Rain and Mud

I am currently writing this blog post in the dark.  The start of the long rains has meant that while our water supply has now returned to normal, we are experiencing frequent power outages.

When I left Kenya 4 weeks ago for a visit to the UK the long rains, which are meant to last from March - June, had not yet started.  Kenyans were beginning to get a bit nervous.  Last year the long rains hardly made an appearance leading to a severe drought in the Horn of Africa and the creation of the largest refugee camp in the world being set-up in the north of Kenya.

However, while they were a few weeks late this year, the rains have indeed started.  Oh yes they have!  When it rains in Africa, it pours.  None of this weak British half rain/half mist nonsense.  We're talking proper sheets of water coming from the sky. The rainy season presents its challenges for sure. Drying clothes requires strategy as it isn't usually possible to hang them outside long enough to dry. The traffic is horrendous - there was unprecedented traffic jams of up to 5 hours in Nairobi on Monday evening which made national news.  And everything is soggy all the time.

And naturally, with the rain comes mud.  Lots and lots of mud.  Many of the pavements (sidewalks) in Nairobi are simply dirt paths, meaning that they turn to mud in the rain, and often into rivers of mud.

A few months ago I changed my commute to work to include a 2 1/2 mile walk each way to and from the matatu.  This change happened in dry season when the mornings were fresh and the evenings warm, and everything was dry. I hadn't given much thought to what this walk might be like in the rainy season, and returned to my commute this week with some important lesson learning.  Here's a few:

1. Walk slowly.  Or at least more slowly than usual.  Or at least look at where you are stepping.  This learning come from my walk to work on my first day back when I slipped on a rock and did a somersault and my trousers ended up caked in mud (my colleagues were very nice to me regardless of the fact I walked in looking a mess - probably helped by the face I brought them chocolate from the UK).

2. Be brave. Be very brave.  Tuesday the rain started around 4.30pm.    The sky was very dark and the rain was the most fierce and serious torrential rain I may have ever seen. With a bit of thunder and lightening thrown in for good measure. With half an hour of work left I began to question myself if I was really going to walk 2 1/2 miles in that. But I am made of sturdier stuff and decided I wasn't going to let some water deter me.  Full of resolve, I laced up my trainers and pulled the toggles on my rain jacket hood tight and ventured forth.  It was probably the longest 40 minutes of my life.  I was slammed with rain the entire time, which meant my ears were ringing and I couldn't look up or my eyeballs would get stung. My skirt stuck to my legs making it hard to walk, and water got in around my neck soaking my clothes under my jacket. Mud wasn't so much a problem as the water was several inches high and racing down the street.  I was once standing in water up to my calves. But, I did it.  I felt I deserved a medal afterwards, but I did it.  Every stitch of my clothing was wet when I got home - but I did it.  And a few days later when I was faced with the similar prospects as I was heading out of the office, I didn't think twice and just went.

3. Wrap everything in plastic bags. Twice.  This lesson comes from that Tuesday walk home where I had the foresight to bring plastic carrier bags to work to wrap all my things in before sticking them in the rucksack, however my poor book still fell victim to the rain (my rucksack had more or less filled entirely with water which had to be dumped out) and 5 days later is still a bit soggy.

4. Stop caring.  The rainy season is wet and muddy.  It means my trainers and rain jacket and rucksack are constantly a bit wet and muddy. So what? In the grand scheme of things it's not really that big of deal. The rainy season can be inconvenient, and I would definitely not recommend to anyone planning a holiday to come during the rains, but the rain is important to Kenya and only lasts a few months and so I will continue to trudge through the rain and mud everyday and even maybe try to enjoy it too.

Resource Mobilisation Training. Resource Mobilisation Training. (Because twice is better than once)

One of the really great things about VSO is the opportunity to learn from other volunteers and utilise their skills and experience in your own placement.  A couple months ago Helen, another volunteer working in the area of Resource Mobilisation, and I realised we were both planning to hold upcoming training in resource mobilisation for staff in our organisations.  We thought about it and recognised almost immediately that while training delivered by 1 volunteer is good, training delivered by 2 volunteers is really good, and so we decided to team up and co-facilitate both training days.

Helen leading a session at her organisation.

In February I attended the VSO annual conference at which Helen was one of the facilitators – she was excellent and I was very excited to have her enthusiasm, dynamism and creativity in my organisation for a day.  In addition – I thought it would be a great opportunity to have some of the ideas I’ve been trying to bring into ICL (such as cash is not the only resource to mobilise) echoed by another volunteer. And we all listen better to voices we don’t hear as often.

