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'Women in Dialogue' Project - Capacity Building Workshop for Community Based Organizations from October 9 - 13, 2016 in Mafraq / Jordan
Community Needs Assessment meeting
In 2016, Future Pioneers for Empowering Communities - FPEC and the Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung have worked with 7 local Community Based Organizations - CBOs in Mafraq governorate for the implementation of the "Women in Dialogue" Project (see previous article): Queen Zein Al-Sharaf Society (Mafraq City), Sarhan Society for Family and Childhood Development (Sama Al-Sarhan), Child Care Charity Association (Saeedieh village), Sarhan Women Society (Sama Al-Sarhan), Um Ijmal District Women Society (Um Ijmal), Thagreb Al-Jub District Society (Thagreb Al-Jub), and Al-Khaldieh District Society (Al-Khaldieh).
In each of the targeted villages, a training program for a group of 20 women, each group consisting of Syrian and Jordanian participants; was conducted. At the end of each group, “My Initiative” day was organized with the lead of the participating women and hosting CBO and inviting wider community members to join the event too. The topics covered by “My Initiative” days have included: group sharing of personal issues and finding joint solutions for those, prevention of early marriage, prevention of drug use, promotion of women’s health, and addressing the problem with school drop-outs (see example).
Working groups ...
Throughout the project implementation in 2016 a lot of stories came up about Jordanian and Syrian children and youth dropping out of school due to discrimination from the side of teachers and students, violence prevailing between student groups etc. It was also revealed that challenges related to transportation and safety on the children’s way to school limit especially the girls’ participation in education, while in many cases youth also drop out of school because of drug use and trafficking – without even parents knowing about it. Against this background it was decided to organize a simple community brainstorming (focus group discussions, September 24, 2016), with the aim of bringing together local students, teachers, parents and our partner CBOs to discuss the underlying issues pertaining this problem, and most importantly, supporting the role of CBOs to take the lead in assessing such community problems and in collaboration with community members find a solution to those.
On the basis of the results a training program was organized for two members of each CBO plus few most active women from the dialogue groups. The goal of the training was to provide CBOs key skills and confidence to run their organizations in a more strategic manner taking into account local resources, with greater responsiveness towards local needs and stronger leadership role in mobilizing the local community for meeting those.
... and results
With regard to the chosen topic (school drop outs) and in order to develop realistic actions plans topics such as
- Strategic thinking and strategy development at CBOs (what is the role of CBOs in local communities, how to define realistic goals for CBO activities, whom to partner with and what activities to conduct for their realization etc.)
- Community needs assessment (how to map local needs in a coherent manner and draw recommendations for community projects based on those; also how to use assessment results as an advocacy tool for attracting support and funding)
- Basics of project planning (how to define feasible and realistic project goals, objectives, target groups, beneficiaries, key stakeholders, needed resources, sustainability and follow-up etc.)
- Community mobilization (how to mobilize local people and resources for addressing social problems, i.e. not always is international donor money needed for solving such issues, but oftentimes just joining forces locally can bring great results for community well-being)
- Planning for community initiatives (instructions and guidance for effective community initiatives that CBOs will lead as a follow-up action to the training and that address some of the identified urgent community needs)
were addressed.
The workshop took place in the Queen Zein Al-Sharaf Society in Mafraq City.