Community Generated Needs; Not Agency Generated Needs by Phil Bartle, PhD Training Handout As soon as the project begins, executive members become more aware of new skills they need While the project is underway, the community and its executive will realise that they need new skills. Some of those skills may be artisan, craft or technical skills, such as carpentry, masonry, electric wiring and others necessary for construction. Others may be financial, planning or management skills, such as keeping accounts, fund raising, report writing, conflict resolution, communication skills, and supervising and managing the activity. Training ranges from informal to formal, on the job site showing skills by experienced to inexperienced, paid training (apprentice-style), through workshops you organize, to sending participants to a commercial or Government training institute. As much as possible, emphasise the informal skill training from resources inside the community. Older and skilled artisans who donate their labour to the community project should show younger unskilled youth how to do the work. Where artisans have to be hired, try to hire within the community if feasible, and include training of unskilled community members (male and female youth) as part of the hiring agreement contracts. Ensure that the executive records and reports all informal training. Where informal training is not possible, you might propose training workshops. You must have a budget, a source of funds, to cover the training costs. If such training needs are foreseen early by the executive it should be encouraged to include a training proposal in its community project design. See: Preparing a Workshop. Depending upon your budget, and the policy of your agency or programme, you may have resources for sending some people for more formal, or institutional training. Your task is to ensure that the training is approved by the whole community, has an appropriate and needed subject matter for the community project, and is not just a means for giving a perk to a crony. Ensuring that the choice of participants and choice of topic is approved by the whole community will help avoid suspicions of favouritism by you or the executive. Whatever the training, while the project is underway, ensure that the choice of participants and topics or skills transferred, are needed by the community, approved by the community as a whole, monitored and recorded, and included in progress reports. If you copy any text from this site, please link it back to www.scn.org/cmp/. Updated: 2003 May 11