Francis, one of Helen's colleagues, practising his organisational elevator pitch.

The process started about 2 months before the training when we each individually started preparing our training sessions, specifically identifying what the learning objectives for the training would be and some activities we might include to achieve those.  In my department plan for 2012 I have included 4 pieces of in-house training across this year, and it was suggested in January by the CEO that the first training look at developing, building and keeping relationships with donors.  I was asked to include in the training the resource mobilisation team, project managers and executive management team (15 people in total) in order to start to build the capacity of senior staff in approaching potential donors.  Working with that brief, I decided to widen the training to look more broadly at supporters of all kinds (not just monetary donors) – however the principles are the same.  The learning outcomes I developed for the day were 

1.Increased knowledge about types of supporters and their varied importance.

2.Increased knowledge of how to pitch to potential supporters

3.Increased confidence to approach (methods and content) and build relationships         with potential supporters.

4.Increased resources through relationships developed and nurtured.

5.Increased supporter satisfaction.

Two of Helen's colleagues enjoying their training,

 About a month before the training Helen and I met together for half a day to plan out the two training days.  This was one of the most beneficial aspects of the process; it helped me clarify what I wanted to achieve in the training and how to best to realise those outcomes.  I had spent so much time planning and researching for the training that I was getting a bit lost in it and found it difficult to come up with fresh ideas.  Helen had a lot of ideas for how to make sessions interesting and engaging and new, for example an activity about how to nurture a relationships supporters which involved audio recording “a donor” (my housemate Andrea) describing their experiences with different NGOs.

Helen next to the agenda for the day's training.

I was able to support Helen in flushing out her training as well.  Her training day was focussed on providing core fundraising understanding and skills to all staff at her placement.  Helen works for a national union of the blind, an organisation with large reach but quite a small central staff team with varying experience in raising funds.  As part of the training she was specifically interested in supporting the staff to understand how to put a project plan together – which I have quite a bit of experience in and was able to support.  We developed a basic template with 5 steps: identify the need the project will meet, state the aim of the project, identify a few outcomes (changes that will occur as a result of the project), specify what activities will be carried out to achieve the outcomes, and create a budget.

Me, standing next to visual representations of the various types of support NGOs should look for - a key theme of the day of training at I Choose Life.

The trainings were held on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, with Helen’s organisation first.  Helping to facilitate training for Helen’s organisation was really interesting as several of her colleagues are either blind or visually impaired and things I have taken for granted when delivering training sessions previously became apparent, such as using flip chart or handouts. I’ve not worked in an organisation working with persons living with disability before, and all of a sudden the concept of accessibility was more than government orders we begrudgingly comply with, trying to decipher how far we have to go to make “reasonable adjustments”.  Rather I saw accessibility as something that either enables or disables someone from participating.  

Group work during training at I Choose Life.  This particular exercise involved analysing the types of relationships we have various supports and how to learn from those.

Her organisation was extremely welcoming and friendly.  Compared to my placement, which has a much more corporate culture and image and is a much more fast-paced and stressful place to work, Helen’s organisation is typical of what we think we sign up for with VSO – grassroots capacity building one small slow step at a time.  While there are great things about my placement, I was able to see what this experience might have been like if I had that typical VSO placement – and there are some lovely things about it.

Mutie, a member of the Resource Mobilisation at I Choose Life, practising his organisational pitch.

On Wednesday we delivered training at I Choose Life (ICL).  We had quite a full agenda, but I think the agenda successfully included enough variance in activities while still rearticulating and punctuating the theme for the day.  Despite the fact that some of the attendees regularly work closely with me on developing proposals and other have no experience in fundraising, the topic of relationship building seemed to be new and pertinent to everyone in the room.

Facilitating a session on how we talk about our organisation to the public.

One of the highlights of the day was an activity in which we explored how we talk about ICL when we meet new people – the kinds of things we talk about and the language we use.  ICL has a wide range of activities and beneficiaries and can be complicated to explain succinctly and passionately to those who don’t know us.  There was good discussion around the importance of creating an institutional platform (the common things that are included in what the public hear or read about the organisation), while wanting to avoid creating robots required to recite a script. Each attendee was given 10 minutes to prepare their own 1 minute pitch about I Choose Life, starting with the phrase “I work at I Choose Life because...”.  While being quite a lot of fun, the activity also gave everyone the opportunity to think about what they would tell someone about the organisation and practice what they might say.

