Outline of the Local LRM Training

OUTLINE OF THE LOCAL LRM TRAINING IN GENERAL : LRM Biblical principle ABCD Resource plan Communication plan Projectcycle management Partnership Multi Stakeholder partnership Roll of the church and governments

Leadership Communication Coaching

To use local resources is a Biblical principle, the community should care for each other and for the development of the whole. In this development of the community therefor we start with the Local assets , which are there and available or made available. LRM is the logical next step following an ABCD analysis or development.

Within the local situation existing or potential resources can be identified. The resources plan is made to find resources, to connect, communicate and to use this possibilities. Because it is mostly new in an organization or in a community, it needs a structural way of working. To identify, to analyse, to approach, to communicate, to monitor and to evaluate is the work to be done, and the skills to learn. The communication plan is the general following step. Also here the structural way of working will help to succeed and persist. Because of a new situation, with new skills and plans, the monitoring and evaluation are important phases in the PMEL cycle.

To work on resources, is not without collaborating with different local partners.

To grow in partnership is needed to form an sustainable level of working in communities. When problems are more difficult or the region is broader, or the partners are more professional, or the project are larger in size we have the Multi stakeholder partnerships, also to start or to develop.

Two special stakeholders needs special attention, because they are of great and important interest: the churches and the governments. There are all sorts of differences in culture, personal interests, policies, arguments and difficulties in relation with the sector for aid and developments. To over win these burdens, we will focus on working principles, which are helpful to grow partnerships with these.

We find the change actors in the position between problems and solutions, between partners and interest, between the ideas and the operation. An overloaded key position. It demands a development in communication skills, in leadership-facilitation developments and in coaching skills

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INDEX: IN GENERAL :

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PRINCIPLES :

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FORM:

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PURPOSE OF THE LOCAL TRAININGS

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TARGETS:

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CONTENT:

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SKILLS:

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PRINCIPLES :     

The training is pointed on learning skills. The theory and information, we need is necessary to learn the skills. Much is interesting, but the needed part is what we use.

We use the Biblical principles for giving help to people, to help the to develop. We know that these giving principles are working principles. How it is used is situational.

The most is adult educational work, more than education young people we use higher order thinking principles (evaluation, analyses, experimenting).

The training itself needs a period of time. Within this period the participants are coached on base of their personal goals, and after the training coaching is needed to sustain.

We work bottom up, starting point is the wished community development, and the strengths and powers, the assets and possibilities the community has and can find.

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FORM: The form and time period is not given, it is situational. Because the center of the training is to learn skills and to form an attitude on community development and resourcing, the training time should not, or as less as possible, be used for sharing knowledge. Gaining knowledge is a responsibility of the participant.

Whether it is a remote training, as the master-trainers have experienced, or a face-to-face meeting or a blended form, is up to de local situation and possibilities. But having the target to use the time effective, and form training at low costs, a blended form with a considerable remote part is expected.

Structure of the lessons 

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Each lesson will be based on theoretical information (basic but complete introduction) that will be directly shared and where possible will be enriched with English or translated articles, manuals or other back ground information.

Each lesson will have an elaborated example from or suitable for your country context. These examples will be motivational for the participants.

During the lessons the participants will get group or individual assignments to practise with the training materials. Each lesson will have such an assignment. Also it is possible to share the assignment for the next lesson as homework. In that case take ample time in the next lesson to reflect on the homework.

After completing the training the participants will leave with a LRM action plan. The group work of the master trainers during the LRM training can also be used as a source for the local trainings.

Structure of the training The structure of the training will depend highly on the choices for the learning environment; online, blended or physical. Considering Covid 19 it is advised to make it an online training with online group sessions in between. Based on this thought we advise to give the training in a period of 10 weeks (consecutive) with weekly online groups sessions. In between the lessons the participants should prepare themselves based on the home work/assignments that they will get. They can share their learnings in the online sessions. The master trainer should of course make sure that each participant is encouraged and motivated to participate.

Strategy of the training 

Participants learn new skills and knowledge, doing so, their visions and attitude towards development in communities is growing.

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The ownership of learning, and commitment, is on the participant.

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Every participant will have a personal coach, the trainer can be this coach, or someone else who can support the personal grow.

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The participant will bring the learned content and skills in practise in the own job, task or organization

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The training uses a practical case, during the training or afterwards the participant set this case in action. During this action period, the coach can support in personal matters and the trainer on content.

