Session Activities:

Time

15 Min.

Have Trainees brainstorm the process involved in developing a total project or program plan. Example:

Problem Identification and Analysis

Needs and Resource Assessment

Project Plan and Design

Implementation Administration Evaluation

Operations and Maintenance

The discussion should include a description of ways of viewing "needs" before going out to collect data. "Needs" can be defined to include:

- felt needs - a wish list, unrestrained by cost, reality and priorities;

- expressed needs - needs expressed by people's actions;

- normative needs - needs seen from the perspective of experts in the field or public officials; and

- comparative needs - needs resulting from inequalities in abilities, services, or resource availability.

10 Min.

Have Trainees select a facilitator to record ideas. The trainers should move to the back of the room and let the Trainees run the session from here on out. Trainees can brainstorm specific topics that should be included in conducting an analysis of the resources available and needs that must be met to support projects in a community. The resource topics should include physical and human resources, and the needs assessment should identify community concerns and problems (e.g., health, skills, materials, and finances). Trainees should compile a comprehensive list of topics on a flip chart and then organize the topics by category, recognizing that not all of this information may be needed for every project. Data requirements are project specific, and there is no need to collect data just for the sake of having data. The Trainees should then describe unobtrusive methods that they can apply to collect this information. Examples include:

- reading and observing,

- interviews with local officials,

- informal interviews and conversations with local people,

- public meetings, and

- participation of villagers in your work activities.

Trainer should remind Trainees that this data collection must be done in a manner that does not arouse suspicions about a Volunteer's motives and Trainees should identify measures for ensuring that the community is supportive of the data collection (for example, have someone from the community do the information collection). Trainer should pull group back together with a discussion of situation analysis and needs assessment processes. This discussion should include:

1. One shot "complete" assessments versus a continuous process that recognizes that as people get more experience and exposure the inventory process improves.

2. The evolutionary nature of needs. At first, people only assess immediate needs. As these initial needs are met, people move on to new needs and long range plans. Also, people's perceptions of needs and problems typically expands with time and participation. Project planning requires a flexible process that can accommodate this evolutionary nature of needs.

3. Need and resource assessment must be a participatory process, and not a blueprint approach done by "experts". Again, the Volunteer's role is to facilitate, motivate, and guide.

4. The importance of communication skills, especially active listening and the use of open-ended questions.

5. The influence of cultural factors and sensitivities (politeness, protocol) on obtaining misleading information.

6. Visible versus invisible needs or resources. Actual relationships, indebtedness, and transaction processes in the community may be very different than what initially appears on the surface.

20 Min.

Trainer should explain to Trainees that they will now divide into groups of three and go into a nearby community to collect information that would support a small-scale irrigation project plan. Trainer should provide a brief background on the social and environmental conditions in the community and draw a simple community map to help Trainees avoid getting lost. This task is best accomplished by having the trainer assign each group specific topics to research and by having the groups dispersed in more than one community. The groups should decide on their own how they will organize their effort, delegate responsibilities, and consolidate the data.

180 Min.

Trainees are transported and left in a central point in each community. A specific time and place for retrieving the Trainees will be determined, and at the conclusion of the field data collection, the Trainees are transported back to the site.

40 Min.

Trainer asks each group to prepare a brief presentation describing the following:

- In general, what happened during your survey?

- What information did you obtain?

- What problems or pitfalls did you encounter?

- What might you have done differently, and how otherwise would you have done it?

- How do you feel you will apply these skills in your work at your site?

10 Min.

Trainer summarizes session by discussing the relationship between accurately assessing community resources and needs and mobilizing and organizing communities.

Session Activities:

Time

30 Min.

Trainer should present visually and descriptively one or two case examples of community involvement in small-scale irrigation systems. For each case, have the Trainees list the important steps to follow in organizing and mobilizing communities. For example,

1. Visiting community, both formally and informally.

2. Identifying community leaders and determining community roles and responsibilities.

3. Conducting a meeting in the community to identify problems and explore issues around irrigation projects.

4. Working with community members to conduct a baseline community needs and resources assessment.

5. Facilitating the development of a water users association (if not already in place).

6. Facilitating water users association design and implementation of project activities:
a. meetings with community organization leaders,
b. contacts with owners of commercial establishments, farmers, and financially important community members,
c. meetings with other organized community groups,
d. meetings with school teachers, and
e. development of support groups.

