Story and photos by Janne Rytkonen
Sam reveals why he left his work with the government sector to travel the world helping MAF to see where flights are making a difference in people’s lives.
It’s not the statistics and data that excite Sam, it’s the conversations with people in isolated communities that matter most as he explores MAF International’s programmes.
On his field trips, he speaks to everyone from carpenters and plumbers to farmers
and nurses and partner agency CEOs. Those individual stories gleaned from his
interviews can directly influence the way MAF serves those communities.
While visiting Arnhem Land in northern Australia for work, Sam observed how MAF’s
role in providing access to health care, education and services can help to reduce
inequalities. “Of course, MAF is there to serve Yolŋu people,” said Sam. “But I caught a MAF
flight and Yolŋu and non-Yolŋu passengers were sitting side by side, in the same
plane. I realised then that MAF not only serves, but also facilitates travel for the
Yolŋu and, in that process, puts everyone together on the same pedestal.”
He said it was encouraging that recommendations from MAF’s Measurement,
Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) team are helping programmes to be
more effective in bringing help, hope and healing. “Our team moves from one programme to another, measuring the impact of the programme,” Sam said.
“We go to the programme, collect data, talk to our partners, the people who fly with
us, and to staff who are on the ground serving the people, serving the community.
“We've realised over the three years of doing this that there are a lot of learnings for
the programmes to take out of it and then slightly modify the programme according
to feedback, according to the report, which has come out of the study.”
Sam’s qualifications and experience positioned him as an ideal candidate to join
MAF’s MEAL team. He came to MEAL in 2022 from a senior management position
consulting with government in his home state of Tamil Nadu, India.
“I loved the change" said Sam. “It gave a lot more purpose, a lot more meaning to what I am doing.”
MAF works with government and non-government organisations across a wide range of sectors such as healthcare, education, and community and infrastructure services, so measuring the impact of MAF’s ministry is a complex task.
Rather than conducting an internal audit of MAF, the MEAL team focuses on the
partners, passengers and beneficiaries of MAF flights, and the MEAL reports are
bearing fruit across the world.
While MAF programmes use the impact reports as opportunities for learning, Sam
himself has learned new ways of hearing and seeing in his role as Regional MEAL
Specialist (Asia Pacific region).
“I had never been in the impact analysis part of the NGO world before,” he said. “I
had always been in programme management, but here you take a step back and look at work in a deeper way, thinking about impact rather than just running the day-to-day show.
“In the last three years, I have learned to slow down, learned to look at data, and
learned to look at individuals differently. “When you are in programme management, the day-to-day grind of managing people and sorting problems out takes its toll, and I often forgot what we were doing in the first place. “But now, I get time to think about the very essence of our being there and the impact we create. In the process, I have learnt to listen to people better, to look at them as individuals, as people, who have their own problems and incentives, and not just subjects or, in our case, passengers.
“I have, I believe become more empathetic, and also more intentional in everything I
do.”
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