Guerrilla interviews at the ICCO office; Day four of the induction program

The “guerrilla interview” day focused on the 3 main domains of ICCO (Fair Economic Development, Access to Basic Services, Democratization and Peace) as well as cross cutting issues like HIV /AIDS, Gender and the rights based approach.

I found this form of learning very innovative as it gives a unique opportunity to us Program Officers and Regional Managers coming from the regions to experience in live the day to day work of our colleagues at headquarter (Utrecht): their working condition and the culture among staff.

The assignment during the guerrilla interview exercise was to ask questions and gather keys issues of interest we have noticed throughout our guerrilla activities around Fair Economic Development; Access to Basic Services; Democratization and Peacebuilding.

HIV Aids, Emergency and Disaster, human rights and gender issues were separately discussed in the afternoon using the "fish bowl" tool. The fish bowl is another learning tool used by the course facilitators. I would like to congratulate for their work and most importantly the innovative ways they use.

Apart from the main topics of the day we have also discovered other interesting things like the "flex plek" system ; this was for example an interesting concept as none of the staff has a fixed desk. The system apparently allows 300 people to work in an office designed for 150. It is important to add that this involves also that staff can be working from home as well.
Administrative assistants are doing an impressive job filing in the user friendly way projects/ programme files; it is important such systems are kept and if possible harmonised in all regional offices. This will allow staff from a different region to easily find his way in any ICCO office.

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A very important thing noticed as well is the seriousness in which all staff are preparing for the handover even though it means for many of them losing their job. The "guerrilleros" group I was part of was very appreciative of all the efforts and courage of the colleagues, expressed our sadness and sympathy then encourage them to look at the bright side of life. In west Africa we have this say "on est ensemble" meaning : we are together, we are in the same boat, we are no enemy: peace and love.

Jean Ives Bonzi

The four roles of the ICCO Alliance; Day three of the induction program

The day started with "A Moment of Inspiration", lighting the candles by sharing feelings of each participant.

The program of the day was dedicated to "Open Space" with four principles:

Whoever comes is the right people
Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
Whenever it starts is the right time
When it's over, it's over.

The objective of the "Open Space" was to understand the four roles of the ICCO Alliance; strategic funding, brokering, lobby & advocacy and capacity building through three cases. The central question was: What do we learn from the three cases on the implementation of ICCO's four roles? The participants of the session were Central Working Office (CWO) staff and Regional Working Office (RWO) staff. The facilitator had asked the participants to write down burning questions and put them on the wall.

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In the morning session participants were divided into three rooms, where three Central Work Organization staff presented their cases on the programs the programs ABS (Access to Basic Services), D&P (Democracy and Peacebuilding) and SFED (Sustainable and Fair Economic Development). It was a 10 minutes presentation and 20 minutes discussion among the group. The session consisted of two rounds. After the first round, groups swapped to other rooms according to their interests, which case they would like to see.

Our case was about a consortium of NGO's working in Ethiopia. They were involved in a program on local market development, funded by ICCO. What we discussed in my group was the implementation of the four ICCO roles, with an emphasis on the brokerage roles and strategic funding. The other two roles, lobby and advocacy and capacity building, should be improved.

The afternoon session started with the division of groups based on questions put on the wall in the morning session. Participants went to the rooms, where they continued to discuss the burning questions. The objective of the afternoon session was to discuss the questions and share information between CWO and RWO staff regarding 4 roles of ICCO.

Closing of the session was in an interactive way. The facilitator took the wooden stick and called it a "power stick", whoever takes it, has to do speech and share his/her impression about the day. Each participant told his/her opinion about the day, and wishes to all participants. Evening program was dinner with RWO and CWO by regions, where colleagues had friendly atmosphere.

Iskenderbek Amanbaev
Program Officer Local Market Development
RWO ICCO Central Asia

Discussing our values; day 2 of the induction program

The day started with the “Moment of inspiration”, which was very sensitive and inspired the people to work further. These sensitive moments gave me a spirit to feel ICCO’s nature, its the most noble side.

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The whole day was quite exciting, we were discussing values of ICCO and it was very interesting to see how diverse we all are and how we can all live and work in one organization. Some people said that we are a funding agency and do not much care about building relationships, the others said that building relationships is an important role of ICCO.

