Caritas

Collaboration and Information Sharing!

1. You would remember that we talked about Interdepartmental collaboration in our last Sunday Digest. Today we would like to embellish it a little.    2. Inter-departmental collaboration is an indispensable aspect of team building. It happens pre-eminently in the context of shared values and shared information. Yes, since no Staff is expected to work in silos, and also no unit or department,  it presupposes that work ‘ related information,  professional insights, and subject matter expertise,  must be shared among Staff in related and interconnected areas of work.    3. For example,  there is an essential link between the Finance Unit,  the Grants, and the Audit Unit including the HR unit. In standard practice,  the Audit unit is the watchdog of the entire system,  ensuring that due processes are observed in all financial transactions. It does a pre- and a post-audit of all financial transactions, to prevent the occurrence of fraud. The Grants unit pay due attention to issues of compliance. Finance Unit for instance,  collaborates with the Audit unit to ensure a seamless process.  There would be chaos if these three units do not collaborate in an efficient manner.    4. The same is true with collaboration with the HR unit. All financial transactions concerning the Staff goes to Finance after audit processes for payment. The system would have been compromised if these units are at loggerheads.    5. The Admin Unit coordinates all admin processes, arising from all the units. It takes responsibility to organise and ensure that all training, meetings,  procurements, logistics,  productions, etc are timely executed. Therefore,  there should be none of these activities, that do not pass through the admin unit. In case one is not sure of how some of those processes happen,  kindly ask the necessary questions and seek clarifications.   5.The Business Development unit is responsible for proposal development,  prospecting for new grants and building networks among funders. The unit collaborates with other units is putting forward requests and applications.  It cannot work in isolation. It depends on inputs from other units, while it pushes out via the Communication department our articulated concerns.   6. The Communication unit, in its own right, including knowledge management, and research and development units are deeply interconnected. They cannot afford to work at cross purposes. The Communication unit for example warehouses Caritas Nigeria’s institutional memories. She communicates to the world all that Caritas Nigeria is doing and how she is living.  All units of Caritas Nigeria, therefore, are inexorably linked to the communications units.   7. We can go on ad infinitum, to elaborate on the interconnedness of the units with one another.  That explains why we work in teams in pursuit of a common goal. Subsequently,  we would find time to harp more on the possible challenges that could arise, as a result of the interconnections.    Meanwhile,  let us try to minimize the occasions of misunderstanding and conflicts as we work to deliver on our mandates.  

Inter- Departmental Collaborations!

1. Effective Organisation development requires a robust collaboration among the various segments, departments and units of an organisation.  Like a living human body, all the various aspects of the human body must be in alignment,  if the entire body systems should harmoniously work and produce the expected results. The same is true of any Organisation. Organisations would not be able to function optimally  and achieve the set targets and goals, if their various units are allowed to operate in silos.

REFUSING TO GIVE UP!

It is my desire to get back to you, today, after several weeks of little of no communications.  We have been deeply engaged in lots and lots of activities in preparations for the 2023 General elections in Nigeria.  

THE LAST BUT NOT THE LEAST!

Beloved Friends and Colleagues!
 
1. Please,  I send you warm greetings from the cold city of Berlin- the capital of Germany.  I guess some of you would remember the city of Berlin with some mixed feelings.  It was in Berlin,  in 1885, that the African countries including Nigeria were balkanized- portioned by the imperial European governments.

STANDING AT YOUR DUTY POSTS!

Beloved Friends and Colleagues!

  1. Taking responsibility for our actions or inactions has become an important demand today in most circles. People would like that people who are placed in-charge of things and offices take responsibility for the duty their offices confer on them. 

Re-thinking Strategy and Operations in Challenging Times!

  1. I find it expedient to come back to you today after some moments of break and recreation.  Such moments add valour and strength. It affords one the opportunity to look back and take some records and re-examine what has been and what one would like to institute. The period has been worthwhile.

MOTHERS ARE PRECIOUS GIFTS FROM ON HIGH!

Beloved Friends and Colleagues

  1. Today, in the 56 dioceses of the Catholic Church in Nigeria, the Catholic Women Organization (CWO),  is celebrating its annual feast of the ‘Mothering Sunday’, which ought to have been celebrated but for the Lenten activities on the 25th of March 2022, re-echoing the feast of the Annunciation of the blessed Virgen Mary by Angel Gabriel for the birth of Jesus, as the Lord and Master of the Universe and the Saviour of mankind .Today we salute all mothers, alive or dead!

VOCATION SUNDAY: CALLED TO LIVE AND WORK FOR ONE ANOTHER!

Beloved Friends and Colleagues 

  1. Today is Vocation Sunday. It is a day in which we remember that each one of us has been called by God for one form of vocation or another. We are not all destined to be the same in our professions and vocations.  We are essentially different in our aptitudes and abilities. Our vocations and professions set us apart from one another and make us become stewards of each other in our different ways and means.  Hence, our theme of reflection today; called to live and work for one another.

BUSINESS SYSTEMS REVIEW {BSR} AND OUR RESPONSIBILITY!

Beloved Friends and Colleagues

1. Our theme for today’s reflection is Business Review Systems-BSR. I guess a good number of us are at home with that concept. It is being defined technically as “set of principles, practices, and procedures that are applied to specific activities to achieve a specific result’. Since October 2018 we have been implementing a HIV Epidemic control program with CDC in the eastern part of Nigeria. July 18th through 29th 2022 has been set aside for the BSR exercise in Delta and the HQ. It is being designed to review our documents, quality control policies, and the overall nature of our organizational practices in the context of the 4GATES HIV Epidemic control program. 

RENEWED FOR GREATER SERVICES!

Beloved Friends and Colleagues

  1. Today the entire Catholic world celebrates the Feast of the Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to the Father. It is the feast of that Spirit that is in us, to re-create in us that newness of life and love. It is that Spirit of love that binds us together as members of God’s own family. It is that Spirit that enables us to call God, father and become shepherds of one another.