I've just reached the end of my first full week in Freetown and despite continuing to struggle with the limited access to internet, power and water I'm starting to make some (albeit slow) progress at work.
This week I've facilitated three internal sessions on Civic Participation - an introductory session for the programmes team, a problem analysis session with the managing committee and a visioning session with everyone. The important thing with all these sessions is that the ideas are coming from our team in Sierra Leone and I'm just facilitating the process. After all, I'm only here for a short time and won't actually be implementing any of the programmes directly myself. The team here are really enthusiastic and came up with some great problem trees that analysed the causes and consequences of some of the most pressing issues for young people in Sierra Leone (many in relation to the upcoming elections). Later in the week, I ran a visioning workshop to get everyone to think about the change we want to see for young people in Sierra Leone in three years time. Being a hot Friday afternoon when everyone (including me) was starting to flag, I wanted to make it as fun as possible and really get some "blue sky thinking" going on to push the boundaries of our day in-day out programmes work. Everyone got really into it and came up with some great ideas that have given us a clearer picture of the changes we want to see in Sierra Leone in terms of Civic Participation. So the next step is to connect the dots from where we are now (problem analysis) to where we want to be (vision). It's a bit like having the bookends to an empty shelf of books which we now need to fill.
Also this week, I visited some of our drama peer educator volunteers in the middle of Freetown. I've never seen anything like it. They basically pick a really busy spot and draw attention to themselves by singing, dancing and drumming in order to get a crowd interested. They then perform drama skits to raise awareness around issues ranging from HIV/AIDS and drug and alcohol abuse to voter education. Really impressive stuff, especially in the midday heat.
This week I've facilitated three internal sessions on Civic Participation - an introductory session for the programmes team, a problem analysis session with the managing committee and a visioning session with everyone. The important thing with all these sessions is that the ideas are coming from our team in Sierra Leone and I'm just facilitating the process. After all, I'm only here for a short time and won't actually be implementing any of the programmes directly myself. The team here are really enthusiastic and came up with some great problem trees that analysed the causes and consequences of some of the most pressing issues for young people in Sierra Leone (many in relation to the upcoming elections). Later in the week, I ran a visioning workshop to get everyone to think about the change we want to see for young people in Sierra Leone in three years time. Being a hot Friday afternoon when everyone (including me) was starting to flag, I wanted to make it as fun as possible and really get some "blue sky thinking" going on to push the boundaries of our day in-day out programmes work. Everyone got really into it and came up with some great ideas that have given us a clearer picture of the changes we want to see in Sierra Leone in terms of Civic Participation. So the next step is to connect the dots from where we are now (problem analysis) to where we want to be (vision). It's a bit like having the bookends to an empty shelf of books which we now need to fill.
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| Facilitating the Civic Participation workshops |
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| David Bayo and Cathrin Daniel present their Civic Participation Visioning |
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| Civic Participation Problem Tree Analysis - Cathrin, James and Jalloh |
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| The drama volunteer peer educators in action. Can you spot me and Hilda (new Programme Manager from The Netherlands)?! |
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| Chatting to the drama volunteers after their skit |
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