2008 May « Silent Voices

May 22, 2008, 6:26 am
Filed under: Income Generating Project, Teacher Training, Uncategorized

Having completed our first residential, life is very different this week. Now we are busy finalising the reports of the residential ready to send to our donors Deaf Child Worldwide, who make all this work possible, and to our participants for their files.

The evaluation of the residential week was very positive – in particular we learned that participants were very happy not to sit through a week of lectures and try to make lots of notes. Our participatory style of training was really appreciated. But of course we also learnt that there are some aspects that we need to work on before the next residential. Of course there are always some issues when working with people from a different cultural background and I try to be careful not to impose my cultural norms on the sessions.

The parents also really enjoyed coming to the District Office to see the information about Silent Voices and about Deaf Child Worldwide on the internet. For many of them it was the first time to see material over the internet and they loved to see their photographs – I am not sure if they all really appreciated that everyone round the world can also see them.

Now we are also planning for our next Parent Group meetings. I am particularly excited to see how the next week of meetings will go as they are going to be facilitated by the Parent Representatives, with my support where needed. For the Parent Representatives this will be the first time they have facilitated such an activity. We have planned the programme and they have practiced presenting it, but I think it will be more challenging for them when they face their parent groups. I see this as part of their personal development which is an important part of capacity building.

I will let you know how it goes!

Hilary

VSO Volunteer with Silent Voices

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‘Silent Voices’ First Residential!

May 12, 2008, 11:33 am
Filed under: Capacity Building, Executive Commity, Organisational Development, Working with Parents Groups | Tags: Add new tag, training

Well we have survived the week! In fact we did more than survive the week. We can count it as another successful step on the road to running our own CBO. Nineteen of the expected participants turned up for the training – some were delayed a little by those unexpected events in family life that one cannot plan for, but made it later in the week.

So on Monday we began a week of energisers and ice breakers, of learning how to give and receive feedback to enable everyone to develop their skills of speaking, reporting back small group work, and facilitating activities. We played games, we discussed what a CBO is and what makes a good organisation. We developed a list of values to guide the organisation, we discussed why we needed an Executive Committee and we started to grapple with the roles and responsibilities of an Executive Committee. (This last session was the only one where I looked around and saw a circle of puzzled faces.)

Yes some of it was hard work, some issues we had to re-visit and I am sure we will discuss again and again in the future. Some questions have to yet be answered such as “How will we ensure transparency?”, “How will we communicate with all the members?”. My emphasis was always on helping these parents decide how they would run their organisation rather than on telling them what should happen.

The parents ate, slept, nursed babies, discussed, talked, wrote, drew pictures, drank tea, and lived Silent Voices for a week. Some worried what was happening at home, some enjoyed not having to cook, wash dishes, fetch water etc. They learnt about each other as well as about Silent Voices. They became a group.

As part of developing the parents’ confidence we have planned for the Parent Representatives to facilitate the next Parent Group sessions. We have planned and we have practiced and I hope in three weeks time we will remember how we are going to run these sessions. I am sure mistakes will be made but they will be their mistakes and they will learn from them.

Hilary, VSO Volunteer

Silent Voices

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