Every job has certain tags attached with it. Thus, a software engineer is obviously well educated, smart and intelligent and has a good life - friends, parties, work, foreign trips etc. A government officer - works as per rules, comes back home on time, hands are clean or not(You know what I mean) etc etc. However, when it comes to someone working in an NGO, you face all sorts of impressions - Adhe NGO chor aur baaki kaam chor (Roughly translated Half the NGOs thieves and the rest useless).
It is pointless to even try and defend NGOs. My argument is not that NGOs are as good or as bad as Software companies or Government Offices. WHat is crucial to note is that there is very little structure or rules that define an NGO, unlike a software company or Government office which have well defined structures and work as per certain rules. Registering an NGO does not tell you what to do, how to do or anything of that sort. It is entirely left to the people in the NGO to define their own rules and live by them.
The most important aspect in NGOs is freedom to be anything. Thus, there is a wide spectrum of NGOs from the extremely corrupt to the extremely honest , totally useless to the very effective and all shades and colors in between.
What is important for people working in NGOs to understand that unlike people in software companies or Government offices, they dont have the luxury of a good brand name. It is half due to people's tendency to generelise what cannot be generalised and and the reality that NGOs inherently offer very little structure and rules for you to afford to relax.
In this situation, people working in NGOs need to apply their skills fully to their work and aspire to do the best continuously. In my opinion, Only excellence will lead to satisfaction and fulfillment of what one set out to do by deciding to work in an NGO.
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There are two things being discussed here. First, the way the NGOs / or its employees are being looked at and how the NGOs need to do. The first case is something not in our control. There is an adage in tamil "Kodikira Ulaiku moodipodalam aanaal Oor vaikku poda mudiyadhu" (literally meaning we can lid the boiling rice but not the speaking mouth.) Many of those who do not understand what are these or what is going through these. My point is that once an NGO or its employee has decided to work for a cause, it/he/she needs to continue working for the noble cause with deaf ears over such trifle comments or opinions held by the society. Expecting a sort of acknowledgement for NGO or its workers from our society is too premature to do. We are the ones who are stating to this world through Gita like "work without expecting the result".
The second issue that is discussed is how they need to do: somehow I am not able to digest completely with the word "excellence". I have my own reasons for this. Whenever we see people around us, we tend to focus only on those who are in the top or shining with so called "excellence". In an ideal scenario meaning, "No chor neither kaam chor NGOs", then how would we assess these NGOs. What would be the measuring scale for their excellence. No arguments over that which will never end.
sahi hai yaar,,,,the work should satisfy you and then it matters less whether other people understand it or not
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The notion of "work without expecting the result" is quite important in NGO work because the problems are highly complex and solution is not entirely in one's hands. Excellence in this case could be seen as high quality work from one's side.
The social recognition aspect is not as important as the work itself, but then, NGOs are a part of the society and acceptance of NGO workers by society is also needed for personal success and acceptance of the NGO's work by the society is also needed for the success of our work.
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