Today we are going to hear from Shak, Saha’s Director of Ghana Operations. Shak has worked for Saha since 2009, is our resident solar expert, and manages our team in Tamale. He is an huge asset to the Saha team and one of the most popular guys in Tamale! This is his first-ever blog post. I’ll let Shak take it from here:
Every Monday, I meet everyone at the office by 6:30am to check in about how the week is to start and where each person is heading out to monitor. After checking in with everyone, I give them each a day of fuel money so they can head out to the field. At the end of each day, everyone checks in with me at 2:30pm about how the day went and challenges encountered in the communities that day. Some examples of challenges would be if there was a broken polytank. If this happens, then they can take the supplies needed for the women to repair it the next day.
After my morning check ins, I leave to monitor communities myself. The first thing I do when I am out to monitor is visit the business centers to see the status of the center. Then, I go talk to the entrepreneurs. The first thing I ask them (after sending my greetings to them) is “how is the water business center doing?” I make sure to ask how many blue drums were treated this week and how many aquatabs they used. I then ask about the challenges or successes of the week, before heading out to my first compound visit.
The same thing applies to the solar centers. I make sure that I ask how many cell phones the entrepreneurs charged in the past week and count the number of cell phones and batteries plugged in when I arrive. I also ask how often the panels have been cleaned and how sales are going for the the week. Finally, I ask how much money they made in the past week.
On Fridays we have our general staff meeting day. During this meeting we discuss all problems encountered for the week and how to solve them.
My responsibilities as the Director of Ghana Operations are:
- -To provide advice and support for teammates
- -Support teammates, answer basic questions, and act as a funnel for communications with the US staff
- -Create clean and organized expense reports
- -Write blog posts for Saha Global
- -Oversee all monitoring and operations
- -Make sure all activities are are getting accomplished in a timely manner
- -Order supplies in preparation for the Global Leadership Program
My favorite part of my job is providing cleaning water and solar power to people in need. The difficult part of my job is if there is bad communication in the team. That is stressful!
-Ibrahim Shakool