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Communities take ownership and we accompany them
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INDIA − Successful transfer of community accompaniment
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Photo courtesy: Pratibha Lal
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“Our role at JJK [Jan Jagriti Kendra] was changing. Instead of doing things for the community, we were encouraging them to do things for themselves. And they were far more successful than if had tried to do it for them.”
Read the story of the Jampali village in the blog of Pratibha Lal,
Jan Jagriti Kendra in Chattisgarh, supported by Anti-Slavery International
“Even part of the CLCP [Community Life Competence Process] can be highly beneficial for communities. We don't always need to accompany communities throughout a complete cycle; realizing existence of own capacities is sometimes enough to trigger the energy of people. That's the power of SALT!”
Luc Barriere-Constantin, Constellation
“The definition of (successful) community to community transfer is when a community or an individual is able to take action due to be being encouraged by the experience of another community or individual.” The ten testimonies shared by Ashish Upadhyay, Shiny Saha, Subedar Singh and Pratibha Lal illustrate transfer of community accompaniment. Rituu B Nanda has introduced SALT to 4 NGOs for Systemic Participatory Action Research project on modern slavery in two states (Bihar and Uttar Pradesh), to 11 Trade Unions of domestic workers with the Institute of Social Studies Trust and the International Labour Organization in Chennai (Tamil Nadu) and Delhi and to Jan Jagriti Kendra (Chattisgarh) supported by Anti-Slavery International, i.e. in 5 states in a few months!
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INDIA − Signed contract for the impact assessment of the SALT approach on immunization uptake
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Photo courtesy: Rituu B Nanda
In June Constellation and Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) teams met the district level health officials in Bongaigaon. Bongaigaon is one of the three districts in Assam for impact assessment of the SALT approach to improve immunisation uptake. In this picture Bobby (blue shirt) is presenting how we plan to execute the SALT approach in the state of Assam.
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After eight months of discussions, the contract between the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and the Constellation for the Impact assessment of the SALT approach on immunization uptake is signed!
Rituu B Nanda and Bobby Zachariah, with the support of Mohamed Rafique and the South India AIDS Action Programme (SIAAP), the Constellation Global Support Team and the International Coaching Team, have one year to implement the SALT approach in 120 villages from 3 districts in Assam, Northeastern state of India: Kamrup rural, Udalguri, Bongaigaon! Another 120 villages will be control villages.
Bobby will be in charge of the Share function, Rituu of Care and Learn and they will jointly Transfer the approach. Marlou De Rouw and Ian Campbell provide distance support and will join them face to face for the first Learning Event planned for October 2016 (Marlou) and for the Participatory Action Research workshop planned early 2017 (Ian). Phil Forth is team mate for Learning and Loli Rey Novoa for financial management.
Bobby and Rituu have already identified the implementing NGO partners. Not all NGOs that Bobby and Rituu visited will be selected as official partners during implementation. But as all visited NGOs got excited about SALT, the team made the commitment to share the approach with them in any case. An enormous effort in the already demanding partnership – but so SALT!
The team ensured Link with local government from the start. Bobby and Rituu were successful in communicating the potential of SALT – as one of the government officers said. “It is good that we do this for immunization. But actually we need this for family planning also!”
PHFI is currently doing baseline then, in October, the CLCP will start, and, after one year, PHFI will do the end line impact evaluation.
We need your support as we just have one year to implement our approach. We are creating an online learning community of different stakeholders who are interested in immunization and SALT. We invite the Constellation members to join this community to share and exchange so that we all learn together in this journey.
Concept note on the Impact assessment of 'SALT' approach on immunization uptake
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BOTSWANA – Relaying information back to the community
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Photo courtesy: Onesmus Mutuku and Ricardo Walters
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One of the recommendations of the FINAL REPORT ‘Supporting Communities Acting Together to Control HIV (CATCH) in Botswana through the transfer of the Community Life Competence Process, June 2015 – May 2016’, is to feed-back information to communities with a “Community Dashboard”.
“Information on progress is being acknowledged as useful – not only for encouraging the community taking action and proud of their results, but also for inspiring others that are watching and want to transfer the vision to help deal with their own concern relating to HIV/AIDS.”
“National Facilitation Team, Community Facilitation Teams, Dikgosi [chiefs] and their local communities need to quick begin to figure out from the information generated already, on what they see as useful information they would want to see displayed on the Community Dashboard placed at the Kgotla [place where public meetings are held]. And in addition how that information begins to get shared within and among communities.”
“The Constellation is indebted to UNAIDS for the opportunity to connect into the Botswana landscape and learn from the wealth of experiences within the HIV response so ably championed by NACA [National AIDS Coordinating Agency] and the Dikgosi in the South East District.”