PURPOSE OF THE LOCAL TRAININGS The purpose of the local LRM trainings are to decrease the dependence of churches, NGO’s and other groups of external support that they receive for their work for vulnerable groups. To use the own local assets and resources for community development is a Biblical calling, and in the development of countries and regions a normal, wanted and general development.

The training is intended to teach and share from best practises on how sustainability can be realized.

This concerns organizational sustainability and therefore teaching the participants to explore and increase opportunities to develop their organization (or church, group). The participants are taught to see, access and identify resources/assets in their community or region and learn how to interact in the best way with other NGO’s, churches, local authorities, etc. to realize community based improvements for the target groups that they are serving.

The training will instigate the process of asset based thinking instead of need-based. This does not only apply to the organization but also putting the target groups (beneficiaries) at the center and seeing them as contributors to improve their situation.

We envision growing local ownership for participants and their organizations and indirectly growing ownership for the people they work with. The participants are expected to interact with their external financers (e.g. Dutch NGOs) from the perspective that ownership is based in Eastern Europe.

Learning goals & improved skills After completing the training the participants are enabled to  act as agents of change in their surroundings,  have learned to access and use resources,  have learned to identify,  value and use different assets,  have decreased their dependence on external support,  can contribute to the development of individuals in their programmes,  can present themselves as valuable partners to other actors,  can work more effectively with local authorities, etc.

The participants are empowered to contribute to the change and development in their country in creating an enabling environment in which individuals, churches and organizations can grow.

After completing the training participants have the skills to do: Local fundraising External positioning Asset Based Community Development Multi stakeholder

different types of resources, apply different approaches, how can different resources contribute to what they do. how to increase their visibility, how to present themselves to different actors. how to identify assets and capabilities in a community and apply these to make their organization and the community stronger. why and how to start partnerships, pool resources, complement each

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partnerships

other, learn how to work effectively with different types of actors

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TARGETS: The eight fields instrument is helping to use the time and energy of the training to come to the expected results and goals.

Organization Goal: which problem will we solve?

Future perspectives: How do we measure the results?

 To equip change agents in their difficult calling with knowledge, skills and tools.  Sustainability of local organizations and their task/work to give aid in the local situation.  Growing ownership, making less depending on money and foreign donations  Overcoming mistrust en restore self esteem  Growing use and revalue of own local resources, in material, people, talents

 More mature partnerships, stronger organizations  Organizations will keep their targets, take more local initiatives  Decreasing balance of foreign and local funding  LRM is a ongoing process  More focus on the process then on the results.

 More people are involved in community development projects  Local organizations are self-reliant, have targets for the local funding and resources  Growing social cohesion in local communities  Trainers collaborate and learn together.  Bottom up approach is stimulated and

Performing: How do we find behaviour in the operational situations?

 Projectplans in the local situations depend (more) lon local resources  New development projects are started  Self-sustainability

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effective.

Goals on Skills: What is needed?

Learning results: How do we determine the learning results?

 Let partnerships grow and to become more mature  Collaboration is effective  Using communicating/speaking/listening technics to overcome mis-communication  A vision on aid and development in the local situation is growing  The attitude towards mutual learning is set  Biblical principles are used in the aid en development  The own cultural background and traditions are kept

 Assignments are made and handed in for feedback  The practical case of working will put at work.  The coach will follow and stimulate the ongoing process  A test or more partial tests

Learning Intervention Goals: Which learning interventions?

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Process/Training: How do we evaluate the learning process?

 Identify that the content will work in the local situation  Enlarge the personal comfort zone  Self-reliance to use the tools and material  Pro-active attitude

Social learning, learning from each other Case orientated Inspiring examples Focus more on visibility than text Assignments to practise Coaching

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CONTENT: Christian foundation We believe it adds value to the training to design it based on Christian principles. The bible offers a lot of good examples that we can relate to the themes of the training. In promoting our LRM training we surely can invite participants that may not represent a Christian organization or church, expecting that they will respect our starting points. We also think that considering the ways of working of Christian organizations and churches in Eastern Europe, offering a training with this basis will attract them to join the training.

In the normal training situation we expect:  Some moments of devotion  Addressing the Biblical aspects in the role of the church in community and community development.  Presenting the aspects of Christian love, aid and support.

Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) The purpose of ABCD is to build on the assets and capabilities that are present in the community.

