News in February

 

PHILIPPINES – The Philippines facilitation teams stimulate 77 community-based groups.

 

With the support of the International HIV/AIDS alliance and the MAC AIDS Fund, the Philippine NGO Support Program, Inc. (PHANSuP), in partnership with community based groups (CBGs) and local HIV services providers, continues the roll-out of the self-assessment in a learner centered approach in HIV prevention, treatment and care. The Philippines facilitation teams are now stimulating 77 community-based groups in 20 HIV priority areas. Six of these are learning hubs and Cebu City a model hub for positive prevention; they are pilot sites and centers for learning for the Community Engagement strengthening of the Philippine HIV Response (see John Piermont Montilla’s previous blog). Currently, 7 CBGs, 2 NGOs and 6 social hygiene clinics strive to integrate the self assessments in their service delivery practice.

“The Philippines is identified as one of seven countries with more than 25% increase of HIV infection, and injecting drug use was identified as an emerging driver.” John Piermont Montilla zooms in on what happened late 2011 in Cebu, city which hosts the greatest number of people who inject drugs in the country: seven leaders and eight service providers did their self assessment, river of life chart (adapted from the self-measurement of change tool), and shared their results in plenary. The process made them realize they were still taking high risks despite being regular clients (some for more than 10 years) of the social hygiene clinic. This inspired them: “We will be helping each other to lower down our risk behavior one step at a time...” More details on John Piermont Montilla’s blog.

 

 

GLOBAL – Introducing the New Constellation Working Group: The Business Offering!

 

Some founding principles of the Constellation have been drawn from business experiences (see the Our Story page of our website or contact Geoff Parcell), and recently a momentum has been growing towards new partnerships between the Constellation and the Business Sector. The new working group will discuss how to make the most of this natural momentum, and will develop a Constellation Business Offering. The dream of the group can already be viewed on the Ning forum! And stay tuned for more inputs…If you want to contribute in any way, please contact Boris Alberda.

 

CARIBBEANISLANDS – Youth invited to contribute to the future

This week an invitation went out to Carribean Youth to be in the driver’s seat for the future of their region. A Constellations team consisting of Korey Anthony Chisholm, Autry Haynes, Michael Mc Garrell and Rituu B. Nanda are facilitating the selection process and intercations for a Youth Think Tank in the Carribean. The initiative comes from the Youth-IN project at UNDP Barbados and OECS (Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States). Once 14 champions have been selected, the team will lead them through dream building, self assessment and action planning to guide their activities for 2012 and beyond.

 

RDC – Our vision materialises…

The presentation made by RDCCompétence at ICASA 2011, the 16th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa, can be viewed on Eric Ngabala’s blog.

 

 

 

Requests for help and inputs

Request for your participation in a research on the Constellation’s way of working.

Olivia Munoru would like to interview you about your personal experience as a member of The Constellation, your thoughts on its structure, practice and culture with as backround the financial crisis of the Constellation in late 2011, and the choices that were made to “regenerate”. “The research is for my final dissertation, as part of a Master of Arts in International and Community Development (Deakin UniversityAustralia). The paper will be titled: Re-visiting the Dream of The Constellation: A case study of organisational regeneration through the application of "CLC” Process and the "SALT" Way of Working.” Practical details and question sample on Olivia Munoru’s discussion, or contact her.

 

What are the keys to success for National Facilitation Team?

Olivia Munoru marvels at the strengths of the Constellation’s arms (see theOur Structure page of our website) and dreams of a UK Competence. Can you help her and others with a similar dream? What are the first steps, the ingredients needed, and the keys to success? Please share your experience in Olivia Munoru’s discussion.

 

Is CCLP training at the service of local responses?

This is Ricardo Walters’ question: Do we still stimulate and learn from local responses, or do we slowly drift towards being CCLP trainers due to time and budgetary constraints?

Looking at the Transfert view point, Olivia Munoru commented that training people to be CCLP facilitators helps to spread the process, and it opens doors to a wider and more diverse range of partners because we connect with new partners through commonly understood language and ideas while introducing them to a new way of working.

Eric Ngabala’s comment is that the CLCP training provides good starting bases and it makes the newly trained facilitators aware of their responsibilities: “development is their business”. “In its daily work, RDCCompétence assists local teams of facilitation and not communities. These are accompanied by local teams.” Learn more about RDCCompétence’s process.

April Foster would like “to see us, as the Constellation, this year, define our understanding of local response” and its progression, so that we practice what we preach: “stimulate and connect local responses”.

Please post your reflections on this in Ricardo Walters’ discussion.

 

"Self-assessment of risk-behavior" or "self-assessment of responsible, safer and satisfying sex life"?

John Piermont Montilla asks for insights concerning the name of the self-assessment that he has developped. It is called "self-assessment of risk-behavior" and he is thinking of "self-assessment of responsible, safer and satisfying sex life" to make it more positive.

Phil Forth commented that the first title “has the great virtues of clarity and directness”, and suggested John the following: “Write down a case study of the use of your approach. Take the most successful case that you know about. And look at the outcomes in that particular case. And use that reality to create a title for your method.” Read Phil’s comment and how John responded to it.

 

Take part in the decision of the Constellation to go or not to the AIDS Conference 2012 !

In your experience, what are the benefits of participating to the International Conference on AIDS, and what does it cost? Please post your input on thediscussion of Jean-Louis Lamboray or send him a message.

 

 

What else is happening in our online community?

Foreign business-led redevelopment in Haiti depicted by Deepa Panchang: around 60 model houses remaining empty, funding strategies which are “eerily familiar to the predatory lending that took place in the US”, a “silver bullet” solution consisting in moving neighborhoods, people treated like targets,…

Paula Sampson shares her reflections on the Learning event in which she participated last month in Guyana: “Looking back, before Life Competence, local response meant feedback after an intervention in the community - how they felt about what was shared and not really about what they could do for themselves. SALT brought new flavour to local response - community involvement from beginning to end.”

 

 

Upcoming events

March will be Russian! The Russian Facilitation Team and two Constellation Coaches will meet in Ekaterinburg, March 12 to 17, for a Knowledge Fair, a learning event for facilitators from four Russian cities (Ekaterinburg and the three cities mentioned below), and to develop their action plan. Jean-Louis Lamboray and Olivia Munoru will facilitate a second Knowledge Fair March 27 to 29 in Irkutsk.

March 26 to 30 in Barbados will take place the first face to face meeting of the Carribean Youth Think Tank14 selected young people will build their dream, self assessment and action plan to guide their activities for 2012.The initiative comes from the Youth-In programme at UNDP Barbados, and the Constellation facilitators for the event will be Autry Haynes and Michael Mc Garrell.

March 13, Marlou de Rouw will go to the World Water Forum in Marseille to present the CLCP as a complement to the existing approach in the fight against cholera. RDCCompétence is working on Cholera Competence with Unicef. The presentation of Marlou will be based on this collaboration. For more information, contact Marlou of Rouw