Closing the ComPart Enablers Workshop 2010

The ComPart Enablers workshop 2010 has come to an end last Friday and everybody is heading home again. The day before all finished the assignments, after which we went to the ICCO offices and had the opportunity to visit the city of Utrecht. We had a lovely dinner in a restaurant on the ‘Old Canal’ in the centre.

The last day was mainly used for the planning of the follow up. For every region the representative of the ICCO office and the enabler(s) for that region worked together. This resulted in a set of very concrete and realistic plans for the activities to undertake during the coming year aiming at the integration of the ComPart way of working in the daily work of all ICCO staff world wide.

The great thing is that all participants now have gained the skills to be able to support and together with the enablers train their colleagues. All have got the ‘ComPart Driving license’ with at least the basic level for working with: wikis, blogs, delicious and feeds.

As told earlier, the participant who would produce the most complete and technically well made multi media trip report on the blog and wiki would be awarded. The quality of the end products really surprised us. We were amazed by the technical quality but surely also by the content itself. It was a pleasure reading, seeing and listening to them. This made it a very difficult job for the jury to choose the winners. Only looking at (minor) details, distinctions could be made. And by doing so the prize for the best blog and wiki in the category ICCO regional staff went to Jennifer Kironde (Kampala - Uganda), and with Diego Reinoso of Rimisp (Santiago Chile) we had a deserved winner in the category "Best blog and wiki – Enablers”. Congratulations for both!
Now looking back at the four days it is clear all participants are trained, good follow up plans have been made and we do all feel part of the ‘ComPart enablers team’ which means all objectives are reached.

Personally it was really a joy to participate, meeting (again) with the participants and getting to know new colleagues. I was impressed by the commitment and hard working and the fast way all captured the idea of the ComPart way of working. Perhaps as an afterthought (also expressed by one of the participants) the competitive element could have been used also in another way. Although the working ‘together alone’ (each working for themselves on their product during free hours until late in the evenings) also helped to build the team, it might have been good to include a collaborative element in the assignment, as collaboration is a key word in the ComPart way of working. This might be something to take into account for the future.

Anyhow I can say that my expectations where more than fulfilled largely thanks to the great group of participants whom I want to thank again for their commitment and all the nice and inspiring contributions. And of course this all could not have been achieved without the much appreciated support, facilitation and contributions of the Euforic Services team (Pier Andrea Pirani, Pete Cranston and Danny Aerts). Many thanks to you!

Maarten Boers

PS: Unfortunately two of the offices were not represented because of visa and flight problems; but somehow we will make sure these offices (and enabler) will catch up and join the team.

See more posts about the ComPart Enablers workshop 2010

Reflections

by Nicolle Beeby, SANGONet

Okay, another gathering – workshop! This time on another continent! So what? And then aptly named – ComPart too – Communication among Partners. If communication is your game – why was I trekked halfway across the world to have a face-to-face discussion? “Catch you online” is my favourite saying as part from friends or acquaintances I usually chat to on one of my many chat applications – which are all integrated into Pidgin … Don’t want my gtalk, msn, yahoo messenger and skype all popping up as soon as I log on… Yes! I’m just that famous! J

Sooo… let this journey begin properly. A few months ago, SANGONeT was contacted by Pete Cranston attend the Compart Enablers Workshop in Soesterberg, Netherlands from 18 – 21 May. Yours truly was requested to attend this auspicious occasion. Now, you may be reading this and thinking – WOW! but this young lady is ungrateful… However, I’m working toward to something … just go with the flow ;-)

Rewind to four weeks ago and I need to get a VISA. Now, if I knew that, that process would be so horrific, I would’ve had myself cloned just to take the hour long drive to Pretoria to queue at the Dutch Embassy on my behalf… needless to say, the only appointment I could get was for 12 May – with a 48 hour wait … and wait for it! Wait for it!! The Embassy was closed on 13 and 14 May for Dutch public holidays. Well, I’m not entirely blaming them – they did after all accommodate me by guaranteeing my visa to be ready on the 17th of May – the day I had to be in Netherlands already. Good enough I suppose… I did eventually get here! My tale of woes does not end there however, upon arrival at the O R Tambo airport in Johannesburg – it turned out that I was SIX hours too early! Due to volcanic ash over Europe - my flight was delayed by three hours… hmmm… now who to blame for that one?