To read the FINAL REPORT ‘Supporting CATCH in Botswana through the transfer of the Community Life Competence Process, June 2015 – May 2016’, contact Onesmus Mutuku (Kenya) or Marlou De Rouw (France).
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MAURITIUS – Mokompetens in action
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Photo courtesy: Autry Haynes
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The dream of the new team, Mokompetens [Mauritius Competence], is: “In Mauritius, together we connect, share common dreams through SALT facilitation to be competent.” One of the practices they defined to contribute to achieving this dream is: “We stay together despite our different commitments in life.” To support that practice, team members are connected via WhatsApp and they committed to experience SALT once a month.
This month, 23 June 2016, the Mokompetens team met the Poste Lafayette team. The conversation focused on “what SALT meant REALLY mean for us” and the experience of SALT of teams members. Poste Lafayette team members shared for example that they meet new friends and also interact with neighbours; They are now engaged with economic activity, their bazaar; Youths begin to consider their future more seriously when they engage them in a SALT activity.
Mokompetens is invited to participate in the family fun day of Poste Lafayette on 3 July 2016.
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MAURITIUS – Family Competence, inspiring dreams and community engagement
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Sharing the family's stepping stones, Photo courtesy: Autry Haynes
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Home visits fulfils the ONG Le Pont du Tamarinier’s practice of strengthening families in the communities of Bougainvillier, Tamarinier and Carre d’As as it pursues its organization’s dream: “People have equal opportunity to fulfil their dream and give back positively to society.” Individual family visits are intended to inspire greater bonding between family members, inspire them to their common dreams but also towards greater community involvement.
A family that includes two siblings and their grandmother in Carré d’As is engaged in the CLCP. Jean Noel and Autry facilitated Dream building, 10 June 2016, and, with Pouba Esso, the definition of practices, 21 June 2016. The dream of the family is “We have individual homes with our respective families, we can care for granny, live healthy lifestyles and our children have opportunities for good education.”
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MAURITIUS – A ‘taste SALT’ with the Mauritius Council of Social Service (MACOSS)
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"The Johari window conversation helped us to understand the different perspectives"
Photo courtesy: Autry Haynes
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Aniele Ducray, Jonathan Ravat and Autry Haynes facilitated a ‘taste SALT’ for the Mauritius Council of Social Service (MACOSS) executive members and staff, 18 June 2016. MACOSS was the Focal Point and active participant in the recently held Learning Festival on local response in Mauritius.
One of the elements that contributed to dream building was the appreciation moment: participants wrote an appreciative comment on A4s placed on each participant’s back. They then commented on what they learned from the comments. This resulted in a candid conversation on the Johari window, led by Jonathan Ravat.
“We shared different perspectives as staff and executive members but we understand each other better from today’s exercise. The Johari’s window conversation helped us understand the different perspectives.” said a participant.
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MAURITIUS – Groupe Renaissance de Mahebourg’s organization strengthening
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“Mahebourg completely free from drugs associated problems,
everyone living happily and in security”
Photo courtesy: Laurie Khorchi
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In pursuit of its dream: “Mahebourg completely free from drugs associated problems, everyone living happily and in security”, members of the Renaissance NGO continue their conversation on organization strengthening to meet the demands of other practices.
In groups of four, they discussed what ‘big things’ they needed to do as a team to accomplish level 5 for organization strengthening. They defined four practices: “We have an effective and efficient communication system; We train continually; We structure our organisation; We are financially independent and secured.”
The members did their self-assessment, 27 June 2016.
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MAURITIUS – Revisiting SALT’s essentials at the Learning Festival
Home visits are important; Appreciating strengths builds confidence; Everyone has dreams but sometimes an outsider has to come to stimulate people to take the path towards their dream; NGOs should not decide for the community:
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BELGIUM – Time for action in Molenbeek
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Photo courtesy: Celicia Theys
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A group of residents of the Maritime Molenbeek neighbourhood has begun the CLCP.
The energy of group was in action. Jean-Louis Lamboray asked participants who wanted to immediately start planning activities to trust the facilitator: "Before taking action and addressing the primary concerns, experience has shown us that it is useful to take a detour. We ask you to trust us: next week, you will leave with an action plan!" Participants will meet 12 September 2016 at 6 pm to share experiences and take stock.
The first activities will be: inventory of local initiatives to create intergenerational connections and, in November, a fair trade with all relevant departments and agencies; the rehabilitation of a boat into a meeting place where a board will announce of all events and activities in the neighbourhood; clean-up of the area; meeting with municipal representatives and other potential partners.
The meetings of 23 May (blog of Celicia Theys), 14 June and 20 June 2016 were dedicated to getting to know each other, to dream and to define practices. New participants joined in at each meeting, so some items were repeated, and no time was left for the self-assessment; facilitators did an "inventory" of what already exists for each practice.
