The Proposal Writing is a major issue for NGOs and Social Organization. Indeed the non lucrative aspect imposes these groups to base partially their financial sustainability on incomes provided by with foundations and governments.

Nowadays NGOs and Social Organization are facing major problems to construct Partnerships. Indeed Foundations and Governments have precisely defined agenda describing which fields of development they want to contribute to. In order to work together the requirement is the matching between Social Organization’s vision of development and Foundation’s criteria. However Foundation’s requirements tend to move away from Humanist Considerations. Their program is rather oriented from a Western point of view on the major issues affecting developing countries. Unfortunately it does not reflect the reality of the needs in these areas. For instead, India is not only facing Malnutrition or AIDS problems, Discrimination constitutes as well a major issue to tackle : in particular among Ethnic Minorities Population as Dalits or towards the Women. The foundations should therefore consider developing countries’ point of view to understand the problem in its entirety.

Moreover not only the Foundations have requirements, Social Organizations do not work with all of them. The main condition is to consider the relationship as a Partnership. “The hand which gives is always above the one which receives”, said Amadou Hampâté Bân, a Malian ethnologist and writer of the last century. This is not the definition of a Partnership and it does not constitute what the Social Organization are looking for. They orient their researches towards relationships which go in both ways, where there is an exchange. The Implementation of Social Projects is an opportunity for Foundations to develop their knowledge in various domains, to share their expertise on different fields and as well to participate to successful accomplishment positive for their notoriety.

This represented the context of my two-week stay in Pondicherry as I gave the training “Project Proposal Writing”. The main purpose of this training was to give theoretical notions and to apply them during workshops so that the trainees could be independent to write Proposals themselves.

My name is Bastien, I work as a Consultant in IT Services for Logica Management Consulting in France and especially in Energy & Utilities Sector. My professional experience gave me the background to prepare, before coming to India, the courses I would impart.

The first day’s objective was to collect the expectations and the level of the trainees in order to adapt the content of the training. It appeared that the trainees had a good level already in Project Management, what allows them to acquire the knowledge on “Proposal Writing” rather fast: in two days we had already been through most of the theory. This implies more work for me since I had to complete my initial preparation.

The efficient progress of the trained group as well as their active involvement enabled us to work on applied case studies: One of the example was a Project of Adecom Network whose main goal is to improve Children’s Human Rights thanks to an Alternative Education. I could as well extend the initial scope of the training to include methods on how to structure debates (Metaplan’s methodology), to insert as well notions on the Funding agencies, how to write effectively and to tackle the Financing Strategy issue.

The motivation of the trainees and the warm welcome of Adecom Network turned my stay into a great experience.  I could learn as well a lot about the Indian culture thanks to the people I hung out in Pondicherry who were always keen on sharing about their life.

Finally, I sincerely hope that the knowledge acquired will enable the trainees to get funds for their Social Projects in favor of Disadvantaged Communities.

My name is Yannick, I live in south of France and I am one of Planete Urgence volunteers that have worked with ADECOM Network for many years.

This week was the first of a two-week workshop with Kootu-K-Kural, a street theatre movement, that aims at helping its members for their activities with children. KKK uses theatre as medium for enlistment of Depressed Community people such as Dalit, woman and children.

KKK members are already used to work with children in schools or during expression camps, but they expressed a need to have a better understanding on children and to improve their animation skills.

The first half of the training focused on physical, mental and social development, from the 3-year-old children to the 14-year-old or older teenagers. How they increase their dexterity and master their body, how they perceive their environment and explain the world, how they create relationship and learn from others as model.

All those subjects and many others were evoked in a nice and friendly (but also studious and attentive) atmosphere. Since play games are an essential component of child development, the workshop was also a moment to discuss their utility, share new games and, as a matter of fact, to play those games.

Next week will be dedicated to group animation techniques and will lead to a ceremony where workshop attendees will be granted with a certificate.

Two weeks is a very short period of time when you are busy working!
The training is already over. The main steps of project management and the project manager job description have been covered. 
On December 21, a certification ceremony took place in the ADECOM facility. Every trainee gave their feedback. They were given a  booklet, summing up the main steps of a project, in English and in Tamil, with a full list of the vocabulary related to the training.
This tool has been built by the entire team with all the material used during the two weeks.

Everyone learned a lot, including Alexandre the trainer. The cultural exchanges between the trainees and the trainer have been very rich. During quality time spent together, many topics were discussed by the team : working methods, traditions, politics, everyday life, etc.

Everybody was very happy with these two weeks and parting time was a little sad.  But a next volunteer from France is soon to arrive, in February 2008, and a new group of trainees will benefit from a new session.
Stay tuned!

Time flies! One week out of two is already over. It was a very rich week. All the main technics and vocabulary of Project Management were explained and documented through different kind of examples.
The group first worked on a concrete little project: making a list of useful words for the trainees, focusing on how to collect the material for a project. Then they used a cooking example: how to make a lunch for the whole team? It’s been the occasion to split up tasks and explain responsabilities. Finally, one participant brought a full case from the field, explaining objectives, main steps and benefits of the project.

When the training started, participant expressed their need to improve their English level. To ensure this goal, only essential vocabulary has been used, every technical words has been explained and illustrated by a simple equivalent word before proceeding to a Tamil translation so that everyone could fully understand each term.

Participants and trainer gave a very positive feed back:
The first enjoyed the positive energy and good spirit of the group. They especially emphasized the simplicity of the training methods, and how useful the bilingual exercises were useful for them to comprehend the technical concepts. Alexandre is very content with this responsive and friendly group so eager to learn and make progress.

More next week after week-end and home-work…

Now the trainees and trainer have learned to know each other and lots of information has been exchanged about, India, France, history, Dalit people, Women and children issues. It was an amazingly rich talk and everyone did participate in. It also gave Alexandre material for the training program. We came up with the idea of using any kind of work the participants are doing on the field as a topic to discuss projects definition.

Some trainees speak and/or understand English, some need Tamil translation, giving opportunities of new exchanges. Now we’re ready to tackle some theory about project management : one step everyday, with examples, illustration and feed back. Last thing but not least, the very friendly and open atmosphere benefits to everyone.

Today was the beginning of a new session of the Dalit Women Capacity Building Training. This Program started last year, and since then, on a regular basis, volunteers from France come to give training to Adecom Network members and partners.

This time, training is about Project Management and Action Plans Building. Today, the 10 trainees, young (15 to 28) and enthousiastic, began to express their needs and expectations about this two weeks work, to Alexandre, who is Project Manager in a French Bank in Paris. Today was also the end of the Human Rights Campaign and of the trainees attended a very important meeting for Dalit Comunity this morning. So the conversation was a lot about Dalit issues and expectations : A very rich exchange for a first day…

Tomorrow we’ll start building the program! Update coming soon.

ADECOM organized training on Computer with the support of Planet Urgence, France. The trainer Ms. Caroline started the training from Nov 3 until Nov 17. ADECOM invited the young dalit girls and boys to participate in this training. The main feedback from the trainer is the following.

1. In the training course ten girls and two boys were participated.
2. At the beginning it was difficult to teach them in English for computer concept.They did not have the opportunity to attend this kind of courses. But now, they are able to edit their own resume by WORD and setup list by Excel.
3. The trainees are independent to make their own programme. They are proud about their own development.
4. All the trainees got more confident to continue the computer knowledge by themselves.