Poor leadership, weak structure, untrustworthy institution
Pros
Potentially, you could buid pretty good relationships with local partners and international connections (only if getting through upper management poor decision making when infringing local agreements). Someone in entry level jobs, can easily climb up the hierarchy, still with a low paying salary. Local communities are wonderful to work with,
Cons
Challenges Abroad recruits international volunteers, what they sell impacts how local hubs are to be managed. Local country hubs are not autonomus, neither is their job a priority because it must adapt to what Challenges Abroad is offering. In conclusion, local decisions are dependent on what Challenges abroad can sell, not dependent on community needs. All the local country work is to justify what challenges abroad sells, there is no interest in progressing on the positive impact in long term, and there is no interesnt in listening to the results of the local teams work concerning community needs (even if there are promisses that say the contrary). There is no work life balance, excesive hours are put into work that are not valued. It is more a model to meet a checklist of deliverables that Challenges Abroad can use to recruit volunteers. The constant staff rotation exhausts local teams in endlessly training new hires. Local hubs work is not valued because it is more important to do what the CEO asks for, even if it goes against local agreements, benefit and impact. The Ceo and uppermanagement have no clue of all the work that is done locally, thus continously underestimade local work, by asking for things that can take days or weeks to produce, in addition to the demanding regular work. There is limited funding to work, a constant issue is the kind of services that local hubs can provide given that international institutions inject large funds. This is not transparent between FSF and CA. The Ceo and HQ core leading team has a manipulative approach, selling you the best so that staff can accept "new exciting adventures", and once you accept, they forget about you, because the employee is not their concern, constant phrases such as "this person is so fantastic to work with, is a very experienced person and you will have the opportunity to grow along..." or "this is wonderful and unique opportunity for you, and you are the best fit for it...", etc., their manipulative approach is based on convincing promises and praising you. Consider a red flag whenever you are being praised, that means they want something from you sooner or later. There is always this fake smile and soft calm tone, as part of their manipulation, careful! Try to be as realistic as possible, This institution is not reliable. Finally, the CEO is a highly authoritarian leader who won't listen nor pay attention to local hubs needs nor impacts in the community; CEO has a very old fashioned leadership style that is tearing down FutureSense foundation, consider FutureSense to be just an image to cover what is behind the poor leadership and what $$ Challenges Abroad needs to recruit. Contracts condition you to give a 2 - 3 month notice before you leave the institution this is supposed to be met by employer and employee, but if they fire you, they can do it with less than 24 hour notice, and this is not in the contract. The only unfair reason to get fired is when it is reasonable to the CEO (imagine any scenario). They don't follow the own agreements/contracts that they sign, and in addition, how the institution operates in each country is fishy, it is not legally registered in some of them, there can be issues when it comes to declare taxes and pay. All that involves contract violations, labor violations and staff abuse, will be nicely covered up through the sugarcoating manipulative ways that are a best practice in upper management