Tuesday 21 August 2007

SKWID training course

Just finished a five day course in Harborne (near Birmingham) which, like before, was pretty intense. Some long days from 9am - 8 or 9pm. First there was a health and safety session telling us a bit about the diseases we might expect, and how to filter and boil all drinking water. [Number 1 problem is botty trouble!!!!]

Then on to SKWID (Skills for Working in Development) proper. I was in a group of around 18 people, 4 going to Ethiopia and a few teachers among us. At first the course seemed full of jargon and acronyms and I thought (as did a couple of the teachers): "Oh no! We thought we were getting away from all the jargon and paperwork that seems to dominate teaching in the UK at the moment." We had a mega-overdose of "Participatory approaches", "Facilitation" and "tools" to use when negotiating. We did learn a lot though, especially about how just bundling in to a situation without thinking of the consequences of your actions and how it will effect everyone (including the silent majority) is BAD! We also learnt how to do a stakeholder analysis - which was nice.

Anyway, after five days of getting up and collecting breakfast, course, biscuit and coffee break, course, lunch, course, biscuit and coffee break, course, dinner, course etc people were getting a bit stir crazy and it was like (in northern voice): "Day 5 in the big brother house - three volunteers tried to climb over the wall when the coffee ran out."

The last day, in small groups, we had to prepare a scenario and facilitate a participatory discussion (e.g. five of us had to be pregnant women in Cambodia and one of our group had to facilitate a discussion about a new health center using a "tool" to aid this discussion - e.g. guided drawing or role playing.)

So overall, once all the jargon has been filtered out by my brain, it gave me a good idea of some things to think about when I go to Ethiopia.

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