ABCD focuses on what is strong and not on what is wrong. Instead of (only) focusing on needs in a community, applying ABCD principles help in finding and valuing what people, communities, churches, other stakeholders, etc. have. When applying the ABCD approach individuals,( in-)formal community structures/groups and institutions can be mobilized and come together to use their assets to make the community stronger. There is specific attention for informal groups and assets that may be undervalued currently (church volunteers, committees, women groups, unions, etc.). ACBD is an approach that Dorcas is using currently to mobilize communities and strengthen structures. Training on this topic will be provided by Dorcas trainers.

The start is when a community want to develop, will solve a problem or reach for a common goal.

In the LRM setting we use:  Knowledge of the community development process  Twelve Community development principles, which makes the development come to succeed  Identifying assets Partnership development This theme focuses on the development of local organizations and working together with participants on decreasing their dependency on external support. It overseas growing into healthy relationships with others, looking at target groups from an asset based angle and not only looking for quick solutions for needs they see, but working on sustainable solutions. We take into account with whom the local organization has relations and how these can be based on more equality. The so called six principles of partnership can support these: Respect, Ownership, Contextuality, Reliability, Accountability and Learning.

To develop partnership:  Participants make a self-assessment, and also a review of the current partner situation.  The tools feed the discussion about the interest of partnership and the discussion brings the targets for partnership on a higher level, when that is needed for the local community and her development.  On this base, an plan to grow partnership relations is made.

Multi Stakeholder Partnership MSPs aim to bring together different organizations that can share a common problem or shared vision and targets, while nonetheless having different interests or ‘stakes’. Partnerships allow pooling resources, commit to joint problem-solving, add complementary competencies, deliver mutual benefits and aim to multiply impact and accelerate change. Project staff has to deal with multi stakeholders and their differences, and has to take initiative to guide stakeholders.

Social Activity Networks (SAN) have the same descriptions and are more elementary, because of their narrowed working field.

MSPs-SAN:  In the most situations collaborations within Partnerships is covering the local situation, and maybe we find a light version of SAN.  When the community has more interest the parts of building a MSP or develop are taken.  Every participant must know that MSP’s exist, the what, and why and how of it.  Also for the partnerships the circle of coherence is useful to help to join in the same interests.  The stakeholder analysis, when necessary in light version, will be helpful in building up a strong partnership.

External positioning Communication tools, promotion, publicity This theme is closely connected to the LRM basics (resources, tools, etc). We will look at the most relevant communication tools and make the communication plan. How do we see our organization and its goal and how can we present this to our supporters, community, authorities, etc. By presenting our organizations to each other as participants we will work together on presenting ourselves and being seen and valued as a means to increase our visibility in the community. We will look at different possibilities to be visible, what are the messages we can convey in our publicity and learn how to formulate clear messages that are picked up by media.

In communication we have to learn:      

To use the communication tools and language of the target group, and not the own usable effort. The shorter and directed the better.

Different target groups and different stakeholders have different requirements.

We have to present our goals, the ‘why’ of the project, we will use the power of words instead of unlimited amount of words and texts.

We know who we are, what we can, what we are going to do, and how to fulfill, and we can present this to the community and other local interested people and organizations.

Conflicts and disturbances are prevented or scaled down by using the right style, words and communication.

Effective communication start with listening, we know how to be more effective in listening.

Role of the church Our work is often taking place in close cooperation with local churches. These churches take different roles but we also see that they influence how the community looks upon vulnerable groups and their exclusion. Together we look at the current role of churches in communities and what how they can build capacity to take responsibility for their current role or also revalue their role and be more visible in the community in taking care of the people that God has created. In addition to influencing there is

a very practical role as well looking at a diaconal task of the church including volunteerism. Churches are at the forefront of having access to church volunteers that visit and support vulnerable people.

How can we learn from these best practices.

The role of the church gives locally very different situations.  The actual role of the church is addressed. Also the church is challenged to addresses the wished or future role they have or want to have.  Church belongs to the natural partner of aid and development organizations, As a stakeholders we share common goals, speak about each other’s roles, and help each other to develop, building capacity.  Using working principles, makes de discussing about the roles easier and effective.  Church has a calling in testimony and diaconate, this will be made (more) clear in the local community situation. Also the inspiring role in spreading the Gospel.  We will learn from local experiences and best practices.

Dealing with Government A special partner relation is the relation with governmental institutes. Mostly perceives as difficult.

