Project News

Project for Sustainable Forest Management in the Northwest Watershed Area (SUSFORM-NOW) conducted the second follow-up training course on facilitation skills for four days on 25, 26, 29, and 30 October 2012. This training was organized as a follow-up of the two training courses organized in March and August 2012, inviting the almost same group of trainees from the government offices at different levels (province down to commune levels).

The seventeen participants at the training consisted of two from provincial level, eight from city/district level, and seven from commune level. They were officers at provincial/city/district/ward/commune levels who were playing important roles in facilitating the project activities with the local villagers.

This four-day training consisted of field facilitation exercises and reflection classroom sessions. On the first day (25 October), the training participants had a half-day review session with the main trainer, Mr. Suga, on the previous training courses as well as the introduction of the training course this time.

Upon the training overview, the participants visited Phieng Ban Village (Thanh An Commune, Dien Bien District) to facilitate a review on pig raising activities in 2012 by the villagers. The participants were divided into small groups of 3-4 people and requested to pose factual questions on pig raising activity experience in 2012 to the pig raisers. The participants particularly focused on asking questions that would lead to the realization of the issues and possibly some solutions/improvements.

On the second day (26 October), a review session was organized among the participants to summarize the lessons learned from the previous day. The participants reviewed the questions asked on the previous day and reviewed the relevance and effectiveness of these questions for the realization of the issues and possible solutions/improvements. The participants also grouped identified issues into some key issue categories in order to identify solutions for the existing issues in the pig raising activity in the village.

On the third and forth days (29-30 October), a similar process was repeated with the fish raising group in Phieng Bua Village (Noong Bua Ward, Dien Bien Phu City). The main trainer, Mr. Suga, highlighted the importance of finding a good entry point for the dialogue and posing effective and relevant questions that would lead to the realization and analysis of core problems. He also introduced the community-based issue analysis (CBIA) methods to the participants.

The training participants are expected to apply and practice the facilitation skills they have learned in the previous three training courses in their daily work to improve the planning and implementation of the project activities with the participating villagers.