This is a unique situation, when we say we are different but we are the same.
The time before lunch we tried to discuss partner policy and the work we are responsible for as Regional Offices. Quite complicated but a lot of interests were expressed on this issue.

After lunch the participants together with facilitators and resource people discussed four roles ICCO plays, more specifically lobbying role. Different points of view, should RWO’s be involved into lobbying themselves or should it be more facilitating of partners to lobby and allow to do it to those who can do it better then RWO’s.

The evening session was very serious (about Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation), but the facilitator made it very simple and practical.
It was a good day of interaction between resources people and participants and between the participants, feedback and reflections.

By Gulzat Temirova

Overview of first day of induction training

The first day of the induction training started with opening remarks of the facilitators. This was followed by an introduction of the participants. The training further progressed with a question and answer exercise about ICCO and its values. The purpose of this exercise was to gain knowledge about ICCO. The Regional Working Office (RWO) Team were asked to introduce their team.

Picture: Kees de Ruiter summarises the program content (click here for more pictures)




Sushil Kumar Pandey: "What I appreciated about the day was that people were very open to pick up the concerns of the participants. This includes our expectations of this training. There were open discussions about burning issues of the participants. The facilitators took our expectations into account and gave us space to discuss burning issues amongst the RWO's staff For example, in the evening the facilitators left the participants to give them enough space and freedom to discuss burning issues. Thanks to this approach not only were the burning issues discussed within the RWO staff, but it also allowed staff from various regions to discuss and learn from eachother. In a group exercise we discussed the mission, vision, values, norms, strategies and the environment of ICCO. This group exercise gave an insight to participants to have more clarity and understanding upon these crucial elements of ICCO".

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By Sushil Kumar Pandey and Stephanie Zwier

Formation des personnels du CCEB

Dans le cadre du renforcement des capacités du personnel du CCEB, Burkina Faso, une session de formation sur l’usage du wiki fut organisée du mardi 20 au samedi 24 février 2009 dans les locaux du CCEB. Cette formation visait à familiariser les participants à la mise en ligne d’informations dans le wiki : http://educafroc.pbwiki.com.

Objectif de la formation : mettre en ligne dans un wiki des documents multimédias (textes, images, diapositives et vidéos)

Objectifs spécifiques :

1- Traiter et formater une image au format web
2- publier du texte
3- publier des diapositives sur slideo et les partager dans le wiki
4- publier des images sur flickr et les partager dans le wiki
5- monter une vidéo avec movie maker, la publier et la partager dans le wki
6- créer une page wiki et l’éditer

Cette session de formation visait à outiller le personnel du CCEB à la mise en ligne d’informations sous plusieurs formats (texte et multimédia) afin d’offrir une plus grande visibilité aux actions quasi quotidiennes du CCEB et donner ainsi à voir aux partenaires les actions entreprises.

La formation qui s’est étalée sur 5 jours a permis aux cinq (5) participants de maîtriser la mise en lignes de documents textes et multimédias dans un wiki.

Liste des participants :

• NEBIE Modeste
• DAGNON Oumar
• Madame BAMOGO Hamsatou
• KABORE Abdoulaye
• SANKARA Assane
  

Un participant, Hassane Sankare, donne ses impressions sur la formation WIKI




Christophe HIEN, animateur

Induction program takes off at the ICCO office

From Monday May 25th until Saturday 6th June 2009 the induction program will be held at the ICCO Alliance office in the Netherlands. During these two weeks the newly appointed staff members from the Regional Working Offices (RWO's) will receive an introductory training. They will be introduced to ICCO’s corporate identity and values, in the underlying vision behind current change processes and in the background of ICCO policies and programs. After this training the staff members should be better equipped to do their daily work in various RWO's.

The introduction training will use a participatory approach to learning. The learning process will be guided by two teams of process facilitators form ICCO; Mart Hovens/Marlou Pijnappel and Kees de Ruiter/Lilian Muhungi. Wageningen International Centre for Capacity Development and Institutional Change (CDIC) will facilitate part of the program.

