It felt slightly unreal and yet reassuringly familiar to wake up in the room in the ATE house where I stayed from early June to the end of September last year. It's Monday morning and my head is buzzing with the work planned for the day ahead.

I started the day at the tea shop in the middle of town; a junction where you can see all the comings and goings of Lawra as you gobble down some egg and bread and take in a dose of caffeine. I enjoyed pouring over some emails in response to the ATE film screenings, ideas on our strategy planning, and potential meetings before being "picked" on Habib's moto to the ATE office nearby.

The last time I was here in Lawra, the office was just an idea and it is fantastic to see it now built, established and fully operational since January. It is well positioned, standing out proudly in its red, yellow and green paint job, and people drop by throughout the morning to request application forms to apply to the ATE small business development programme (BizATE).

I meet Edith, our Project Assistant who joined the team in January and we and Habib are joined by four Senior Consultants to discuss the planning of the monitoring and evaluation of the Special Needs Awareness Programme (SNAP) and the survey that we will deliver to all SNAP members. Habib and I worked on some budgeting and logistics for the weeks ahead before dashing home for lunch ahead of the rain.

Our afternoon meeting was a briefing on the SNAP evaluation with SNAP Committee members; Peace, Margaret and John. As part of the discussion, they made key input on how consultants should deliver the survey to ensure that all participants are listened to without judgement, treated with love and respect and are assured of confidentiality unless a disabled child or parent/carer is considered to be at any risk of serious harm.

For me, I can say already that a real success of SNAP over the last several months is the noticeable difference in the growing confidence of the SNAP Committee members who are now much quicker to speak their minds on the rights and needs of the disabled children and families supported through SNAP.

The day then closed with a catch up with Habib over an Alvaro (a pear flavoured malt-based drink!) and the moto ride home. I managed to buy a bit of time to complete the agreed changes to the SNAP survey before Hassan (Habib's son) and his friend Boni covered me in stickers until I stopped working and fed them mango!

Tomorrow we have a 3 hour workshop with 12 consultants (ATE-trained volunteers) to fully brief them on the SNAP survey and ensure a shared understanding of the questions and the approach.

But for now, it's time for me to climb into bed and under my mosquito net and get some rest.