Collaboration - the meaning of partnership

Here in the Dominican Republic, AMIGOS is working with a partnering organization on all aspects of our project. We are collaborating with PLAN International, an international development organization focused on youth participation.


We have worked jointly with PLAN in all aspects of the program planning, implementation and evaluation process. The first project-related activities this summer was meeting with the national level contacts to establish focus for our volunteer program and a chronology for the summer.


Some of the joys of working with a partnering agency:

• Our partner contacts know and understand the communities and cultures we work in much better than we do. They have established relationships with our contacts in communities, and know best on how to approach challenging situations. There have been more than one occasion where sharing the challenges we are experiencing with our PLAN contacts have helped to ensure a swift resolution to the issues at hand.
• Our PLAN contacts also have worked with the AMIGOS programs in previous years and have the first-hand experience of lessons learned. As the AMIGOS project leadership changes yearly, we strive to benefit from the lessons learned, and the strength of our partnering agency relationship helps to ensure this.
• More fun! We have forged some great friendships with the people at the PLAN offices, and have enjoyed getting together on the weekends, or exploring some of the cultural opportunities (namely the craziness that was the Dias Patronales festival).

One of the challenges with our partnering agency relationships is that through AMIGOS we have a short timeframe to build our relationships and to leverage them for the success of the program. We are lucky to have such dynamic contacts within PLAN for this reason, and I imagine that there would be further strength by having continuity within the AMIGOS program over time as well.

Overall the partnering process between AMIGOS and PLAN has been a positive relationship building. Like any relationship (think about our personal and family relationships), it takes time to build and a lot of give and take. But this relationship is one that has a great effect upon the success of the AMIGOS program in the Dominican Republic.