World Cafe(ish) activity exploring various themes around how to grow our
relationships with supporters.

Helen was a great asset throughout the whole process – her ideas and enthusiasm really added value to the training, and she developed quite a fan club at ICL!!  My co-workers are already asking when she can come back (although thankfully they haven’t asked if they can trade me for her!). 

At the end of the training many shared that they felt they had really learned and benefited from the training, with several staff members not directly involved in resource mobilisation saying they felt they understood how they could help build relationships with all kinds of potential supporters – which is a great result.

Peris preparing for her organisational pitch.

We received some interesting feedback from the training as well, which highlighted some of the challenges delivering training in a different culture.  For example, one staff member mentioned that some of the sessions were left-open ended without the right answers being presented.  This specifically referenced an activity in which attendees discussed some sticky donor relationship topics in groups and then shared their thoughts with the group.  Helen and I elaborated on some of their thoughts, and I provided a few examples from my own work – but no fixed and firm answer was given on how to respond in those certain situations.  What I found really interesting about this feedback is that when I attend training it actually really frustrates me as well when facilitators summarise input without providing a concrete solution.  I am generally not a big fan of group work – I always wonder what is being said in the other groups and if their groups are more “right” than my group.  My boss highlighted that part of this cultural – his experience of training with North Americans and Europeans is that the facilitators are encouraging and find it difficult to challenge a bad idea, whereas training delivered in other cultures might involve just being presented with facts with very little discussion, participation or collaborative thought.  I think in this particular case that there was value in presenting the topics for discussion, but that there aren’t necessarily concrete answers – all relationships are different with different dynamics and there can’t be a one size fits all response, however I will definitely take this feedback into account when working on the next piece of training.

Helen and I at the end of 2 days of delivering training.  A job well done partially explains our radiant glow - although is was also very very hot!

This will be my last post for a few weeks as I will be taking a bit of a holiday – but don’t forget about me, I will be back in full force the end of April!

Saturday 10 March in 10 Photos

Forgive me all for I have been busy.  It's been two weeks since my last posting.  

We are in the middle of completing 4 funding proposals at the moment, and I have been working steadily (early mornings, evenings and weekends) since my last post.

However, last Saturday I thought to myself:  Nicole, what shall we blog about this week?  And having drawn a blank, I decided to photograph my Saturday in 12 photos, one each hour from 6am - 6pm.  Well, it all started well, but around 2 in the afternoon it was hot and I was tired and I started to wane.  So I share with you here not 12 photos, but 10.  And they don't span 6am - 6pm, but rather 6am - 3pm.  Anyway, it's what I can offer you now so hope you enjoy!

Photo 1: 06:01

I usually wake up at 6:30am on Saturdays to wash my clothes.  It takes about an hour and a half  (including boiling the water, letting them soak, scrubbing and rinsing).  It's good to get the clothes done in the morning so they are hung up early to dry.  Having a busy day planned for last Saturday, I got up at 6am to wash the clothes. No alarm needed though - I wake up around 5:30am for work everyday, so even 6am is a lie-in.

Photo 2: Washing Done
Around 7:30am the washing was finished and hanging up to dry.

Photo 3: Waiyaki Way
The highway that runs next to my neighbourhood.  Looks tame here, however in order to get transport into Nairobi we have to cross these 2 lanes and the 2 lanes on the other side.  This is around 8.30am on a Saturday, but weekday mornings involve saying a small prayer before crossing as cars, lorries, matatus and buses come flying down the road.  The key is, according to my housemate Sandy, to wait.  And wait.  And wait some more. Until it is safe.  So far, knock on wood, there have been no close calls.

Photo 4: Moi
According to Andrea this is a statue of Moi, president of Kenya from 1978-2002 (who did the county no favours).  I took this picture as we were walking from one matatu stage (similar to a bus station) to another.  I don't really know why I took it - but there it is. The building in the background is the Hilton Hotel.

Photo 5: Route 46
While matatu is the most common form of transportation in Nairobi, there are several bus routes as well.  This photo is of Kencom, the name of a bus stop.  The buses don't individually have their route numbers on the outside, the conductor will hold a sign out the window indicating which route it is.  On this day, we were taking Route 46 to Yaya.  I should preface as well that this was around 9am on a Saturday morning.  Visit this same spot on a weekday, it is not quite so tranquil!!

