By Praveen Kumar
As part of my interest in the Social Inclusion Theme and need of the partners a workshop design was developed and a 3 day workshop on Social Inclusion of PWDs was conducted at Bhubneshwar in January, 2009. This workshop design was later considered as a global template for Sightsavers and thus the workshop was replicated in Bangladesh for the country office team and in Mumbai for ECSA and India region staff.
My visit to Dakar was planned with an objective of supporting Gertrude Oforiwa Fefoame (Asia- Africa Social Inclusion Advisor) in conducting a similar workshop in Dakar (Senegal), for the staff of West Africa (East and West) regions.
The three days workshop in Dakar from 17th to 19th May 2010 had about 50 participants from all departments including finance and admin of WARO East and West regions. It was organized as a part of WARO Regional Meeting. Though initially, Gertrude and I thought that the number of participants was a bit high and will be difficult to manage, to our surprise the workshop was one of the best and the most participative one which we had ever attended/conducted. It also gave me an opportunity to have a broader view of Sightsavers programmes on Social Inclusion across Africa through the discussion during the workshop.
Quoting Elizabeth Elhassan (Regional Director – WARO West ) and Benedict Hoefnegals (Regional Director – WARO East), this was one of the best regional meetings they have attended since joining Sightsavers, packed with vital learning which could be immediately linked and applied to programmes and practice.
The focus of the workshop was mainly on the twin track approach and on using the CBR matrix while planning the social inclusion programmes. Following are the action points drafted by the Regional Directors after the workshop.
Action Points:
- Country Office (CO) and Regional Office (RO) teams to review the Social Inclusion and Education sections of strategy papers to reflect learning from the training – alongside PITEC feedback on country / region strategy papers (CSP/ RSP).
- CO and RO teams to review their Project/Programme portfolio and align it with the strategic framework and Sightsavers programme approaches.
- CO and RO teams to review accompanying operational plans for Education and Social Inclusion areas of work, and submit to the regional office, Diane Mulligan & Gertrude for feedback, by the end of July. Note that all CSPs & Operational Plans should reflect the Twin – Track approach.
The visit to Senegal had also given me an opportunity to be nominated to the Guinness Book of World Records as the airlines missed my luggage during the onward as well as return journey. But it seems there are people who have missed it several times during their journey to Africa.
One learning, I would like to pass on to my colleagues who may travel to Africa is just carry one suitcase as hand baggage so that you have lesser chances of missing your checked in baggage.
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