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Trip Report of the UNESCO Sub Regional Micro Enterprise Training for the Mothers’ Union and other faith based women’s groups- 24th –27th October
Overview
This workshop brought together the tried and tested grassroots networks of the Mothers’ Union, the Catholic Women’s Guild and the Muslim Women’s Guild with the high quality curriculum and training techniques of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Culture Organisation (UNESCO) to train trainers in teaching micro enterprise (small business) techniques to their local communities. The use of active training techniques is still limited within church community development initiatives, and yet it is invaluable for ensuring real community impact, and vital when teaching a practical skill such as running a business.
Successes
- The quality of the facilitator very high. She was an educational specialist. Her shared identity with the participants (as an African, a women of faith and a mother) and her ability to connect with and speak to the realities of the women was pivotal.
- This combined with the obviously high quality of the teaching materials was a winning combination. UNESCO also provided the opportunity to access more materials such as CD ROMs and booklets on specific types of business, like drying fruit and leather making.
- The commitment of technical support indicated by UNESCO (with regards to translations of teaching materials etc) was also incredibly helpful.
- The active teaching techniques were new to the participants and they were challenged to rethink their teaching methods with the mantra:
‘you listen and you forget, you see and listen and you remember, you do, see and listen and you understand, you do, see, listen and teach others and you have mastered’
- Role-plays were used regularly and they proved very effective in illustrating points and grounding them in the local context.
- The Anglican, Catholic and Muslim women integrated completely, sung songs of worship together, prayed together and talked of their common problems. The fact that real ecumenical and interfaith programmatic partnerships have emerged from this in Uganda is a testament to the depth of this interaction.
- The female speakers picked by UNESCO to talk to the women were of a very high level. One Dr Maggie Kigozi, Executive Director of the Uganda Investment Authority and the other, vice president of the Private Business Association. They were not the usual kind of women the Church might invite to speak to women but they motivated the women to a huge extent, which emphasized the importance of a strong vision for those at grassroots.
Challenges
- The women did lack capacity when it came to active teaching techniques, and more time will be needed on this on the next training. An extra day for the Francophone workshop has been incorporated. The MU and the other groups have done very little of this, and certainly have not had it broken down and taught like this before. This is precisely why we wanted UNESCO to partner with our grassroots women's groups, because they have lacked this professional kind of training.
- One participant was taken ill with Malaria and Typhoid but the Uganda National Commission facilitated her treatment without complaint.
- Finding the funds for follow up of these projects is challenging, although Mary Sumner House (MSH) have committed to provide £1000 per participant for this purpose (which is about £6000 per provincial training project)
- The manpower available to the MU is stretched and some provinces may not be able to commit enough time to this training, but plans were made and discussed at the workshop with advice from MSH, UNESCO and Lambeth Palace.
Follow Up
- The participants grouped into their provinces to plan a training schedule (this included Catholics, Anglicans and Muslims planning and implementing together).
- Most groups have aimed to run four or five training programmes in different diocese. Each of the groups has chosen slightly different methods, which will make for a rich and useful monitoring and evaluation process.
- The deadline for achieving the objectives of the training for most groups was June 2007.
- UNESCO in Paris (Elspeth) will be continuing communication with the participants as they send reports to her and she will be available to provide and advice and in some cases further teaching materials as needs arise.
- MSH will help with the monitoring and evaluation and Lambeth Palace will assist lines of communication where needed.
- The Francophone workshop is planned for spring 2007 in Bujumbura, Burundi.
Conclusion
Being the first of the training seminars between UNESCO and the MU it was important for Lambeth to be there and observe the interaction of two unfamiliar institutions, mediate any difficulties and effectively monitor and evaluate the week in order to collectively work on improvements with other stakeholders. The Lambeth Team has learnt a great deal about UNESCO; about micro enterprise; about the necessity of active teaching techniques and about the grassroots work of other faith based women's groups, particularly the Muslim women’s guild. These findings will strengthen other areas of the Lambeth team’s work. If the follow up from this workshop proves effective, this will be the beginning of a partnership between UNESCO and the Anglican Church, which we anticipate will be formalized in the future as concrete success stories are accumulated. The participants from within and outside the Anglican Church have seen the commitment of the Archbishop of Canterbury to women’s social and economic empowerment and they offered many comments on their gratitude for this.
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