Photo 6: Tunasoma Kiswahili
The reason we were travelling across town so early on a Saturday morning was for our monthly Swahili lesson.  Andrea and I (try to) meet with Lucy once a month for 2 hours for lessons.  Lucy is an absolutely excellent teacher and we enjoy our lessons very much.

Photo 7: Swahili Notes
My scratchy notes from lesson.

Photo 8: Toi Market
After our Swahili lesson, Andrea and I walked to Toi Market - one of the largest and best quality second-hand clothing markets in Nairobi.  It takes a lot of effort and determination to find gems and to get them at a fair price (there is a common unwritten mzungu tax of about 500% which seems to be added), but can be worth it.  On this particular trip Andrea got some great trousers and I got a lovely vintage dress from Japan.  After about an hour and a half of shopping we were very very hot and decided we had had enough success for one day.

Photo 9: Trousers
A pile of trousers at Toi Market.  Taking photos in public in Kenya is very difficult and Kenyans really dislike strangers taking their photos, so there sadly aren't more photos of the market.

Photo 10: Mint chocolate milkshake
After Swahili lessons and shopping in the market,  we decided to stop by a cafe for a treat.  This doesn't happen often - less than once a month, but is very nice when we can.  I asked for a milkshake with mint and chocolate.  The mint was fresh, and for the first few sips it tasted like chocolate and basil.  Very strange.  But I got over it and enjoyed the rest!

Devolution and Voter Education

Yesterday I travelled 2 hours to Kangundo to attend a community forum about devolution and voter education.  I discussed in a previous post (see previous post) that my boss, Mike, has written a book to launch a political reform movement in Kenya, and as part of that process the programme is being piloted in his home County.

The event took place at this church in a town called Tala which is in Kangundo constituency.

The pilot has so far involved the formation of a steering group made of about 40 community members to develop a draft strategic plan which maps out how key priority areas for how the County will develop in the next 3-5 years.  Mike believes strongly that the fact that Kenya has lagged so far behind in development cannot be blamed purely on corrupt and incompetent politicians, but that average Kenyans are also responsible for making sure their country develops, and that begins at the local level.

Constituents registering as they arrive. 

Waiting for the event to start.  It began an hour late, but ran over by 2.5 hours to compensate.

Now that the County Strategic Plan is in draft form, it is being taken around to each of the eight constituencies for consultation and to ensure local community leaders understand devolution and the new political offices it has created.  This is the second of these consultation events, and this one was hosted by my organisation so about 12 staff from my organisation arrived in force to ensure it was a raving success.

Wambui, Finance Manager, and Barasa, Programmes Manager, modelling the t-shirt.

Myself and Keter.  We were on photography and sales duty.

The meeting started about an hour late (which actually isn't too bad), with delegates continuing to trickle in over the first 3 hours. The delegates were specially invited by members of the steering groups and selected as individuals interested to contribute to this process and able to action change in their local area.  The forum started with prayer (as pretty much all meetings do), and greetings by the local chief and chairman of the local community development forum.  Mike then presented the concept behind the draft Strategic Plan and explained that while the plan highlights 13 specific areas for development in the County to ensure it's development over the next few years, it was up to the community to determine the priorities within those areas and specific measures.  Following this, the delegates broke up into 4 groups to look at and feed into 4 of those priority areas: water and sanitation, agriculture, finance and education. 

Mike presenting the outline of the Strategic Plan.

Group discussing water and sanitation.

Group discussing finance.

Then four members of the Strategic Plan steering group and who are experts in the 4 sectors being looked at came to share feedback from the small groups and background information on those particular sectors in the County. For example, currently while nearly 65% of children make it to primary school, less than 15% make it to secondary school and less than 4% attend any kind of post-secondary education (university or vocational). I've written quite a number of funding proposals and concept notes for this particular piece of work since arriving at my organisation, but it was the first time I actually was able to observe community consultation on strategic planning take place and it was really inspiring to see so many (nearly 400) members of this local constituency come together to discuss the needs and issues of their area and the changes they intend to make over the next few years.  Too often Strategic Plans are developed for individuals and not by them - and this demonstrated the start of real ownership of this process by the community.

Just a note that I was able to understand about 75% of what was said during the meeting.  The other 25% was in kikamba, the local tribal language.  But I think I got the general gist!

