She completed the training course in ADECOM from 27th April until 9th May.   She trained the seven trainees in ADECOM and they were achieved their target what they expected in the training.  All the trainees are young and students and they really willing to work with the communities.

ADECOM invited the volunteers regularly from Planet Urgence for different training.  The two weeks course is really meaningful to the trainees.  Their main feedbacks were as follows.

• Sophie course is more meaningful and she designed the course more simple and understood by everyone.
• At the training period everyone spoked in English and it develops the communication skills.
• The project management training talks about the step by step process and we learned the informations.
• Training materials also help us to improve the subject knowledge.
• Group discussions and methodologies of the training was more useful to know each others.

Sophie given the time for ADECOM’s project works.  She spent the time with Lalida.P and finalized the project on Sustainability and Education.  She really motivated the ADECOM team for strengthening the activities with community people.  She talked about the new possibilities for searching the new projects for the development of Dalit Community.

Sophie visited the ADECOM’s partners groups in Tanjore with Jean Baptiste, the PU staff.  Both of them spent the time to discuss with the  Women groups and known about the Dalit situation

I Patrice HERVE come from Nantes, Britany, in France.

I work in Vodafone, mobile phone company; I studied where we need to install new antenna to get a good mobile connection. I completed high degree of computer science.

I was very interesting by indian culture; I wanted to meet Indians and to share some time with them. I wanted to share my knowledge with people who have no luck to follow long studies.

Some computer to sell on the market :

Adecom association :

I hoped to visit around Pondicherry and to improve my english too.

It is the first time I come in India, and I am very happy to meet and to work with Indians. I will teach Computer and language skill to the trainees.

I sleep in Ashram Guest House, a very nice and quiet accomodation fonded by sages:

The first day I understand that people have very different level in computer and in english too. Some don’t speak english at all and haven’t ever use a computer. Some are students, learnt english and a little french, and know computers very well. One developps some computer software !

They all are very interested by computer lessons; some who are already good are helping the others and translate. I do two groups with differents levels too. We practice a lot and do what could be interesting for the students later : letter, CV, table.

At lunch, we eat all together, some rice with vegetable :

On Friday March 21 some students were not here because it’s a big festival for Christians (“good Friday”), for Indians (“Panguni Outhiram”) and Muslam (“Miladi nabi”) too.

On Saturday, students usualy work. But this Saturday, we plan to do something funny all together. As if was raining, we went to cinema, and we watch a nice movie, with a lot of action, fight and songs too.

On Sunday, Lalida and Kerumal, who manage Adecom association, invited me to visit Auroville, some temple and some nice places around Pondicherry.

We met Perumals sister in a poor village, and lunch with the familie. They prepared some good and various foods.

The second week, students learnt about Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Windows and Internet. They are able to do their own bio-data, to show a beautiful table in Word, Excel or Powerpoint, to use some nice pictures. Some are able to use functions in Excel and to do charts. Some create their own GMAIL internet adress.

Friday, final day, students get their certificat and we eat a special lunch : an egg with the rice and a small ice.

Good bye !

Laura’s comments

Last saturday, we finished the first week by a trip around Pondichery with the students. It was the occasion to spend time together outside of the class. First we went to visit one student family. Then we had a quick lunch and went boating on a lake: first time for students so big experience for them and lot of fun! At the end, we visited some temples. So, nice day for everybody!

Sunday was day off, so good occasion to rest and do some shopping.

The second week of class, after some feedbacks, I decided to give some more exercises to check what we learned the week before. We did some group exercices and grammar/vocabulary training around PM. Trainees are still very interested and participate a lot.

Yesterday afternoon, we had the celebration for diploma in advance because Lalida and Perumal left for an international conference in Australia (for 2 weeks). First, we began by trainees and trainer feedbacks and thanks. Then, we gave the certificate to the trainees. I received a very nice present as well! At the end, we shared a french desert we made the day before (chocolate mousse) and some brioche with Nutella, delicious! This day was also the occasion for me to wear sari…I felt like wedding dressed! Anyway it was very nice!

Tomorrow will be the last day for me and trainees. For this occasion, we have decided to do a short class and to go to picnic on the beach!

After almost two weeks here, I feel very happy about this experience and all the people I met. Students have improved their english and know now the basic steps of PM.

The 10 of February, ADECOM welcomes a new volonteer from Planete Urgence in France, Laure, for two weeks.

Laure is given Project Management class. This new session welcomes around 7 trainees, 3 boys and 4 girls, from 16 to 25 years old, still students or workers for ADECOM. The class takes place on the rooftop of ADECOM building. It begins at 9.30 am and finish at 1.30 pm, with tea break at 11 am.

Trainees are very motivated and interested to learn more english, project management steps and foreign culture (specially french because of the nationality of the trainer). They are aware of their weakness in english and so support spontaneously the less advanced trainees.

After two days adjustement, the daily program is roughly defined :

- Feedback about topics we learned the previous days, memory exercises and correction of homework if any,

- Learning new topic link with project management (introduction of new knowledge) ,

- Group exercise (in order to practise interactive exchange and restitution in front of the class) ,

- Project management vocabulary exercises

- Everyday vocabulary exercises in a game spirit (“jeu du pendu” for the french lecturers!)
- End to finish, free talk about culture and manners (to learn about each other and to pratise english)

The idea is to improve trainees level in both fields, whatever initial level is. The trainer encourages them to participate and take the class as a real opportunity to improve their self-confident.

After the class, we all enjoy a collective vegetarian lunch.

On the afternoon, trainees go back home and workers for ADECOM go back to their activities.

After almost one week in India with ADECOM, I can say that this experience is a very good way for me to understand indian (and dalit) culture and manners.

We have welcome the 21st of January a volunteer from the French NGO, Planete Urgence. Fabienne, will be staying with us 2 weeks and will train our young members, 7 in total, on computer (word, excel, powerpoint, and maybe internet if there is enough time left).

The students are very enthusiastic about this experience and very eager to learn beccause they understand how important it is for their future, and also to find a job. We are sure they will be doing very well during these 2 weeks and will teach as much things to their trainer than her to them…

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.

Gladys Beccalossi from New Caledonia visited ADECOM on 11th Dec.2007. She’s working in a leading NGO in Pacific Area, that covers all of the 22 countries on the Pacific Ocean. She shared her experience on Kanak community with the participants of the Dalit Women Capacity Building training. She explained about the Federation of Kanak Women of which Marie-Claire Beccalossi, Gladys mother, is Vice-President. The trainees had the opportunity to make comparison with Dalit situation in India.

They dialogued about cultural and legal aspects. They also compared women condition in both countries. New Caledonia being a French Colony, it gets the benefits of some laws regarding women emancipation and empowerement. But on the economical field there’s still a lot to be done to improve Kanak people situation.

This meeting took part in the training process and the participants expressed their feeling about values like humanism, religion and described their field work for Gladys. It was a good exercise for the participants to introduce themselves and their projetcs to Gladys.