7. Implementing project:
a. defining community contribution to the project (labor, money, materials),
b. preparing agreements and contracts,
c. defining roles and responsibilities, and
d. establishing administrative structure.

120 Min.

Trainers transport Trainees to their proposed work sites for field projects. The Trainees should have already made arrangements with people from the community to have a community meeting (this can be done through the trainers, if necessary). The Trainees should have informed people in the community that the objective of this meeting is to present ideas about the field projects the Trainees want to do and identify ways in which the community members might want to get involved. It is best to have divided the Trainees into groups of four or less and have each group work with different organizations or activities in the community. The Trainees should be prepared to lead a meeting, present diagrams and descriptions of their project ideas, answer questions, generate enthusiasm for the activity, and organize a work schedule. The actual project to be undertaken should be small and simple enough to be accomplished in a very limited time frame and be only a very minor demand on community members' time.

30 Min.

Return to the training site. Trainers should facilitate an open discussion of the Trainees' experiences. The discussion should identify both successful and ineffective techniques and strategies used to motivate and expedite community participation in the proposed project. Conclude session by having Trainees state what measures they will use to ensure that the community will continue to be integrated into the planning and completion of the field work.

Session Activities:

Time

15 Min.

Trainer introduces session by facilitating brief definition of communication and description of what is involved in the communication process. Trainer should emphasize that communication is the process by which two individuals attempt to exchange a set of ideas, feelings, symbols, and meanings. Communication occurs both with and without language. We communicate with our facial expressions and other body language and often through some other visual form (e.g., pictures, symbols). Trainer should ask Trainees to identify the causes of misunderstanding and misinterpreted messages. What are the factors that tend to promote communication versus those that seem to prevent us from conveying an idea or feeling? In what ways does "culture" influence this communication process? Trainees should then list factors they feel are intrinsic to promoting communication between peoples of different cultures.

20 Min.

Trainees each select a partner, grab a piece of paper and a color pen. One person will act as the "sender" and the other person will be the "receiver." While sitting back to back, the sender will draw a picture, and then describe his or her drawing in such a way that the receiver can replicate it on his or her own paper. During this process, the receiver cannot communicate in any manner other than to listen carefully and try to draw what the sender is describing. After 10 minutes, the exercise is stopped and the two drawings are compared. Trainer should bring the group together again and have each pair discuss their experience. Notice which details are left out and how details were altered. Discuss factors that influence our "filtering" of information as we receive and process it.

15 Min.

Trainer should select four partners from the Trainee pairings and ask each pair to describe how they might improve the four basic skills essential to any communication exchange: 1) active listening, 2) asking questions, 3) feedback, and 4) non-verbal cues. If there are language instructors or others from the host country available, they can apply the Trainee descriptions of these skills to their own culture through example.

10 Min.

Trainer concludes with discussion of the impossibility of "pure" communication and the influence of our own perceptions and filtration devices. Each person has her or his own construction of "reality,'" and this is very much influenced by the social conditions in which we have been raised and now live. By recognizing and working with these four basic communication skills we can find that the messages we send through language, drawings, or simple body language can be more effectively received. As Volunteers, the use of communication skills will be applied daily in doing extension work, conducting workshops, identifying problems, planning projects, and just everyday social interactions. Strengthening communication skills is perhaps the Volunteer's biggest and most important challenge. Other opportunities will occur throughout the training for Trainees to work with these skills. (If time and interest permits, the drawing exercise can be repeated, with the sender becoming the receiver and the receiver the sender.)

Session Activities:

Time

10 Min.

Trainer begins by stating that "problems" are really just "opportunities" - it all depends on how you look at things and how flexible you are in figuring out solutions. Trainer can provide the following examples:

Given the Roman Numeral IX, use one line to make this "nine". into a "six" answer. Solution: S + IX = SIX. (No one said the answer had to be a Roman Numeral! Listening skills again)

Given ...

Use 4 lines to connect all of the dots. (No one said you had to stay within the boundaries of the lines! Listening skills again....)