Anyway… the food and hospitality on the plane was lovely, the flight itself was pleasant and found walking through customs to be a breeze! Imagine that! From frowning faces at the South African Dutch Embassy to delightful smiles upon arrival at Schipol in Amsterdam. Now now, don’t mistake my sudden outburst of sweetness, my woes have not ended! YET!

Soooo… Nicolle makes her grand entrance at the Kontakt der Kontinenten in Soesterberg, just outside Utrecht! And welcomed by an awesome bunch of warm smiles, leaving me feeling like Miss Universe had just entered the building (Where’s my crown people?)… is it in the water? Why is everyone in the Netherlands so happy? I mean, there’s a dark cloud hanging over you, for heaven’s sake – where is the doom and gloom? Or is it just me?

Well… turns out – it was just me! GERMS!! They spoil everything…

BUT! All was not lost… this was just day one… And Thanks to Michelle’s contagious laughter at the dinner table, Oudou and Hempal clicking away at their camera’s (I did say I felt like Miss Universe, right? Well, if there’s no crown – 50 Euros will also do J *hint hint nudge nudge*), to interesting conversations with Danny and of course, Diego being a great sport by allowing me to use our ZOOOOOOOOM video over here… Let’s just put it this way, the ice princess was starting to melt. And rapidly too… while very low on energy and growing weaker and weaker… Pete, my knight in shining armour comes to my rescue with meds – and again the sun that never sets in Netherlands starts to shine even brighter for Nicolle. Special thank you to the amazing group of participants… meeting and working with you all has certainly been a pleasure … Hope to stay in touch… in fact – in classic social media style… Click here and become my friend on facebook!

I guess at some point I have to mention something about the workshop, right? Well click here and get the low down on the past two days on the ComPart Wiki!

It's working

The silence in the hall (except the blips on test) during the ComPart 2010 enablers workshop, was a visible sign of ComPart way of going together. People on the same desk were just chatting on the ComPart networks chat, so that the silence is not disturbed.

I was following the policy of wait and see for the assignments. Thus, this allowed me to have a great time reading and viewing of everyone's story, blips and blogs, but left me with hardly few hours to do the tech update stuffs for myself.

So, I thought to follow the ComPart and crowd sourcing approach of working, which works :D. So, here I want to put forward my appreciation for all the enablers for developing such a wonderful knowledge bank.

You can visit my wiki page for all other development in the ComPart enablers workshop 2010 here.

by Hempal Shrestha

Finally ... Soesterberg

by Arnel Moya Astillero

“Siempre que te pregunto que cuando, como y donde. Tu siempre me responde. Quizas, quizas, quizas !”

The paragraph above quoted from a song describes the mood and the actual situation while I was preparing for the ComPart workshop. It also resonates with my general attitude in life. Being a Christian, I live on faith and trust in a Heavenly Father who is in control of my life. So I said to myself, given the difficulty in coming to the workshop, perhaps He has other plans for me. However, I believed that God willing, I will be able to attend.

The journey actually started with a forwarded email from a colleague (he is actually my boss but given the highly democratic culture at ICCO, we call each other colleagues) in the ICCO Regional Office Southeast Asia & Pacific while I was touring the countryside in the Philippines. I was with my Dutch counterpart visiting partners to formally introduce me as the new Program Officer. The email was from Machteld Ooijens inviting the RO managers to nominate a staff to attend the ComPart Enablers Workshop. The regional office is quite new so we haven’t gotten to the point of discussing “other tasks that may be assigned”. Why the email landed in my InBox (there are actually 10 people equally qualified to attend) is another story. And so it came to pass that I have to prepare for a trip to Holland while I was working on the project transfer and relocating my family to Bali. It doesn’t matter, I wanted to attend! A workshop on an internet-based knowledge-sharing platform using the popular internet tools otherwise used for gossip and exhibitionism and voyeurism seems fun!

