my first workshop.

hello out there!

I’ve done this post point form because work isn’t the most interesting topic to some folks.

-I conducted a survey at the beginning of my placement and found that 54% out of 46 CLTS facilitators I surveyed would like more training.

-I also attended a training/triggering event in another town (within the “star CLTS district”) and was disappointed with the quality of training and triggering. It made me worry about the quality of CLTS in the Malawi, especially because we are soon scaling up from 12 districts to 16.

-I was very excited because the budget was approved with a 3 day trigger event which includes one day for reviewing principles. In other words, there was money to conduct another training for the CLTS facilitators.

-I conducted a workshop with the task force to help them strategize and plan for the training. My objectives were:
1. To reflect on experiences and observations from the past to determine what makes training and triggering successful
2. To give the Task Force space to be thoughtful about their role in successful CLTS training and triggering
3. Share resources for proper training, triggering and reflection practices
4. Prepare and plan for the next three days

-Only 4/10 members of the task force attended my workshop. Major bummer.

-On the bright side, the workshop was awesome. Everyone had a great time and learned a lot. One comment on a feedback form was “It has been helpful since we have a scope of what to do”. Other comments were “very comfortable and conducive atmosphere for discussion” and at my next workshop I should ask “more good questions”. I felt like my workshop gave the task force the time and space to plan for a training that would be worthwhile and result in quality triggering.











-I wish I could end this post on that positive note. However, the triggering event didn’t go as planned. The chairperson of the task force had a different schedule in mind and without consulting the task force, he advised the facilitators to go into the field without adequate preparation. In his opinion, it is not the task force’s responsibility to retrain and would have been a waste of money. The quality of triggers cannot be known until the follow ups have been completed.

-I learned a lot about the dynamics within the task force last week. Up until now, the task force has impressed me with their dedication, organization and planning skills. This event has opened my eyes to the power and trust relationships, decision making processes and the effect that communication challenges in an area without electricity or proper cell phone coverage can have on the success of a development program. Part of my role as a Junior Fellow is to understand some of these relationships/challenges and share them with Jolly Ann, who is working on CLTS at the government level, so that she can have a field level understanding of what’s going on.

-I certainly learned that it’s easy to hold a workshop but unless the enabling environment is there, it is entirely useless.

-Right now, I’m working on a database. Yes, I know. White kid from Canada makes another database to be filed away forever, never to be used again. But my objective is to input all the information from follow up forms in my region, draw some simple conclusions (number of villages triggered vs. number of ODF villages, areas with the most successful program, which trainings resulted in the best triggers, etc), show them to the task force and base a CLTS program reflection session off of the numbers. It seems people are failing to recognize the faults of the program and the numbers might “trigger” implementers into realizing that the quality needs to improve.

If you want to know more about my work, shoot me an email. I’d be stoked to share more. I'm really getting into the thick of it.

Love kate