Wednesday March 19th -Friday March 21st
Our first day of the course was focused on laying the foundation for
the Girls for Girls programme, facilitation and money earning. I think the
dramas (aka: skits) on the different ways to access funding were the highlights
of the day. I think the “Mico-Finance” team, my team, did a great job! It was
fun and informative.
Our second day was focused on building business skills. We did
several activities with the participants that focused on setting a price for an
item and writing contracts. The market research game was a fun new element and
of course the “run my biz” market game was a crowd pleaser.
A guest speaker also come and talked to the group about Table
Banking. Table Banking is a phenomenon that is sweeping the region. At the most
basic level, Table Banking is a group model that works like a traditional bank
with lower fees for loans etc. A saving element is built into each transaction
and members of each Table Bank pay a monthly fee to be a part of the group.
One of the moments I loved most from the course happened on the
third day. I arrived in the training room and found some math on the board. Someone
was trying to figure out price of an item by including depreciation. After I
chatted with the other members of the training team, we discovered that the
figures must have been from one the participants who were working out how to
price an item or product. Excellent. Not only did the participants understand
what we were trying to share, they were working to figure out their own pricing.
Very cool.
Our third training day concluded with the famous Steps to Change
activity and preliminary work on action plans. The group did super on their
action plans. I am very excited to hear which plans become realities. I think
there is a ton of potential.
Our final day did also involve a very important discussion between
Friends of Londiani and the school teachers and principals. The discussion
centered on cost sharing for the Girls for Girls programme and making sanitary
towels accessible to all girls in Kipkelion East and West.
From my perspective, the most interesting part of this discussion
was the demonstration of how to care for the reusable sanitary towels and the
feedback from participants on which towels they thought would work best for the
girls.
The girls will be giving the most important feedback. Once the
schools turn in an approved action plan for an income generation project, they
will receive one of three types of sanitary pads on the market. The girls will
test them and give feedback to Friends of Londiani. The goal will be to settle
on one or two choices for the girls to use as part of the Girls for Girls programme.
Our third day ended with a bit of a celebration that included
singing and dancing. It was brilliant. Of course, my dancing made the crowd
laugh, but it was all in good fun. At one point, I closed my eyes and just
listened to all of the voices signing. The sound filled my soul.
Londiani is a special place but I think what makes it incredibly special
is its people. They care so much to make their community better for the girl
child. It is a long journey but they aren’t afraid to take Steps to Change to
get them to the goal and in my opinion that makes all of the difference.