The journey, however, was long and full of challenges. One of Murphy’s Laws which says “If anything can go wrong, it will!” was very much evident in this trip!

The first leg is Manila to Bali. This trip however did not happen as scheduled. We were supposed to fly March 31 but our actual flight happened on April 14. The first challenge was the Indonesian visa. It took sometime before me and my family got a visa from Indonesian immigration. The staff working on the visa is not allowed to pay the usual facilitation fees hence she has to go through the slow, patience-draining process! The second challenge was the Dutch visa. The main document needed was the formal invite from ComPart. It was written March 23 but somehow got lost in transit so I received it April 10. It takes the Dutch embassy in Manila 10 days to schedule a visa interview and another two weeks to process the application so working on the visa in Manila was out of the question. We leave in four days for Bali!

And so I flew to Bali with my family. The airline companies have perfected the science of squeezing the most Euro from their passengers. They are following a Calculus theorem which says that “the shortest distance between two points is a curve.” So the flight went from Manila to Singapore and Jakarta before finally going to Denpasar (see the map). We can actually derive the equation of the curve using methods in Calculus. Why do I keep remembering lessons in Calculus that were given ages ago? Maybe the ComPart discussions triggered or reconnected some broken neural connections in my brain!

Anyway, it took us about 15 hours to complete the trip. We even had to cross a time zone even if Manila and Bali is in the same time zone. However, travelling for me is always fun – a chance to meet people and see interesting things. I focus on the trip and not on the destination and this trip is a bonding opportunity for the family.

Upon arriving in Bali, the first order of the day is to resettle the family and catch up with work at the office. A couple of days passed before I had a chance to go to the Dutch consulate and apply for a visa. In a very nice way, the visa officer told me that it would take them a month to process the visa. But I only have three weeks before the workshop! Then you have to go to the Dutch embassy in Jakarta! They can do it in two weeks! So I sent all documents to a representative in Jakarta. It is a business related trip so the office can work on the visa. Or so I thought! I am working with a Dutch NGO funded by the Dutch government so the visa officer needs to see me in person! Life is good, another reason to travel. And so I got the chance to soak in the culture, taste the food and breathe the fumes of Jakarta.

The visa officer asked me three questions: when is my trip, what is the purpose of my visit to Holland and why am I applying very late! These are questions of national security! Then she said she needs to consult her boss. Maybe my responses to the questions were sensitive in nature! A Dutch guy took a peek, sized me up and maybe thought “ICCO is indeed downsizing, from 6’4” to 5’4”. I am no threat!

Anyway, the visa officer finally told me that they will give me only a BeNeLux visa and it would take three days to process. I’ve had enough of Jakarta in one day so I gave an authorization for somebody to claim my passport and courier it to me in Bali. The interview was scheduled on a Friday, so the work on the visa only started the Monday of the following week. The release date was a Wednesday but my representative had medical emergency so he failed to go to the embassy. Thursday happened to be a holiday (Ascension Day – the day when Christ, after his resurrection, finally ascended to heaven) so Friday is the last chance to get my passport in time for my May 16, Sunday flight! I left the office that day still uncertain if I’ll be able to go!

Meanwhile colleagues in the Global office who were arranging for the plane tickets were also facing their own challenges. Because of the uncertainty of the visa, they did not buy the tickets yet and seats for the flights were fast disappearing. I finally got my passport evening of Saturday, May 15 and a ticket departing in the evening of Monday, May 17. The delays were actually a blessing in disguise because had I left on the original date of departure, I might have been stuck of a day in another airport since Schiphol was closed on the date of my arrival due to the ash clouds from the volcanic eruption in Iceland.

