We had an amazing training session last
week with leaders of all 21 programs of the EEL-RCA.
Willie Langdji (ELCA regional representative
who lives in Yaoundé) and I lead the workshop. (Look we even had modern
equipment like an LCD projector, Power Point presentation, and computers!) It was fantastic for lots of reasons. First of all, they had to come to us in
Garoua Boulai – and they did. Next, all
programs were represented. And, they all
worked diligently and long to understand and begin to implement concepts
related to planning, monitoring, and evaluation. (As I write, I am thinking, in
particular of my teacher friends who do this constantly and all others who
understand the value and hard work involved in planning!) As an added bonus, we got time to interact
socially in a place where we (especially the Central Africans) didn’t have to
worry about security issues. (Lots of
side meetings took place, too, on other church-related topics.)
So, what is an objective? Can’t we say it’s a goal? In common parlance, we often use these words
interchangeably, but they are not the same when considering planning. A goal is where we want to be at the end; it
is long-term and general. My goal in
writing this blog is to increase your understanding of life in CAR/Cameroon, in
general, and of EEL-RCA and my work, in particular. I could never do that in
one entry – or even five. In fact, the
goal is better reached when I am not the only one working to achieve it.
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| Village School Program + Babaoua accountant |
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| Women for Christ + EEL-RCA intern |
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| Medical Programs working together |
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| Village Savings and Loan |
An objective, on the other had is
specific. It is the result desired for
the participants. Notice that I write an
objective in terms of the “beneficiaries.”
I plan my activities, but need to be thinking of the ways they will
impact the participants/students/faithful.
This is really a hard concept to embrace – even when people are SURE
they understand. I am thinking, first,
of student teachers I have worked with in Pittsburgh. Their lesson plans generally have objectives
expressed in terms of what they, as the teacher, will do. Of course, we need to be concerned with our
actions, but we are not likely to get to our objective if we don’t think about
how our information/actions are received by our “target audience.”
Well, it came as no surprise, then, that
the leaders we worked with for 2 ½ days last week began by writing their objectives
in terms of what they would do. For
example, one team wrote, “Increase the capacity of trainers to teach classes.”
(I’m loosely translating from French here.)
The implied subject is their team/project. The next step for many was often to “put the
learners first,” changing the sentence to, “The capacity of the trainers to
teach classes will be increased by the training session.” Do you notice what
happened there? The group put the
sentence in the passive sentence so that even though the trainers are now at
the beginning of the sentence, the action is still being done by the program
personnel! What is required is a huge
shift in the way of looking at the task.
What do the project leaders want the trainers to do at the end of the
sessions? What is the result they
expect?
And, to make the task more challenging, the
objective must be SMART! (Look familiar
teachers and planners?) S=specific and
simple; M=measurable; A=acceptable; R=reasonable; T=timely. (I know that the Pittsburgh Public Schools
added e for everyone to make the objectives SMARTe, but we stuck with the
original SMART.) So, then, the objective
from the last paragraph could be, “At the end of the training sessions,
trainers teach effectively so that more of theirs students achieve the minimum
grade on exams.” That’s SMART.
During our training sessions last week, it
took most of the first two days to get to the point where program leaders had
written acceptable goals and objectives.
We worked on other things along the way and provided individual
assistance and suggestions, too, but most of them got there! People also got to the point where they felt
they understood the difference between a goal and objective and why these both
are important for their work.
We also worked on clearly identifying
activities and all the needed resources – especially going beyond identifying
how much money is needed to explaining how these amounts were calculated. And, they reorganized their budgets according
to activities to better track spending – and to fit into the new mandatory
format. This idea, too, was new for many
– to think about the budget AFTER having thought out activities instead of
saying, “We have so much money, now let’s start to think of what we can do.”
Oh, then we went into another “easy” task
–identifying what tools are needed to evaluate each objective and activity as
well as the indicators that the activity is successful or the objective
met! All of these tasks are, of course,
interrelated and part of in-depth planning.
Church leaders have, also of course,
planned in the past, but they have had little practice with in-depth planning –
despite valiant efforts by partners and missionaries in the past. But, in a country where people live
day-to-day seeking ways to survive, the concept of planning for tomorrow, next
week, or program activities for a year is foreign.
I am proud of those who worked with us
during this workshop. Despite all the
hardships that continue to surround them, they worked hard to understand and
implement the skills being taught. Most
of them came away with a clear understanding of why they are asked to plan and
with models of what it looks like. One
person said, “I have been completing forms for years, but never really
understood them. Now I understand how
they are connected and what partners have been asking us to do. I never could have done it without this
workshop with explanations and the model forms provided.”
We still have a long way to go. Understanding during a workshop does not
easily translate to doing in-depth planning with only the leadership teams of
projects (some of whom were not at the workshop). All projects and institutions are to have
their year-long in-depth planning forms completed before the end of
February. We will better know then how
close we were to meeting our objective, “All project/institution leadership
teams write four clear, complete planning documents for 2015 before the end of
February.”
The first team came to GB yesterday to talk
about the work they had already completed since the workshop. They had done good work, but had really only
understood about 50% of what was presented – but I still applaud their
efforts. After we worked for three
hours, they were closer to full understanding.
(Their next revision will show how much closer…) I hope to be able to work with other teams in
the next couple of weeks. Certainly all
planning documents will be reviewed with an eye to improvement. Wait!
We are doing what we are asking them to do! We are monitoring and evaluating their work
and reflecting on ways to improve it… I
hope this will be another positive model for these hard-working, beginner
long-term planners.
P.S.
We ate well! Local women prepared
meals for us. And, on Thursday, we
celebrated the 20
th anniversary of Anne Langdji’s work in the
region. No, she couldn’t be there with
us as she was with Micah in Yaoundé doing other work, but we toasted her and
talked about her work with many of the workshop participants! Here’s Willie raising a toast to her. The picture of Anne was taken during a
serious discussion at the Protestant Hospital of Garoua Boulai when she was
here in November.
Last week I had the opportunity to teacha two-day
seminar on pedagogy at the Institut Luthérien Théologique de Meiganga (ILTM –
Lutheran Theological Institute of Meiganga).
Guess what? We talked about
writing objectives! This time (as
opposed to the workshop ten days ago with Central African program leaders)
students were writing objectives in preparation for teaching a brief lesson.
Meiganga is about one hour northwest of
Garoua Boulai on the road to N’gaoundéré.
Rev. Dr. Elisabeth Johnson, the missionary who arrived in the area at
the same time I did, is teaching New Testament (and other) courses at ILTM. Through her and the Director, Rev. Dr. Jean
Koulagna, I was invited to teach this seminar to about 40 students. Their levels ranged from BAC studies (the
formal – and difficult – test to demonstrate that one has finished high
school), through undergraduate and Master’s levels. We met in the chapel – the room that is large
enough to hold all the students at work.
After the morning meditation, we turned the chairs around to face a
black board kept in the back of the room.
