Sharing Each One Teach Five Experience

Dear All,

I’m very glad to report you about the Each One Teach Five training which I organized and conducted last Sunday. I was so sorry that I couldn’t send you my preparations prior to the training day for two reasons; the internet connection problem and having a pile of works at the end of one of our projects.

Although I had to do it out of my busy schedule, I was very pleased for the program as I did try my best.
That’s really awesome experience for me having a chance to share what I gained from the VOF journey. Although I am currently mainly responsible for the training team in my organization and have been facilitating many events, this time still excited me since the preparation to the morning of the training day. What I learned in VOF is really rooted in my heart vividly but I carefully reviewed all the materials so I think I could present in a calm and confident manner and answer the responses and questions fairly.

The training participants are from a variety of background and all of them are who I’m working with in some ways. One is from a teaching background and one is a nurse and the rest are my students in CEDeN (Community Education Development Network), a working group under the umbrella of British Council, Burma. They all don’t have any background of journalism but they are very interested to join the program. They are really inspiring women who are dedicated to the development of their community here, in Myanmar. They all are volunteering in a variety of organizations as educators and community outreach workers. What I necessarily aim is the sense of exactly training but just a knowledge sharing program. Obviously, one day is not enough to tell all about VOF experiences so my intention is to let them know about what citizen journalism and Web 2.0 briefly and familiar with World Pulse and Pulse Wire community. I made it a beautiful power point slide show. The presentation is for my reference and their visual aid and I also used flip chart, group discussion and presentation, games and participant questionnaire for the sake of attraction, good understanding and creativity. All the cost of training such as handout photocopies, lunch, coffee and snacks are my contribution. One of my colleagues assisted for the logistics.

At the planning and preparation, I didn’t have any challenges. But in the training, I found some issues. Although I aimed my Each One Teach Five as knowledge sharing program, the participants were very eager to learn for the in-depth gain, they saw my training is great but too short. I could manage well in terms of timing but when their interest level is raised, it is very challenging to handle answering all they want to get into in a period of a day. And honestly, it is pretty exhausting for a single trainer to talk and answer for the whole day.

Hence, for the future, it’s my willingness to organize a variety of in-depth trainings related to my VOF experiences in both urban and rural communities in particular settings. First, I’ll engage and share my knowledge and skills to my closet society such as my colleagues, by this way; I can have support from them. I would like to have such trainings and community events in organizational level collaborating with my friends and the organizations I am working for (Metta Moe Myanmar and SalusWorld) rather than doing personnel level.

It’s my pleasure to hear your comments and feedback for the training and suggestions for the future plan. And I am very happy to answer if you still have some questions.

Wow! I am about to forget. Two of my participants have already joined to Pulse Wire and they are Ororo Logan and Zalat Phyu. I’ll follow up to the rest three and encourage them to raise their VOICES. I wish we could have Myanmar language in your translation tool very soon.

Thanks again for all your encouragement and support. Without you all, I could not have done such a great work.

With Love,
Insha Allah