa bumi adalah pusat alam semesta ditantang oleh konsep heliosentris Copernicus dan diteruskan abad berikutnya oleh Galileo Galilei.

Keyakinan spiritual dan fakta ilmiah semakin tidak menemukan jembatan pemersatu. Sampai mulailah periode yang disebut Abad Pencerahan, peran agama tercabut dari otoritas kehidupan publik. Agama dinilai tidak mampu menjawab pertanyaan-pertanyaan saintifik yang diajukan para ilmuwan dan orang-orang yang cukup penasaran. Sekulerisme berkembang menjadi paham yang menarik, terutama bagi orang-orang yang tidak menemukan kelogisan dalam tata pedoman keagamaan yang mereka yakini.

Pada abad pertengahan di Eropa, manusia sudah selesai mengidentifikasi posisinya di bumi dan menjelajahinya. Ditemukannya teleskop dan berbagai teknologi pendukung penjelajahan antariksa semakin menuntut jawaban atas pertanyaan, “Benarkah di alam semesta yang sangat luas, yang bahkan belum kita ketahui batasnya, bumi hanya satu-satunya yang berpenghuni?” dan mendorong pertanyaan-pertanyaan berikutnya: “Jika ada planet lain yang berpenghuni, seperti apa komposisi planetnya dan bagaimana rupa penghuninya?” “Mungkinkah manusia bumi suatu saat berpindah untuk menghuni planet lain?”

Pertanyaan-pertanyaan ini, menurut Carl Sagan dalam bukunya, Kosmos, menjadi misi diluncurkannya wahana antariksa tanpa awak, Voyager 2 pada tahun 1977. Dalam kurun waktu kurang dari 2 tahun, Voyager 2 telah berhasil memasuki dan keluar dari orbit Jupiter dan kini sudah menempuh dua kali jarak Matahari-Pluto. Voyager 2 dirancang tidak akan pernah kembali ke bumi. Selama masih berfungsi, ia akan terus mengelana dalam kegelapan abadi demi menemukan tempat-tempat baru di luar jangkauan imajinasi manusia. Sementara itu, para ilmuwan antariksa disibukkan dengan kemungkinan Mars dan planet lain bisa menjadi tempat penampung kelebihan populasi manusia di bumi.

Source: gramedia.com

Mungkin. Sebuah kata yang mendorong manusia untuk menembus batas-batas yang ia ketahui. Manusia ternyata sebagian besarnya disusun oleh atom karbon. Bumi ternyata bukan satu-satunya anggota alam semesta. Planet-planet ternyata terbentuk dari kondensasi gas dan tumbukan antarelemen di antariksa saat pembentukan jagat raya dan proses itu akan terus berlanjut selamanya. Satu per satu hal-hal yang tadinya tidak terbayangkan dalam benak manusia menjadi hal yang masuk akal dan wajar. Berkat adanya kemungkinan, semua pemahaman yang kita yakini menjadi terbuka untuk dipertanyakan.

Fakta-fakta baru tentang alam menantang relevansi pemahaman lama. Keyakinan yang dianggap kuno dan kaku yang tidak membuka pintu untuk tafsir baru segera ditinggalkan. Otoritas Tuhan menjadi rentan dipertanyakan. Bagaimana tidak? Satu per satu rahasia alam semesta mulai dibuka dan wujud Tuhan masih belum ditemukan! Pertanyaan ketuhanan bergeser dari boleh atau tidak boleh, menjadi kesangsian atas eksistensi Tuhan itu sendiri.

Agama-agama yang masih bertahan hingga saat ini telah ditantang pertanyaan yang serupa. Sebagiannya telah menyerah, memilih mundur ke dalam ranah privat yang hanya mengurusi hubungan diri dengan Sang Pencipta, menghindari ranah-ranah publik dan ilmiah yang berisiko memperdebatkan iman. Di sisi lain, Islam masih bertahan dalam perebutan pengaruh di ranah-ranah publik, dengan meyakini bahwa ajarannya adalah pedoman yang menyeluruh tentang kehidupan, bukan parsial hanya mengurusi hal-hal privat.

Jika Islam adalah sebuah judul rangkuman sistem kehidupan, Alquran diyakini sebagai sebuah kodifikasi tentang alam yang memuat keterangan tentang awal mula penciptaan dan proses menuju akhirnya. Ia dianggap kitab sejarah semesta yang, menurut salah satu ayat di dalamnya, ditujukan untuk kaum yang mau dan bisa berpikir. Hanya saja karena kemampuan otak kebanyakan manusia saat ini tidak bisa mencerna hal-hal imajinatif yang seolah di luar nalar, sebagian mencerna hal-hal tersebut sebagai sesuatu yang gaib, sebuah mukjizat. Padahal mungkin hanya karena akal manusia belum mampu memahaminya.

Demikian juga soal Tuhan dan pasukan makhluknya yang tak kasat mata. Ketidakmampuan manusia mendeksripsikan wujud Tuhan bisa jadi karena sulit membayangkan adanya supreme being yang pengaruhnya sedemikian besar dalam setiap gerak kecil yang manusia, kita, lakukan. Pemahaman kita mengenai wujud masih terbatas pada jasad yang bisa disentuh dan dirasakan oleh indera, atau dilihat dengan alat bantu berteknologi tinggi. Sedangkan di alam semesta banyak hal-hal yang tidak terbayangkan. Dan ingat, penjelajahan manusia baru dimulai. Banyak pertanyaan masih belu ditemukan jawabannya.

Bagaimana jika aturan-aturan hukum dan tata cara dalam Alquran ternyata bukan hanya aktivitas spiritual belaka, melainkan cara menjaga keteraturan alam semesta agar sesuai dengan proses yang digerakkan oleh sang supreme being? Bagaimana jika doa-doa yang dilontarkan ternyata untuk membuat sang supreme being bergerak mempengaruhi komponen semesta sedemikian rupa sehingga alam bergerak demi terkabulnya doa? Bagaimana jika ternyata akhirat adalah tempat dimana atom-atom tubuh ditampung setelah jasad yang terbentuk dari karbon dan air ini sudah tidak mampu mengakomodasi gerak sebagai manusia dan perbuatan yang kita lakukan selama hidup mempengaruhi dimana atom-atom itu akan berkumpul nantinya?

Kita barangkali hanya belum menemukan Dia beserta kebesarannya yang Maha. Pemahaman kita saat ini terhadap Alquran secara melankolis dan dramatis adalah cara kita memproses pengetahuan yang belum sanggup kita cerna. Penjelajahan manusia pun baru sampai mengelilingi salah satu tata surya di galaksi Bimasakti, sedangkan melalui fakta penelitian yang disebarluaskan, alam semesta jauh lebih luas lagi. Bagaimana jika kehidupan, takdir, dan kematian, mungkin sebenarnya adalah kodifikasi dari proses abadi yang paling sederhana yang berlangsung di alam semesta: pembentukan, penggabungan, penghancuran? Akhirat mungkin suatu ketika tak lagi hanya terbatas di ranah iman, melainkan bisa dicerna dalam dimensi akal.

Segala hal punya titik mula. Manusia dengan ilmu pengetahuannya hingga saat ini baru bisa memperkirakan dan menjalani penelitian berdasarkan perkiraan. Sedangkan ilmu agama di ranah iman bisa menggambarkan keadaan sebelum dan sesudah kehidupan dengan banyak kodifikasi dan penyederhanaan penjelasan. Jauh di luar imajinasi kita, barangkali Tuhan sebenarnya tengah menunggu untuk kita pahami.


Gombong, 20 Oktober 2018

Source: shutterstock