June 3, 2021
By: Aruna Kamara (Bo)
Regional Capacity Development Specialist West Africa, Global Fund for Children (GFC), Ame David, has in a one-day training of their partners including staff of Women Against Violence and Exploitation in Society (WAVES) Sierra Leone on Community Facilitation Skills that will help bring development in their operational areas.
Addressing the beneficiaries in Bo, Ame David called on partners to engage their communities differently, adding that the participants should continue to let Community people see that they have the strengths to solve their own issues citing that participatory facilitation methodology will provide the leverage for the community people to be opened to discussions and find collective solutions to their own issues.
Madam David pointed out that lots of factor needs to be considered when planning meetings or engagements with community members which include sequence of sessions, allowing members to lead discussion but not to preach, combine group work and energizers and sensitive issues should not be brought up by the visiting staff but communities themselves.
“I Know you’ve been doing great job with the methodology you’ve been using but I encourage you to engage your communities differently by integrating the TOSTAN learning into the on-going work you do for greater results” she emphasized.
Participant of the training which included WAVES staff, Representative(s) from the Board, Mentors and like-minded CSOs affirmed that indeed the TOSTAN Approach projects a holistic approach to addressing community issues and thus the learning are sine qua non for community development.
Meanwhile, the proposed day for the experimentation of the TOSTAN Approach is 10th-11th June, 2021 at the Nengbema Community in the Nyawa Lenga Chiefdom Bo District.