And so finally, I’m here is Soesterberg!

It was a tiring journey but being met by Maxime at the airport and being welcomed at the workshop venue by a roomful of smiling and friendly faces of beautiful/handsome and seemingly interesting people somehow gave me a boost of energy. I am optimistic, that the trip would be worth it!

And now the headache starts. It takes my body a couple of days to notice that it has crossed several time zones… but this is another blog story!

The expectations

By Diego Reinoso, Rimisp - Centro Latinoamericano para el Desarrollo Rural

¿Qué esperaba antes de venir?

Al salir de Santiago de Chile esperaba poder aprender y compartir con un grupo de personas sobre cómo las herramientas Web se pueden convertir en una excelente herramienta de trabajo.

Antes de ver si se cumplirían mis expectativas, recorrí Amsterdam por dos días. Imperdible: Museos, canales, coffeeshop, barrio rojo...

El lunes llegué a Amersfoort junto a otros participantes del ComPart Enablers' Workshop.

Mi otra gran expectativa era conocer a personas de distintas partes del mundo. La expectativa fue sobrepasada por los hechos y puedo decir que he conocido a personas de Mali, Burkina Faso, Kirguistán, Uganda, Nepal, etc.

Han pasado dos días y mis expectativas han sido satisfechas. Ha sido una interesante experiencia para reforzar mi conocimiento sobre algunas herramientas y redescubrir otras que no conocía. Me es especialmente útil para mi trabajo en la actualización del Blog Red Prensa Rural y el sitio Web del programa Dinámicas Territoriales Rurales de Rimisp.

Aún quedan dos días y creo que surgirán nuevas expectativas que seguro serán satisfechas en el Workshop.

[An English translation attempt..]

What I expected before coming?

Leaving Santiago de Chile hoped to learn and share with a group of people about how Web tools can become an excellent tool.

Before seeing if it would meet my expectations, I walked around Amsterdam for two days. You can not miss: Museums, channels, coffeeshops, red-light district...

On Monday I arrived to Amersfoort with other participants of ComPart Enablers Workshop.

My other big expectation was meet people from around the world. The expectation was surpassed by the facts and I can say I've met people from Mali, Burkina Faso, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda, Nepal, etc.

It has been two days and my expectations have been met. It was an interesting experience to enhance my knowledge and rediscover some other tools did not know. It is especially useful for my work on the update of the Blog Red Prensa Rural and the website of the Rural Territorial Dynamics program of Rimisp.

There are still two days and I think that surely will create new expectations will be met at the Workshop.

Extra! Extra! Extra!
You want to see the best zoom of the history and listen to a Chilean speak a bad English, press play:

From blip to blog*

We just started our second day at the Soesterberg 2010 Compart enablers conference (not entirely sure in what order I should use these words) with a reflective walk in the woods surrounding the conference venue. While the people from Europe were enjoying the nice weather, our colleagues from the regional ICCO offices and the enablers had a somewhat different experience. Some of them actually come from 45+ degrees Celsius!

As part of the workshop, all participants will create a blog and a wiki that they will use to shed their light on the workshop. The assignment includes the embedding of multiple media formats into the blog and wiki. Camera's have been flashing and recording all day long and as a result, a lot of information and media has already been produced and uploaded. If you'd like to follow what is happening here in Soesterberg, you have several options, as usual:

1. For images, please visit this set on the Flickr account of compartuser.
2. If you prefer moving images, you can check compartuser on blip.tv.
3. The Compart support wiki has more information about the workshop, with, among others, background information on regional contexts and the raw notes of the different sessions.
4. And for those who really want to stay up to date with everything as it happens here in Soesterberg, some of us are tweeting with the hashtag #comparten
5. And finally, we will keep you updated on this blog.

Let us know in the comments if you have questions about the process or if you want

to hear more from the participants or the different regions. We'll study them in detail!

by Danny Aerts

* Nice reference (credits to P. Cranston) to the embedding of videos into blog posts, that has nothing to do with this article.