The best photo I could get of the whole group.

Koki Muli, key-note speaker.

The key-note speech was given by Koki Muli, a university lecturer and political columnist in a national Saturday paper.  She spoke about devolution - what it is and why Kenya has decided to devolve power - and what implication is has at County level.  I mentioned in a previous post the up to now Kenya has a very heavy and very corrupt central government and that the new Constitution (2010) has provided for a new devolved government which will be achieved through the creation of 47 new Counties.  The counties have been formed - but the upcoming elections will be the first time that newly created posts (e.g. Governor) will be elected, so the Counties aren't actually really anything yet as they have no government or resourcing.  Ms Muli explained that unlike American states which are fixed and permanent, the Counties can be easily changed, and she predicted where there are now boundaries for 47, if some are seen to be under-performing they will be merged with stronger Counties and so the result in 10 years time will likely be fewer Counties.

She also spoke about one of the key tenants of my organisation's political reform programme - which is leadership vetting, which is about creating a framework by which voters assess the candidates and select which is the right one for the job.  It is a key theme of the upcoming elections and the way my organisation is proposing to accomplish this is by using the Strategic Plan as a type of JD and then having candidates demonstrate how using their skills and experience they will deliver the plan. For me, it is a strange way of looking at candidate selection - that the community determines first what is to be done and then unanimously selects a leader to accomplish it.  My experience of elections is that there are often two quite different proposals from political parties on what needs doing and voters select the approach they most agree with.  What's being proposed in Kenya allows very little freedom for the candidate to present their own priorities and ideas for how the County should develop, but it is a very different context here and it is the common way of thinking - my boss and I actually just met with a Swedish development agency last week which is very interested in adopting our candidate vetting model across their governance reform programmes.

A bit of entertainment to keep everyone alert.

While there was no break during the 6.5 hour meeting,
we did distribute snacks of a loaf of bread and a soda or bottle of water to attendee.

The forum yesterday was really the beginning of this process - the introduction.  All the attendees have been asked to identify which sector they would like to work specifically on, and in coming weeks there will be a series of meetings for each sector to look at specific issues, objectives and targets at a constituency level to feed into the County Strategic Plan.  The meeting was 6.5 hours long, running 2.5 hours over, and I think if it hadn't been cut off could have gone on another hour or two.  People are excited and hungry for this kind of change and first the first time are being actively involved in shaping the change and being asked to directly contribute to it.  As I said before, it was inspiring to observe.

Briefly, in other news - I found out that my very first funding application has been approved since starting with the organisation 4 months ago (and considering average turn around time for most applications is about 6 months - this is pretty good!).  In addition, it was a (smallish) proposal to a UN agency and is as such the first piece of UN funding I've ever secured.  I can feel my CV getting fatter already!! 

VSO Sector Conference 2012

Ok, maybe not the sexiest title of all my posts to date, but sometimes I think just say it like it is, and it was indeed the VSO Sector Conference 2012.

The conference is the annual event where all VSO volunteers Kenya and representatives from their partner organisations come together for a few days of networking, information sharing, and skills development.  There were about 80 of us all together over the few days, and it was a great time.

The event opened on the first night with Speed Introductions. It's like Speed Dating, but without the dating part.  Which probably is for the best.

The second day had a packed agenda.  In the morning we began by hearing three (tear-jerking) testimonials from beneficiaries of organisations which work in partnership with VSO.  There was Zachary, a blind young man in University, and Bernadeta, a Maasi widow who began a small local enterprise despite gender inequility in her community, and Evelyn, a Lou widow who fought for her rights to prevent being "inherited" (a practice by which the brother or father of the widow inherit the women into his household largely for sexual exploitation).  Because VSO doesn't send volunteers to directly deliver services, we are in most cases in offices working in capacity building functions and often don't get to hear these stories.  It was really very moving and powerful. 

This is Zachary, a beneficiary of an organisation working with VSO.  He shared his remarkable story with us.  Kenya is  not in anyway a friendly environment for people living with disabilities, and Zachary has overcome some significant challenges to become the first visually impaired or blind student at the University of Nairobi.

 

Bernadeta. A Masai widow who through a VSO volunteer was supported to set up a small jewellery business which has now grown tremendously serving 3 markets. Even though the VSO programme was around secure livelihoods, the programme has done a lot to support inclusion of women on all levels within that particular community.

