Akwaaba to Accra, Ghana! On 3-4 July, Amend organized a strategy workshop for their safe school area work in 10 African countries. NGO leaders from Benin, Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal, Tanzania, and Zambia attended the workshop.
YOURS was asked to lead the development and structure of the program, as well to facilitate the workshop.
The Amends’ safe school area program provides simple, targeted infrastructure measures – including footpaths, speed humps, bollards, and zebra crossings – that decrease vehicle speeds and separate child pedestrians from traffic. They recently completed a multiyear impact evaluation: the program reduced injury rates by more than 26% and lessened the severity of the injuries that did occur.
To make the program sustainable Amend built in a very crucial advocacy part. NGO’s implementing safe infrastructure around schools to protect children is a fantastic effort. However, the governments of the countries must be involved to scale up the initiative and maintain realized safe school areas. It is clear that each country has its own political dynamics and momentum. The two-day workshop was designed to support NGO leader to further develop their advocacy plan.
The two days started with reflections and sharing knowledge and experience from each country. Together they produced a clear list of lessons learnt and challenges. NGO leaders were also asked to develop and analyze their SWOT. While the workshop progressed and we captured all reflections of the first 18 months of the program, the NGO leaders started to look forward. What is the specific country advocacy goal and what are its strategic objectives? On day two the NGO leaders developed their more detailed action plan and added activities, accountabilities and a timeline.
The workshop finished with a presentation from each NGO leader to the representatives of the FIA Foundation and Puma Energy Foundation. Both are sponsoring the program and very interested to understand the progress made and the future plans until December 2019.
YOURS would like to thank Amend and its amazing staff for this opportunity to collaborate and we congratulate you all on this remarkable project. We wish each NGO leader the best of luck with the implementation of their advocacy plans.
“Workshops can be dull, death-by-PowerPoint exercises in tedium. The team at YOURS takes workshops to a whole new level, designing engaging, exiting workshops that help groups achieve their goals in fun ways. The difference between a normal workshop and a YOURS workshop is like the difference between a grey, drizzly winter day, and an afternoon in the early-summer sun.”
Jeffrey Witte – Executive Director: Amend