25 Min.

Trainees participate in a role play in which one Trainee feels that everything in his or her life is going wrong. No one at the site will talk to them, there is way too much work, and it is ridiculous anyway to assume that an untrained person could ever develop an irrigation system that would really work. The Volunteer is considering giving up and just going back home. The other Trainee, after listening carefully, begins to ask questions that lead to the true cause of the "problem": the frustrated Volunteer is simply lonely and is masking that loneliness by working on building a project day and night, with little break in effort. The friend asks the frustrated Trainee if he or she has felt this before and then asks what kinds of things have worked in the past to deal with feeling lonely or out of place. The friend asks the frustrated Trainee to be honest about which solutions he or she is most likely actually to pursue and to describe why. Once the friend feels some sense of commitment from the frustrated Trainee about the preferred solutions, then the frustrated Trainee is asked what he or she will do to get out of this rut and when he or she will start to take action. The guiding friend asks the troubled friend to send a postcard in a few weeks to say how it is all going.

25 Min.

Trainer leads Trainees through discussion in which they list the steps taken by the 'guiding friend" to help the troubled friend solve the problem. These steps should depict problem solving as:

1. setting a positive environment that feels supportive, and in which solutions seem possible;

2. defining the problem as precisely as possible;

3. discussing possible solutions;

4. identifying the pros and cons of each solution;

5. selecting a solution;

6. developing an action plan; and

7. after initiating action, taking time to reflect and evaluate your results. If the solution needs modification, just build it into the effort.

Trainer emphasizes that these steps are applicable to any problems, be they technical concerns-about irrigation or personal concerns. Trainees list concepts or language that can get in the way of constructive problem solving:

- replaying the past in your mind,

- having vague goals,

- making judgments about others and allowing these judgments to influence your problem definition and possible solutions,

- using the words never, impossible, can't, try, limitation, if only, but, difficult, ought to, should, and, doubt, and

- using any words that tend to measure, judge, or condemn you or someone else.

Trainer describes the value of creative, positive visualization as a problem-solving tool. Try to see what the "problem" looks like when it is "solved" or what life looks like without the "problem." Develop a very clear picture of this in your mind. Then allow yourself to visualize steps that occurred to create this positive vision. Trainer concludes by having Trainees describe other such techniques that work for them to fulfill the 7-step problem solving procedure.

Session Activities:

Time

15 Min.

Trainer will present a brief overview of the structure and functions of a hypothetical water users association and describe the role that this association is playing in operating and maintaining a local irrigation system. This overview sets the stage for the subsequent role play but should also serve as a concise but comprehensive overview of organizational and administrative needs in forming and sustaining water user groups.

30 Min.

Trainees divide into two groups. One group, comprised of two Trainees, represents recently arrived extension workers who are trying to become familiar with local irrigation practices. A second group with 3-4 Trainees will represent members of the water users association. The extension workers have arrived to interview the water users association to learn the following:

- What are the typical crops being planted and how are local people managing the cropping pattern in the valley?

- What kinds of operation and maintenance practices are the association using to manage water?

- What kinds of problems are the farmers finding, and how is the association helping local farmers work with their problems?

- How often does the association meet, and can the extension workers attend the next meeting?

The trainer should coach the Trainees acting as the association members before the role play. Give the Trainees suggestions for a few personal problems within the association in an effort to make this exercise at least a bit realistic.

15 Min.

Trainees assess the role play and identify important considerations that must be resolved in establishing or working with a water users association. Trainees develop a list of procedures that can be used to resolve disputes in groups. Trainer provides a brief overview of several local water user associations and discusses some of their strengths, weaknesses, problems, and accomplishments.

60 Min.

Trainees visit representatives of a local water users association and interview them about organizational structure, administrative procedures, member responsibilities, and overall objectives.

Session Activities:

Time

30 Min.

Trainer should assemble the following questions on a flip chart, and then ask the Trainees to discuss as a group their responses to each question. Trainer should reveal only one question at a time to avoid having Trainees responding to all questions at once.

- What have been your major problems or frustrations in the field project work? What personal changes did you need to make in order to adjust to these problems?

- What do you perceive to be the community's view of Peace Corps and of you as Volunteers? In what ways do you feel you influenced that perception?

- What did you observe to be the strong social institutions in the community? In what ways did you feel a part of them or separate from them?

- What technical knowledge related to the field work did community members demonstrate? How did you work with their skills and incorporate them into the effort?

- What impact did the physical work environment have on your field work? How did you adjust to the environment?

- What were the main positive aspects of working in the community?

Trainer should summarize key points and concepts being made by the group on a flip chart and then conclude by linking this information to material covered in the sessions on Conducting a Community Needs Assessment and Community Organization and Mobilization.