A Visible Impact

Yesterday morning, I completed one of my first projects at my organization. I was able to assist them with designing and selecting a new logo. Jacob, a Danish volunteer who has been here for a few months, already helped open people up to the idea of a new logo. So I worked on putting together a few different rough ideas. But life at my organization is rather hectic and busy, so the project was put aside, until one of donors was visiting and suggested printing a banner with the logo for an upcoming event (a big deal, with a thousand people expected and a number of important people from the provincial government). This little mention rekindled the idea, and in a matter of two hours, we had gone through over twelve different versions of the logo, trying to select the right colors and make other minor tweaks.

In the end, we had four different color variations and everyone had a different preference, but all four looked viable. I suggested that we present the four options to the caregivers here, so that they might have input into the new logo. Both my supervisor and the head of the organization liked this idea, but we still needed to talk to the board of directors. As it happened, the chairperson from the board came by to talk with my supervisor for unrelated purposes, but he liked the four logos and approved them on behalf of the board.

So then yesterday morning, with all the important administrators away at a workshop, I took the logo samples to the caregivers and asked them to vote. Everyone seemed positive about contributing and they even sent me away so it could be secret voting. In the end, they overwhelmingly selected one option and that has since become the official logo for our organization. We went from rough drafts to new logo, all in less then twenty-four hours (a little faster then I was hoping for, but I am happy with the result).

Below you can see the original logo for the organization:



And here is the new logo:



Note that "Fanang Diatla" means "Hands Together", so the symbol of the hand is very important to the organization.