Belgium learning from DR-Congo
Partners: King Baudioun Foundation
With support from the King Baudioun Foundation, the Belgian facilitation team learned from the experience of Eric Ngabala, facilitator from DR-Congo. He visited the team two times: in June 2008 and in March 2009. Eric, 29 years old, graduated in Economy and Development and is a facilitator of RDC Competence since its foundation.
During his 10 days visit, they facilitated the self-assessment of BelCompetence, they met partners, they did SALT visits and further developed the Blended Learning Programme.
« Strategies and actions against HIV of these last 20 years were so focused on the South that young people in the Nord are less and less informed about HIV. They think they know it all but when they speak, they realize that they know only little or are not well informed, » explained Eric, after spending a week with the facilitation team in Belgium.
Eric shared five main lessons learnt during his week in Belgium.
« Firstly, SALT visits shouldn’t be reduced to a game of questions and answers but rather an “intelligent” chat between facilitators and the visited group. Facilitators should go neither with a preconceived questionnaire nor with expectations to be met.“ Aude Picavet, facilitator of BelCompetence added: « Before a visit, I don’t think too much about my expectations. During the conversation with those who welcome us, I ask about their dreams and I stimulate them to express these using simple sentences of appreciation and showing my interest. I know that it should be a chat and that it should be natural.”
« Secondly, facilitators from different backgrounds share the same spirit. According to me, it is thanks to SALT, which privileges the human character of every individual, that facilitators have this natural tendency to open up and to trust others. Therefore, it is easy for them to communicate and work together.”
One of the participants of the workshop said to Eric: ”It is your first visit in Belgium? I don’t believe you because I don’t feel that you are a stranger. Moreover, the other members of the team trust you soo much…”
« Thirdly, countries from the South also have something to teach to the North.
Cooperation between South and North is an encouraging practice in the sense that it allows people to listen and to learn from other people’s experience. Opportunities like this one, thanks to the invitation of the King Baudouin Foundation, are rare, when the South comes to confidently share its experience and teaches something to the North.”
« Fourthly, the detailed planning of activities is a success factor in the organisation and the follow-up of activities. It also allows to be proactive and to better follow up on new opportunities.”
« Finally, while Belgian political leaders advocate a separatist vision of the country, there is a huge contrast within the communities themselves: Everywhere I went I met people from different origins, able to talk openly, ready to work together without discrimination, who look for solutions together to their common problems.”
« The best illustration is that of the youth comity in « Molenbeek » (Brussels) who organized a party in their neighbourhood and who accepted to debrief with the SALT team. Some remarks were so direct that they seemed almost aggressive. The meeting allowed the group to find solutions in order to improve the next event. This is what I saw during my week in Brussels: people who are different but who want to live together.”