The relations with governments can be changed or developed. Underlining what is given in the themes Partnership and MSP it is to build up a special relation. Within this relation we have to speak about rights of citizens, about lobby for the targets and possibilities of the communities and advocacy of the special need groups. Influencing the government is building a special partnership relation.

In dealing with the Governments:  Will learn from the experiences and best practices we have the local and regional situation.  To learn to act with the Government as a partner instead of an enemy, we have to learn what she want, which interests and targets they have, how they work. The Toolbook is a helping instrument.  We form the working principles for the own community, to be used in the contact with governments and her representatives. We can share these with the government, to use in the discussion about which roles are to fulfilled in the partnerships.

Project Cycle Management For any kind of initiative that we start in development work we should structure the steps that we take from the moment that we see a need in a community to which we would like to contribute as a local organization. In the training we have looked at assets already so when seeing an urgency in a community that we would like to meet, at all times we work with the target groups to define what they would like to do. We will emphasize how we can work on sustainability right after the start of a project, meaning how can we work with our target group with the idea that one day they will be owners of the development process. Also of importance is that we include learning into the cycle.

Learning can be the result of the project evaluation and can be the basis for a new initiative. Last but not least learning and documenting these can be a source of exchange with other organizations.

We use from project-cycle management what we directly need in the development:  The base is the Demming Circle: PDCA  Al lot of plans are made in the LRM trajectory: resource, plan, Communication plan, Stakeholder analyses etcetera. In the operational phase we have to implement and monitor.  Targets are addressed at the start and in meantime or at least at the end an evaluation phase will help to learn.  These are very aware steps, they need full attention, because this structural will help to use time, money and energy as good as possible.

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Skills in the group will be found which will make to form a good structure in the projects.

Leadership In leadership we need to improve the facilitation of the development process of the community.

To support of the process of gathering assets, resources, people we need skills in motivation, To support the structure of the process, we need skills in managing the activities and solving the problems. To support the process of personal development, and communication we need competences in motivation and coaching.

In a practical way: in the training groups are three levels.

- Personal leadership, how participants take responsibility for their own development process; - Leading the change process of the group, formal and informal leaders are aware of their lack of leadership or management skills and want to grow some steps; - Leading a group of participants as a trainer, and in that showing an positive example to the group.

What is needed for the situation is depending on the group and the specific needs of the participants.

Out of the LRM content is needed as a minimum:  Personal leadership: Circles of concern and influence, out of the 7 habits: starting with the end in mind is a key-issue  Leading a change process: problem solving skills, connect these to the required skills in the LRM content, and the required effort in PME and Communication.  For leaders (formal and informal) is the 10 roles of the manager an extra module

SKILLS: At the end of the training the participants have learned and are able to perform: ABCD

Identify the assets in a community Make a SWOT analysis of the local situation, with usable Strengths and Opportunities.

Biblical Principles using some Biblical examples in the normal work, as fundament for the development.

Communication

Using the Golden Circle principles in presentations and texts A convincing pitch can be presented The power of words is used; less words, the right words A clear communication plan is made Able to have effective communication in the conflict zone Some listening skills and principles are learned and used.

PCM:

make a working structure in the different phases of a project can make a list of targets form the evaluation phase in a proper way that learning and reporting is easily to manage.

Role Church

Address the calling of the local church, the actual position and the futural wished position.

Are able to speak about the mutual roles and interest in aid and development situations.

Forming basic working principles on which the collaboration will be done.

Dealing Governments Address the actual status and actual position and the futural wished position of the Government.

Is able to address the interest and operational work flow of the local government.

Are able to speak about the mutual roles and interest in aid and development situations.

Forming basic working principles on which the collaboration will be done.

Partnership

A self-assessment is made The partnership-spider helps the discussions in the team.

A partnership development plan is to be made.

MSP-SAN

Make the circle of Coherence work Can address the interests of partner-stakeholders.

Leadership

Participants can put their situation in de circle of influence and concern.

Addressing personal activities to grow in personal leadership Forming a team with the needed skills

Resourcing

Identify root causes as a technique to analyse problems.

Identify known and prospect resources, their characteristics Distinct different types of resources and how to use these (campaigns, volunteerism, storytelling, social media).

Prepare the start on resourcing.

Make a resource plan Identify the needed community actors and how to work effectively with them (e.g. church and local authorities).