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Kees de Ruiter and Lilian Muhungi welcome participants to the induction program

If you want to be kept updated on the progress of the training please view the induction training wiki and the posts which will be regularly posted on this blog during the training

By Kees de Ruiter, Lilian Muhungi and Stephanie Zwier

Formation en wiki des membres du Réseau de Plaidoyer et Lobbying (RPL) Mali

Contexte et justification


Dans le cadre de renforcement des capacités des acteurs membres de son réseau en matière de collaboration en ligne, partage des ressources et connaissances, et la bonne vulgarisation des informations au bon moment, le Réseau de Plaidoyer et Lobbying a organisé une formation en wiki et les outils collaboratifs du Web 2.0 à Bamako le 12 avril 2009.

Démarrage des activités

M. Oumar Dembélé, le Coordinateur du Réseau de Plaidoyer et Lobbying (RPL), a donné les premiers pas par une brève introduction tout en soulignant les objectifs que visent cette formation : l’utilisation efficace des outils Compart Web 2.0 et autres outils collaboratifs (wiki, blogs, tagging, flux RSS etc.…). Au moins chaque participant a eu un ordinateur connecté à Internet pour mieux s’exercer en la matière. Des post script jaunes ont été remis à chaque participant lui permettant d’exprimer ses attentes de la formation dans un premier temps et me permettant en tant que formateur d’intégrer ces attentes dans les objectifs de la formation en second lieu. Les participants ont été mis dans le bain de la formation grâce au film sur le wiki et ensuite les participants ont posé des questions après la projection de film et chacun a eu plus ou moins satisfaction de réponse à sa question. Une autre projection de diaporama a fait suite pendant laquelle les outils Web 2.0 on été développés, l’interface, la différence et le passage du Web 1 au Web 2.0 ont été édifiés. L’accent est mis sur le Web 2.0 et les outils, les supports, le fondement du Web 2.0, le pourquoi du Web 2.0, et ce que l'on peut gagner avec le Web 2.0.

La barre d’outils Compart a été téléchargée et installée sur toutes les machines avant le début de la phase pratique de la formation ; à travers de laquelle l’accès est facile sur le Wiki du choix. Chacun a pu accéder au wiki du programme multi acteur du Mali de façon rapide grâce à la barre d’outils Compart. D’autres méthodes d’accès au wiki on été pratiquées pour permettre aux participants d’accéder au wiki depuis n’importe quel ordinateur connecté à Internet (http://educmali.pbworks.com/FrontPage) par exemple. Pendant le démarrage de la phase pratique, on sentait et voyait comment chacun était motivé à apprendre et comprendre tous les mécanismes des différents exercices en ligne, chacun voulait lui-même mettre un document ou des photos en ligne. Compte tenu du temps reparti - surtout parce que dans le groupe certains devraient voyager sur plus de 1000 km - nous avions voulu arrêter la formation à midi et nous avons été surpris par le temps. La pause déjeuner a été prise vers 13h30mn pour permettre aux voyageurs d’être à l’heure pour l’autobus. Les échanges de contacts, quelques photos de famille et blips ont été effectués que vous pourriez suivre en ligne sur le wiki.

Perspectives, recommandations et conclusion

Quelques recommandations ont été faites dans la salle par les participants dans un premier temps : disposer de plus de temps pour une autre formation, mettre toutes les adresses en ligne afin d’une meilleure utilisation de l’ensemble des services du wiki, revoir pour l’organisation d’une autre formation permettant de toucher d’autres points sur le wiki, aider a créer des blogs et mieux comprendre les autres outils du Web 2.0, et encore corriger quelques imperfections de tout ce qui a été appris. Mais pour les participants, disposer de plus de temps pour une telle formation, organiser de nouveau une autre formation pour mieux assimiler les sujets abordes et ceux n’ayant pas pu être abordés.

Je ne pourrais tirer une conclusion sans pourtant remercier M. Dembélé, le Coordinateur du Réseau de Plaidoyer et Lobbying (RPL). Il a su relancer un système qui avait toujours eu du mal à décoller et l’ensemble des membres du Réseau présent ou n’ayant pas pu faire le déplacement a la formation. Mes remerciements vont a l’égard de l’ensemble des membres du Réseau qui m’ont facilité les tâches grâce à leurs motivation et l’envie d’apprendre qui ont suscité beaucoup de questions et la satisfaction en réponses. C’était la première fois que je rencontrais la plupart des membres du réseau à part ceux présent à l’atelier de Ouaga, mais on avait l’impression d’être en famille, vu la qualité de l’ambiance dans la salle.

Quelques réactions de la part des participants

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Oudou BENGALY, animateur