Communication, pleasure and connection

Lessons I've learned in ICCO Enablers Workshop
by Michelle Prazeres

I'm Michelle Prazeres. I'm a journalist and I work for Acao Educativa, a brasilian organisation that fight for education, youth and culture rights.

I came here with at least three wishes/expectations: communication, connection and pleasure.
Each day, I've learned one (or more) lesson (lessons).

A lesson (that I already knew, but it was very important to find people who think just like me!)
Communication is a process and not a set of products.
Technology is not a set of tools, but use what you do to them and the role we assign to them politically and socially.

Lesson 2: I learned to use Delicious.
I created an account for me and I will definitely continue to use in my daily work.

Lesson 3: The countries whose representatives are presented at the workshop have very similar realities in relation to access the Internet and technologies.
In fact, Brazil is one of the most advanced countries in relation to this, although it is a reality beyond desirable and ideal for the work of organisations.

Lesson 4: Using the tools of Compart it comes to curiosity, pleasure and fun and willing to learn without fear of making mistakes. Check on ten fears and miths about technologies.

Lesson 5: Two major issues in relation to such tools are: how to maintain the enthusiasm that is created in a workshop like this at work everyday, and how to reconcile the traditional work with this new way of working, and that Compart?

Lesson 6: I've learned how to use feeds, and created an account in iGoogle to receive feeds sites that interest me.

I guess my expectations were accomplished and - more than that - they were exceeded!
I discovered that Compart is all about communicating, having fun and connecting!

It's been such a fantastic moment.
I've shared my view of it in a video that I made with all the participants of the workshop.
Take a look at it!


PORTUGUESE VERSION

Eu cheguei aqui com tres desejos: comunicacao, prazer e conexao.
A cada dia, eu aprendi uma (ou mais) licao (licoes).

Licao 1 (esta eu ja sabia, mas foi muito importante encontrar pessoas que pensam como eu!):
Comunicacao e um processo e nao um conjunto de produtos.
Tecnologia nao e um conjunto de ferramentas, mas o uso que voce faz delas e o papel que conferimos a elas politicamente e socialmente.

Licao 2: aprendi a usar o Delicious.
Criei uma conta para mim, e com certeza vou continuar usando no meu trabalho cotidiano.

Licao 3: Os paises cujos representantes estao presentes no workshop tem realidades muito similares em relacao ao acesso as tecenologias e a internet.
Na verdade, o Brasil e um dos paises mais avancados em relacao a isso, ainda que seja uma realidade aquem da desejavel e da ideal para o trabalho das orgaziacoes.

Licao 4: O uso das ferramentas do Compart se trata de curiosidade, prazer e diversao e vontade de aprender sem medo de errar.

Licao 5: Duas grandes questoes em relacao a estas ferramentas sao: como manter o entusiasmo que se cria em um workshop como este no trabalho cotidiano; e como conciliar o trabalho tradicional com esta nova forma de trabalhar, que e o Compart?

Licao 6: aprendi a usar feeds, e criei uma conta no Igoogle para receber feeeds de sites que me interessam.

Regional Context for Central & Eastern Africa

Janet Achola and Jennifer Kironde from the Central & Eastern Africa Region attend the ComPart Enablers Workshop in Soesterberg.

Each region was to talk about their context so that others would understand the conditions we are or will be working in especially elements that favor or complicate the use of compart or ICT.

Our presentation was summarised in a poster (see image on the right) and the following outline:

The Geographical Region of Central and Eastern Africa: The Region covers 8 countries of Burundi, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda with the RO in Kampala and 2 suboffices in Juba and Congo. According to the concept of trilocation, these 3 offices together form one regional organization even though they are geographically separated.

ICT/Gender Policy:
In E.A, all the 3 countries have a draft ICT policies, ministry if ICTs, ICT Parliamentary committees.
Attitude towards learning or exchanging information:
Poor culture in information exchange exists and the use of compart should play an important role in solving this problem.