After the testimonials, we had the opportunity to take part in a series of small workshops covering issues such as governance, environmental programmes, and gender equality.  The two workshops I attended were in Mainstreaming and Advocacy, which are actually related issues.  Advocacy is about bringing a voice to those who aren't heard (usually to make specific needs or issues known) and mainstreaming is about working to effect change in policies and programmes (social, economic and political) to improve the lives and situations of those who are marginalised.  The mainstreaming workshop focussed a lot on disability, as that is a key theme for VSO's work in Kenya, but I was able to consider work my organisation does which we don't always consider to be advocacy or mainstreaming.  

A workshop on Mainstreaming led by volunteers Dan and Ben.

We provide drop-in health and counselling centres for high risk HIV groups known as MARPS (most at risk populations).  In Kenya MARPS include sex workers, long distance truck drivers (known frequent clients of sex workers) and MSMs (men who have sex with men). We also provide economic empowerment support to these groups and work with local community leaders and businesses to share with them why our work with these groups is so important and how they can be involved in developing policies to ensuring open access to health facilities and small business start-ups. That's because prostitution and homosexuality are illegal in Kenya.  What I took away from both the workshops is that we need to do more to articulate and celebrate the work that we are already doing in these areas and develop a more thoughtful and coordinated approach to our advocacy and mainstreaming activity (trying to avoid mentioning developing an advocacy strategy - but there it is!)

And after a busy morning we stop for a good (and calorific!) Kenyan chai (tea) break.

In the afternoon the volunteers and partner organisations divided into groups for our specific sector workshops.  VSO currently works in three sectors in Kenya: Disability, Secure Livelihoods and Health (formerly HIV & AIDS), which is where my organisation sits. The workshop looked at the recent history of HIV&AIDS in Kenya and government policy on the issue.  In 1999 the then president declared that HIV&AIDS was a national disaster and it as an issue (both health and social) was brought under the Office of the President rather than being allocated within one of the two health departments.  As this was a verbal declaration it was never actually put into formal written legislation, however the National AIDS Control Council (NACC) was set up to coordinate efforts.  Until this year more than 90% of HIV&AIDS funding in Kenya comes from international sources, with more than half coming from USAID.  (Nearly 98% of my organisation's funding comes from US government sources - CDC, FHI, Walter Reed).

In 1999 the HIV prevalence rate in Kenya was near 15% and today it is near 6% - a tremendous result in less than 15 years.  So why so many concerned faces??  Because organisations, such as mine, have built themselves to fight the long fight against HIV&AIDS and find themselves now in a situation where AIDS is decreasing as a priority area and funding is quickly evaporating.  NACC will likely be absorbed into one of the health ministries, no longer a national disaster, and USAID announced a couple weeks ago that AIDS funding in Kenya will decrease by 44% in 2013.  HIV&AIDS will find itself alongside other health issues such as TB and cancer which also have significant socio-economic factors, and government policy and resources will start to focus on meeting a range of complex health issues in large regions of the country.

My neighbours, Andrea and Harvey.

So, what's to be done?  VSO's example is to start early and move away from exclusive HIV&AIDS focus to encompass wider health issues.  As well, it will be important for organisations to form partnerships and consortia with other organisations who offer different geographic coverage as future funding will likely require full country coverage.  It's a changing time in Kenya and for organisations such as mine, which actually spotted this coming a year or two ago and started to move then to offer more holistic services to those infected and affected by HIV.  I will be carrying the conversation forward so we begin to identify long term partners, brining us neatly onto the next picture...

On the final morning of the conference there was a World Cafe exercise on funding.  A World Cafe is where there are a number of tables each on a slightly different discussion topic around a room and delegates move between the tables to contribute to a number of on-going discussions.  It a very effective and efficient way of gathering input from many people on many topics in a short amount of time.  Fundraising is a topic which comes up in everyone's placement - regardless of the job title - so this was a very welcome and pertinent activity.  There were 8 tables covering topics such as corporate donations, raising core funding, and alternative resource mobilisation.  I hosted the table on partnership and consortia fundraising. I really enjoyed the exercise and came away having learned a lot from the contribution of those participating.  I look forward to write up as well to see what I missed at the other tables.

My colleague Charles who came as the representative from my organisation.

After 2 days the conference was over and people started making their way back to the far reaches of the country from whence they came.  But not before a little boogie - what an appropriate way to end a conference!  It was great and I look forward to next year.