Background:
To comply with UN guidelines about improving awareness of HIV/AIDS and to reduce discrimination of HIV/AIDS affected co-workers, UN agencies prepared to introduce a programme of orientation and knowledge sharing. Facilitators for the programme were invited from the general staff and included medical and non medical experts.
Problem:
The majority of the in-house volunteers had not been trained in adult learning facilitation skills. The profile of the typical medical expert is one of lecturer which was not considered appropriate for this potentially sensitive issue.
Goal:
Prepare the in-house volunteers to be able to facilitate the orientation sessions in a participative way to reduce fears and resistance to discuss HIV/AIDS, and to encourage the sharing of concerns and experiences in a non-threatening, fun way to ensure that the key messages of the Orientation Sessions are taken on board.
Service:
We delivered a two day training of trainers to introduce brain based adult learning principles and methods to the volunteers and then allowed them to apply the approaches to the specific modules of the Orientation Programme.
Result:
The training was conducted in a fun, light hearted way that allowed for even the most intimate and challenging issues to be discussed and even modelled in a non threatening common sense way. The trainers identified innovative and entertaining ways of addressing the session contents that resulted in highly participative workshops. Volunteer sign up was high and everyone reported being much more confident and comfortable running the events. By-product was an
increase in in-house volunteers for other training initiatives, and great feedback from participants.