Connectivity:
The existing state of telecommunication in the country leaves much to be desired as a gate way to internet. On the whole, internet diffusion is severely constrained by low levels of telephone penetration, the high cost of telecommunication connection, lack of telephone service to homes and businesses , frequent and long power interruptions among others. On average cost of internet connectivity in Uganda ranges between USD 100-1600 and monthly subscription can go as high as USD 2400 a month depending on the bandwidth and service provider.

Availability and usage of internet: Internet statistics
The Regional Office has 48 staff out of whom 36 accesss and use computers/internet, the other 12 staff who don't have computers don't actually need it for their work and atleast all the staff have the basic knowledge on how to use internet. This is different for our partners in the remote areas who are affected by a number of factors ranging from high costs, slow and unreliable connections, lack of power and frequent power interruptions among others. The penetration rate of internet in Uganda per say is very low for example in the year 2000, there were only 40,000 users out of a population of 24.4m people and by the year 2009, only 2.5m users were registered visa vis a population of 32.3 million acording to the International Telecommunications Union publications 2010.

Related Gender Issues:
Government has intervened by promoting internet at Multipurpose Community Telecentres (MCTs). MCTs represent shared internet public access facilities aimed at providing access to advanced information and communication services in rural and remote areas as well as deprived or underserved urban areas which also takes into account the women in development.

Government is also in the process of rolling out 1 computer per child in UPE schools with an American company. This has advantages because it favors those who can't afford including women.

For more information look out for background information on regional contexts under May 2010 Soesterberg NL

By Jennifer Kironde

ComPart training: Learnings by IAM

These are what I learned within 1.5 day:
1. Converting video files into wmv files, editing in Windows Movie Maker and the result is here:

2. Blogging, which means to publish the text, videos, pictures in ComPart network.

This is really fun!!!

by Iskenderbek Amanbaev

ICCO - South America

La oficina de ICCO Sud America se habrio hace dos semanas, para siete paises de Sud America.

Nos estamos introduciendo recientemente en el manejo de las herramientas tecnologicas que ICCO utiliza para realizar su trabajo y es ese el motivo por el cual estoy participando de este taller, que ademas de contextualizarnos, nos permite compartir una linda experiencia en equipo.

by Ivett Rodriguez

ComPart Workshop in Soesterberg 2010

Hi all!

I am Andi K. Yuwono from Praxis Association, Jakarta - Indonesia. I am the national coordinator for Collective Learning Forum - People Initiative. The forum is directed not towards specific issue nor sector but towards the effort to develop the interaction intensity among actors of change. Through consolidation among agents of change the vision to achieve democratization, justice, peace, and or the promotion and protection of human rights whether in civil, political, economy, social and cultural aspects can be expected to be accomplished.

This is my second day at KdK in Soesterberg. We are still learning about the "power" of ComPart. It is held by ICCO, and facilitating by Pete, Pier, Danny and Maarten.

Well, ComPart (Communication with and among Partners) is an initiative of the ICCO Alliance. By enabling more effective knowledge sharing and exchange, it aims to support ongoing strategic changes in the Alliance members – and the way in which they and their staff collaborate with partners worldwide. It also offers a set of tools and processes that individuals and teams may use to optimize the effectiveness of their work.

It is good to be here, even it is too cold for me. Thanks to everyone.

For further info please visit my full Trip Report.

By Andi K. Yuwono

ComPart Enablers Workshop-Day1

Namaste!

I am Mousumi Sarangi from ICCO-South Asia office,working on issues of health & education programmes in India & Nepal.

It was a great start to the workshop in Soesterberg-beautiful locale,interactive methodology,wonderful trainers. Crawling already by the end of day 1 training ComPart is getting demystified! Hippie!

