Achieving something?

So last week was slightly busy to say the least! It started with going in to work on Saturday morning to rush out some invitations to female mayors around the North West Region. I was inviting them to my workshop. I had to print them and get them down to the Madame Margaret who I have been working with, a mayor herself, before she made the four hour bumpy journey back to Kumbo. I was kind of sceptical as to whether people would come at such short notice – being invited on Sunday/Monday to a workshop on the Thursday but she assured me that they would all come.

The rest of the week was spent hand delivering the rest of the invitations to various councils in the area and preparing the all the bits and bobs for the workshop itself, food, drink, stationary and writing out most of the messages, questions and activities on flip charts as there is no power presentation and communication is eased if instructions are written down. Things take longer than normal with power cuts and computers being slow.... if you don't get your printing done before the power cut you don't necessarily get your printing done!

So I should never have doubted Madame Margaret! 19 people turned up to my workshop with at best three days notice. It is funny there is a strange mix of waiting for things to happen here and needing to be patient and then things actually happening with little notice and people taking action very quickly. I was still doubtful at 9.30am on the first day of the workshop however, as there were only five of us. People had forgotten to tell me that organising a workshop on the first Thursday of the month is not a good idea as it is clean up campaign! What is clean up campaign? I asked – oh the taxis don't run between 8am and 12pm in a bid to be environmentally friendly. There is no other transport than taxis and motors (motorbikes) there are no local buses or any other form of local transport – so not only did my women have to come long distances at short notice for which I could not reimburse them fully because of my budget but some of them were having to walk the last part of the journey! The guilt!!

The workshop went really well. I really enjoyed it. The women were incredibly grateful and kept thanking us for running it. It was great fun and really hard work. There was lots of singing, some dancing and lots of different versions of clapping and showing gratitude. They don't think our normal way of clapping is good enough here so they have different patterns and styles – were your warm your palms first – one where you throw your clap/thanks at the end – one where you start with one finger, then two etc different rhythms of clapping as well. Energisers here tend to be songs and rhymes and dancing, a good laugh really, less contrived than ones I am used to and more musical.

After such a busy week I went with my wonderful fellow facilitators to a drinking hole and met a couple of their friends and drank quite a few Smirnoff Ices (always being promoted here) then went to join the other volunteers at our usual Friday night meeting place. It was great to relax!

The aim of the workshop was to develop a strategy to increase the number of women participating in decision making and ultimately standing as councillors and mayors. Setting actions at the end was the most difficult part as following the structure I had developed seemed difficult for some to comprehend. So I now need to reflect compile evaluation and consider what action is best in my remaining four weeks! I don't want to have raised expectations which cannot be sustained somehow.

I worked on Saturday as well facilitating the Footsteps programme at YOP. This is for young girls on leadership and links well with the work I am doing here. I ran a session on managing emotions and feelings and we introduced self esteem. The next session with them will be on participation and governance.

Sunday I collapsed – did nothing much all morning and spent the afternoon with these wonderful people!! Wish I could do this every day there were amazing – to see follow the link here - another great Sunday....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ourmanwhere/3414441811/

Apr 6, 2009

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