OD EXERCISE FOR CBO LEADERS AND STAFF IN MEWAT

This three day OD Exercise aimed at promoting awareness on the need for organizing people for rights based action under the Mewat COMBAAHT Project. Thus the need for a strong CBO leading to organizing the unorganized and empowering the powerless has been the main focus in this workshop. The need for People’s Organization was facilitated through action reflection for the potential leaders of the emerging CBO in the area. The emphasis was on the issues of values, vision and leadership in regard to organization management. Goal setting for organization growth was also emphasized. 
Participatory tools like structured exercises, case studies, and recreation and group discussions were used to facilitate action reflection on the issues.

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  The day wise breakup of the contents of the program is explained below-
Day-1
Content - Sharing of experience by CBO leaders
  a) Major achievements.  b) Disappointments. c)  Future concerns
Methodology - Region/Area wise reflection and presentation.            
Content- Need for People’s Organization
Methodology- Reflection through simulation and pictures on the subject
Content- Effectiveness of organization system, structure and functions

Methodology- Movie – Manthan (this is a movie made with money contributed by 5 lakh poor farmers)
    Participants had to discuss in small groups the key learning from the movie in regard to:
  1. Need for organization,
  2. Role of community leaders,
  3. Role of staff,
  4. Problems faced in the process of community organizations and
  5. Role of EMPOWER PEOPLE and Action Aid India, DRO. They will write down their learning in a chart paper and present the charts the next day.
Day-2
Content- Presentations by the groups on the learning from the movie
Methodology- Presentations by five small groups
Content- Process of Community Organization – five steps for RBA
Methodology- Picture presentation
Content- Reflection on Organization Goal
Methodology- Structured Exercise
  Participants would be facilitated to reflect on the quality of their Organizational Goal. They would also be provided with feedback to further strengthen their goal setting capacity for organization growth.
Evening assignment –Reflection through movie on the subjects discussed during day two.
Day-3
Content- Conceptual input on Goal setting for organization development
Methodology- Input by trainer, Small group discussion and presentation
  Trainer will provide a conceptual frame work for goal setting for the next one year in the following areas-
  a)      Organization issues
  b)      Economic Issues
  c)      Social Issues
  d)     Political Issues and
  e)      Issues of good governance.
  Participants will work on the above issues in five small groups for setting their goals and make their presentations.
Content- Reflection on Leadership
Methodology- Structured Exercise
  On observing the background of the participants participatory games would be conducted to help them to understand the importance of qualitative leadership for group centered actions on the issues identified by them. Leadership of the CBO is the key element for the OD process.

A training programme on ‘Organizational Development For CBO Leaders’ culminated with the three-day workshop organized from 29th June to 1st July 2012, at Dr. Jaipuria Hospital opposite Nuh General Bus Stand Nuh, Mewat. The workshop was organized by Empower People, Mewat team and supported by Actionaid India, Delhi. A total of 25 volunteers participated from different village of 5 different blocks of Mewat including 1 trainer, 2 persons from Actionaid and 7 consultants of the project Community Based Action Against Human Trafficking In Mewat (COMBAAHT).

Gaushiya Khan, the fellow in this project and district president of Empower people in Mewat opened the floor on the first day and welcomed everyone for being part of this workshop. She also shared the idea in brief to the participants why they have come and gathered on a common platform. Followed by the Project Director Mr. Shafiqur Rahman Khan also explained the objective of the workshop to everyone and also shared the some basic information regarding the expected outcomes of this workshop and the whole project.

Mr. Ramakrishna Surdeo has more than 2 decades of experiences in training and development. He has been facilitating development training in different parts of India and in SAARC countries. He has worked with more than 2000 training groups for strengthening the capacity of people working in NGO’s, Government projects and CBOs. He has also worked under special service assignments for capacity building interventions for the projects/partners of National and International agencies. He is known for his excellent facilitation skills with the use of participatory learning methodology. His field experience also would be very helpful for participants.

The activities started with the presentation of different pictures and digital graphs by the Ramakrishna which emphasized on the stimulation of the thinking process of the participants. The collection of the pictures was from various backgrounds and regions of the country, from different class, groups and cultures but the whole theme was the unity and community action. Then a short movie was shown by the trainer to participants called ‘Manthan’ which is made with money contributed by 5 lakh poor farmers. Then the participants were asked to be divided in small groups and discuss the key learning from the movie in regard to:

1. Need for organization,
2. Role of community leaders,
3. Role of staff,
4. Problems faced in the process of community organizations. 


Group Activities
The participants were divided into three groups and given topics of discussions like why there is poverty in Mewat, what the factors are and what the possible solutions against it are. They were asked to decide a representative among them in each group who will present the outcome of the discussion through a chart paper by displaying it. Each group was directed to have a comprehensive discussion and each member of the group had to write down their points and views in their respective note books and then the representative has to write those points collectively on the chart paper. After they finished all the three representatives gave presentation on behalf of their respective groups. The participants were also assigned to present some role models while going for community work. The trainer told that when they will go the community for organization building and for community work they will confront different kinds of people in the society. They can be categorized generally as Detractors, Observers, Participator, Contributor and Leader. Under this activity they had to play the roles of these five types of people. The purpose was to learn how community meetings should be organized by the community workers for recognizing and analyzing, and then extracting the CBO leaders among the community.

Learning from OD Exercise:

 The area specific biggest learning is that we can organize these kinds of workshops and programmes in Mewat which was a kind of impossible task in this region before us. There are really energetic people who want to volunteer in bringing the change in their nearby circumstances, social, political and administrative systems. It’s a first kind of success in Mewat and no doubt it will be proved a milestone. The women in this region never volunteered on that scale and it was really a shocking experience that so many women participants were ready to stay for continuous three days and were mentally prepared to stay even in the night time at the venue.  We learnt that because the society is continuously evolving, participants at the meeting emphasized that learning and training for organizational development exercises and trainings provide an opportunity for:

• Community development workers who want to improve their knowledge and skills on community development,
• Sharing best practices on community development,
• Inspiration/Stimulation,
• Confidence‐building,
• Vision‐building

Organisational development engages with the grassroots agenda, involves thinking outside the box; is flexible, dynamic and innovative, it considers learning and training for community development as a challenge rather than a problem, seeks to empower community development workers for their work in the field.

Feedback:
According to Mr. Ramakrishna it was great to see so many women participants in that kind of social system still the team should have focused on the quality of the stuff being brought for such programmes. Mr. James, the Project Officer from Actionaid appreciated the team efforts despite all the lacking it was a great chapter to learn and hoped for a better performance and arrangements for the next time. Mr. Shafique expressed his pleasure of having so many women participants which is a positive indicator from futuristic point of view and our forthcoming programmes. According to him it was a great achievement for us to hold that kind programme continuously for three days and uninterrupted on the soil of Mewat which has been possible even for the government officials on the base of historical facts. The participants from various blocks and villages expressed their wishes to apply all the learning in these 3 days in their respective lives and will try bringing the positive change in their surroundings. They also expressed their vote of thanks towards Ramakrishna as they loved his methods of training in so easy and understandable ways. Many of them asked the team to organize such training programmes repeatedly so that more and more people can be benefitted. Except a few many of them also expressed to be invited again and part of the endeavor. Although everything by every participants was not that much easy to grasp since it was a beginning of a long journey yet everyone enjoyed these 3 days. The project team said that they were just amazed to see so many women participants as it was beyond their expectations. This success has doubled their morale and boosted their energy levels.