Managed to blog, put on a link & a picture…..completed the first assignment.:)

Looking forward to toddle & wobble on day 2 on the learning trajectory road& finally be able to walk (with support) by day 4 or joyfully riding out………………

ComPart South 2010 Workshop - Day 1

Soestenberg, 18 May 2010. It's past 10 in the evening, and the room is still full. Christophe Hien and Oudou Bengaly, two of the 'ancient' enablers of the ComPart support team, just finished facilitating the last session of the day, explaining the group how to 'work with blips'. And everybody is now busy editing their videos and uploading them on the web.

This was the last session of a busy and exciting day, with 20 people from 15 countries discussing and being trained on the ‘ComPart Way of Working’, and seeing how this can be applied in their regional context.

We started this morning, with a simple tagging exercise that brought us closer together and helped identify which connections are in the room and where our common interests are. We also shared and captured the group's expectations, ranging from 'learning the tools' to 'understanding why ComPart', from 'sharing experiences on ICTs culture in different countries' to 'creating connections for future collaboration, building trust and finding common ground for collaboration'.

The energy level in the room was high, and the group was very excited and keen to learn. Maarten Boers answered some of the questions and expectations that participants had, giving a 'background and foreground' presentation of what ComPart is, what it has been done so far, and what next. In this sense, the what next is really a key element, and an issue that underpinned the all workshop: as ICCO is decentralising, what can be the added value of ComPart for the new ICCO and its partners in the South as well as in the North?

In this regards, it was great to start discussing the different regional regional contexts ICCO is working in. Today, we looked at West Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Southern Africa and gave specific attention at how the ICT environment looks in each of these regions; and how ComPart is already being used by ICCO staff and partners, and what potentials it can have to support daily activities and work processes.

The second part of the afternoon was devoted to hands on training, as one of the objective of the workshop is to bring the all group to a good level of technical knowledge of blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, feeds and videos. More technical sessions are planned throughout the all week; at the end of the workshop we will award a prize for the participant that, using different ComPart tools, will produced the most complete multimedia trip report form this event.

Overall, it was a very positive day. I think it's clear that the people are eager to learn how ICTs in general, and ComPart in particular, can support their daily work, and enable information, collaboration and knowledge sharing. However, as emerged in the regional context session, several challenges need to be taken into account: access; people and their consolidated working habits; culture and attitude towards ICTs and sharing; languages. We will make the best how of the coming days of the workshop to see about the challenges that we are identifying, and how we can tailor ComPart to these different regional contexts.

See more stories from the ComPart South 2010 workshop.

Compart (enablers) Training K d K May 2010

This is the first day of the enabler compart training

This is the first exercise and will serve as a report and training tool for feedback to the WARO of ICCO .

ComPart South 2010 workshop

After having met in Lisbon in 2008 and in Woudschoten (Utrecht) in 2009, this year 'ComPart South' workshop is taking place again in the Netherlands, in Soesterberg from 18 to 21 May 2010.

In these past 2 years, besides the different activities undertaken with ICCO staff in Utrecht, we started building a network of 'enabler' organisations and individuals that could support and extend ComPart to Southern partners of the ICCO Alliance. These experiences have been documented extensively on this blog.

This year, we'll take one step further these efforts and the learning we did along the process: together with 'old' and 'new' enablers we'll be working also with ICCO representatives from the regional offices, to develop concrete plans of action for the ComPart support for each of the 8 regions where ICCO has opened its regional offices. In this sense, we'll be introducing the ‘ComPart Way of Working’ and discuss it with the participants, seeing how this can be applied in their regional context. Further, we'll also to train ourselves in the use of the main ComPart tools, so that we all have a strong knowledge of the different applications available, and know exactly when and how to use them.

As usual, we'll be 'walking the talk' and we'll be using social media to capture the main elements of the workshop and engage other interested parties in the conversation. On this blog, you'll find a daily post summarizing the day in words as well as with video and pictures. ICCO staff can also take a closer look at the daily notes and participate remotely on the ComPart Support Wiki.