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BELGIUM − Dreaming social cohesion in Brussels - young adventurers discover living together in harmony
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Photo courtesy: Celicia Theys
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"The young people explored their outlook on themselves, on their lives, on others and on the world in general. They dabbled in presence and silence through mindfulness exercises offered by Isabelle and discovered the change brought by perceiving our strengths / talents and those of others. They shared life paths, and have gradually discussed about affiliations, their perception of other people and groups of people. They have identified and named their own prejudices, recognized them."
Celicia Theys tells about the Workshops of the Letter to Humanity dream, people, workshops and reflections after experience. Youth who participated in this adventure have a common dream, "priorities for their actions during the coming months", and "ideas for activities they wish to put in place to make things happen".
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DRC − With CARITAS Tsumbe, RDCC Sankuru accompany a community in Lodja
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Photo courtesy: Celicia Theys
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At a meeting of the Provincial Inter-Agency Committee (CPIA) in Sankuru in June 2016, Caritas representatives were interested in the experience of the Sankuru RDCC team regarding resource mobilization. Caritas Tshumbe responded to the invitation of RDCC Sankuru to participate in a SALT visit in a community (Lokenye neighbourhood, Lodja).
During the visit, the community decided to work on two visions: ‘zero malaria cases' and 'zero disease of dirty hands cases’. The Caritas representative was amazed at the freedom with which the community members participated in the discussion and decided to continue accompanying the process with RDCC Sankuru. Saturday, 2 July 2016, took place the self-assessment.
Paul Lokoto, RDCC Sankuru
DRC − End of the accompaniment of the medical centres of Masina, Kinshasa
June 23, 2016, a knowledge fair closed the 6-month accompaniment of medical centres of Masina, Kinshasa, by the facilitators of RDCCompétence. The project aimed to improve the quality of health care by observing the patient care circuit and with opportunities to share views with northern health care providers (Brussels medical homes) in collaboration with the Belgian NGO Liboso.
Jean Baby Fulama, RDCCompétence
DRC – RDCCompétence’s continuous capacity building of human resources
Coaches and focal points in Kinshasa met for two days (11 and 18 June 2016) for experiences sharing, mutual learning and updating over CLCP. They conducted a deep analysis of RDCC’s field experiences in small groups, and reflections produced elements of solutions to improve future interventions. The terms Coach, Facilitator and Focal Point have been defined. This upgrade will be relayed to members located in provinces between June and December 2016.
Jean Baby Fulama, RDCCompétence
DRC – First results of the collaboration between RDCCompétence and Médecins du Monde Belgium for the promotion of Sexual and Reproductive Health
After 3 months (March-June 2016), the report of activities carried out under the second phase of the collaboration between RDCCompétence and Médecins du Monde Belgium in the province of Tanganyika (22 health areas, in the health zones of Moba and Kansimba) announces the following strengths: Commitment and enthusiasm of leaders; After consultations [facilitation teams] set up, state-registered nurses are overwhelmed with patients; 70% of trained facilitators are very active on the ground; 8 people joined the facilitation teams through learning-by-doing transfer; 15 of the 22 health areas already have functional consultations; A trend of 25% increase in number of mothers who give birth in health centres (field data so far uncommitted at all levels).
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MADAGASCAR − Community Dialogue (DIALCOM) with SALT
SALT and Madagascar increasingly weave links in workshops, training, meetings, dialogues; SALT has become our approach for these activities.
Two weeks ago, we coached about 50 trainers in community dialogue, as part of the planning of the national campaign against Poliomyelitis which will begin in the coming months. Representatives of ministries of Health (in majority), NGOs, UNICEF and different departments have completed the training. This is a new experience for me as I used to train young people, facilitators, and my peers. Modest, Sammy and I facilitated the sessions. Training is scheduled to take place in 10 regions of Madagascar during the month of July.
Furthermore, different sectors are already using DIALCOM with SALT, last week (20-26 June 2016), the NGO FAS / FJKM conducted DIALCOM in several regions of Madagascar. Facilitators have been trained on SALT. We will have feedback soon.
The experience of Mauritius and some countries that participated in the international learning festival and the Ning platform, site, Constellation Facebook page helped us a lot in the discussion on this Malagasy challenge.
Iharisoa Santatra, Gouvernment of Madagascar, 25 June 2016
Between July and November 2015, the Madagascar Government, UNICEF and the Constellation worked on the harmonization of the community development practices. The Constellation team facilitated SALT visits into 10 organisations partners of UNICEF to learn from their community development practices. A knowledge fair and dream building was facilitated in order to stimulate the sharing and the learning from experience and harmonized and strengthens their practices. Based on this, a community dialogue facilitation guide addressed to the community mobilisers was developed.
