Over many years, international aid and development agencies have begun to realize that cooperation, joining forces with other organizations with the same principles and aims, only increases the impact of any project undertaken.
In 1993, for example, the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank developed a Grassroots Management Training and Outreach Program (GMT) with the aim of enabling "low-income people to make better use of literacy and technical training, credit and labor-saving technology," specifically to manage money, projects, groups and businesses more profitably and "to carry their training back to their villages and share lessons learned with other group members, creating a ripple effect." If this sounds familiar to long-standing readers of Shalom Magazine, and particularly to past participants on courses at MCTC in Haifa, read on, for there could be no mistaking d share lessons learned with other group members, creating a ripple effect our shared philosophy and aims!
Over a five-year period the EDI field-tested its GMT programs in Burkina Faso, India, Mali, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Tanzania and Senegal. The program proved "to be a cost-effective, replicable way to improve livelihoods and reduce poverty within marginalized populations," and it was decided to extend it to reach more countries, including East Asia and Latin America, where, though the approach had not yet been tested, demand was growing.
In order to expand GMT and to make it available to extremely poor grassroots women around the world, the EDI needed to expand its network of partners able to appraise and design GMT within the economic, social and cultural context of the country and sector in which they work. At this point in the proceedings MASHAV was contacted, and in 1997 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between MASHAV and the EDI to enable the two organizations to explore the most suitable and effective methods of joint cooperation between them.
Thus it was that in 1997, Ms. Jerri Dell, Senior Human Development Specialist in the Human Resources and Poverty Division of the EDI came to Haifa to visit MCTC, the Golda Meir Mount Carmel International Training Center, an extension institution of MASHAV founded in order to work with women in development. Since its inception in 1961, MCTC has conducted gender sensitive courses on community development, organization and management of income-generating projects, etc. with one aim firmly in mind - to help the poorest of the poor - invariably women- in the developing countries of the world. Their ongoing dire condition and their low status in society in many developing countries, particularly in terms of equal access to education, vocational training and employment, give a continuing sense of urgency to the need to change prevailing social attitudes and to empower women to claim their rightful role in their nations' progress.
It was clear to the MCTC staff that the GMT program could serve as an important way of reaching such women in need, and Dell realized that the EDI had found in MCTC an appropriate partner. MCTC Director, Mazal Renford, proposed a "trial balloon" - a one-week GMT module to be incorporated into the 1998 French language course on Community Development and Income Generating Projects. In the meantime, Renford spent several days at the EDI in Washington, where she had been invited to attend a workshop on Investing in the Excluded; the Appraisal and Design of GMT. The workshop made it possible for her to see for herself to what great extent the philosophies of the EDI and MCTC overlapped and what benefit could be reaped from cooperation.
The first week-long GMT module experiment received a very high evaluation and led to a decision to expand the 1999 course to a full 60 hours, to be given by Marguerite Monnet and another expert, Seni Diop, both experienced GMT trainers for the EDI.
Indeed, as Course Director and past MCTC Director, Fannette Modek said, "the GMT material fit our course like a glove... because of course we have the same concepts of adult education and the same approaches."
Half of the thirty participants on this year's course on Community Development and Income Generating Projects were selected by the EDI through World Bank field managers in Africa, and the other half came through the regular MASHAV channels. They came from Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Gabon, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mauritania, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal and Togo.
The GMT lecturers chosen by the EDI had lived and worked in rural communities in Africa over a period of several years, pilot-testing their program, and they came equipped with video and audio recordings of the target population. They knew the African reality intimately, especially the Sahel region. Their module concentrated specifically on how to train local trainers and their success was in large part due to their ability to absolutely empathize with the professional needs and problems of the course participants. In the fullest sense of the expression, "they spoke their language."
Marguerite Monnet, the first GMT guest lecturer, was of course already familiar with MCTC, from her work on the previous course.
A psychologist by profession, Monnet worked for many years as a psychotherapist and recruitment advisor before becoming involved in training work. As a full-time trainer/facilitator working with Grassroots Management Training, she has had to change her way of looking at training. Though the basis for successful transfer of knowledge of knowledge still lies in problem solving and shared experiences through a 'bottom-up' approach, preparing training materials and training trainers to work with illiterate and innumerate people requires great creativity.
Seni Diop, from the Senegalese Association Conseil pour l'Action (ACA), proved to be a highly perceptive taskmaster who kept the group hard at creative and productive work, creating practical lesson plans.
In her post-course report, Monnet analyzed the reasons for the success of the GMT component within the MCTC course. She found the participants to be an ideal audience - all fairly equal in terms of job level and experience, but with a rich multi-cultural background which ensured deep and interesting discussion. Despite coming from so many different countries, group dynamics were good, interaction was high and the "Famille Ooh" was born - a network of course participants - to enable them to keep in touch with one another after the course, by email or fax, to share ideas and provide the mutual support they will so sorely need when, back in their own countries, they begin to tackle the task of training at grassroots level.
Sad to say, the economic crises of the 1980s and 1990s in Africa, Asia and Latin America have largely eradicated whatever progress had been achieved in the first two decades of development. Grassroots communities on these continents again face hunger, illness and poverty, with the difference that today their governments are less able to assist. Most of the participants on this joint MCTC/EDI course are employed by non-governmental organizations, the very ones called upon to mobilize funds and efforts.
Training activities which will enable grassroots community members to become involved in the decision-making process must be encouraged, and if, by joining forces, international training and development agencies can increase their impact, then this first joint MCTC/EDI venture will surely be recognized as a small step in the right direction.