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In the SALT acronym, L stands for learn, link, but also LISTEN
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Photo courtesy: Celicia Theys
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So I back to the town after spending two nights with Mr. Eli and his family. And got a lesson: sometimes by Listening, you open the gate to someone that will lead you discover your own Strength.
Listen without attaching any labels and neutrally allow yourself to get immersed in the process, in the journey with the community.
Since I know SALT, I don't like to teach any more. I want to learn from the experiences. People have to understand what bring successes and what concerns prevent them from reaching more successes as in their dreams. From there I can be for help in bringing new information and bridges to where relevant experiences and information are. In order to have that capacity to understand, the key is a full listening.
Listening-to-learn humanizes and dignifies both the speaker and the listener.
The person with the will and skill to listen has the power to transform the relationship and re-direct history.
The ‘L’ of SALT is intrinsically interrelated to the other letters. So ‘listen’ of SALT is not exclusive of the cumulative value of SALT. (^_^) In our effort to stimulate sustainable local response we encourage a ‘community conversation’. That conversation can only be meaningful when the members began to listen to each other.
What do we listen for? There are 3 things that we could listen for: feelings, needs and human capacities.
More blogs on listening:
Listening with filters, Philip Forth, July 31, 2013
Time to listen? Time to address our personal barriers, Jennifer Lentfer, July 26, 2013
FROM THE INSIDE – OUT, Maria Padman, March 21, 2012
The little effects of sharing, Chandra Nurhasz, September 6, 2010
With more listening time care will deepen, Ian Campbell, August 18, 2010
Learning to listen more carefully, Philip Forth, August 7, 2009
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Global Support Team (GST) requests for help and contributions
Constellation Coach Re-Confirmation Process
In order to continuously respond to partners and communities in an appropriate manner and to be able to quickly provide efficient support and accompaniment, the Constellation is undertaking a review of the current pool of certified Constellation Coaches.
Looking for 2 new Board members!
Philip Forth, Chair of the Constellation, has written a letter to Constellation members informing them that the organisation is looking for two new Board members to fill in the shoes of April Foster and Nathalie Legros for the remainder of their terms (until 30/10/2017). Voting members have created a small task force in charge of leading the process to select candidates. They will be calling for applications soon. All members interested in joining the task force may also express their interest.
Click here to read Phil's letter, and stay tuned for more information from the task force!
What does it mean to be a Constellation member?
What does that membership entail? If I’m a facilitator, does that mean I am a member? What is my role as a member? My responsibility? What are my benefits and commitments?
Join "task force" on redefining what being a formal or informal Constellation member means!
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What else is happening in The Constellation?
Why the Constellation does not have an office?
“I was always wondering why the Constellation did not build an office”, said Nabaraj after he visited my house to meet up with co-GST’ers Luc and Loli to discuss a possible internship and the life of Nepal Competence. “Now I understand! Sitting with you all at the table made me really feel at ease. I could share all I wanted and felt welcome. Such conversation in the office feels really different. We are all family.”
Marlou De Rouw
Nabaraj Adhikari is a Constellation facilitator trained during our partnership with UNAIDS in Nepal. He is now studying in The Netherlands.
A poem to thank BelCompetence for the June SALT training
…
To each of you THANKS
For having shared without a priori
Your dreams and thoughts
To improve our World
…
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Upcoming event
Will be attending the 21st International AIDS Conference in Durban 18-22 July 2016:
Representatives of CATCH (Communities Acting Together to Control HIV) from Botswana
They will host a Satellite Symposium: Fast Tracking the HIV response in Botswana, Monday 18th July, 10.15 - 12.15, Session Room 10. A paramount chief (highest ranking traditional leader of the South East District) will present CATCH in its pilot phase in his District using CLCP during one of the panel discussions. Ricardo Walters (Constellation coach for CATCH), Nadine Schuepp (UNAIDS), Moses (Humana People to People, implementing partner for CATCH) and Batshani (CATCH community facilitator who will present his CATCH video at the symposium) will also be there.
John Piermont Montilla of River of Life Initiatives (ROLi)
Since 2007 and the “NGO Initiatives to Prevent HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific” partnership with the Asian Development Bank, John and his team propose “fun-filled self-assessments, creative workshops, and collaborative work integrated with elements of game playing in the context of risk reduction”: the River of Life will have a booth at the Global Village Program.
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This Newsletter is produced with input from members, facilitators and coaches of The Constellation.
The blogs referred to in the Newsletter are posted on the Constellation’s online community at: http://aidscompetence.ning.com
Previous Newsletters are posted on the Constellation’s site:
http://www.communitylifecompetence.org
Some articles of this newsletter have been translated with the help of Google Translation and Linguee.
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