[wsfii-discuss] REVIEW - Wireless Training in Winneba

Wed Aug 22 10:29:57 UTC 2007

Hi

I think Vickram has a lot of relevant points. (see below)

Workshops can deliver effectively only a certain distance - to distribute
new skills, to enthuse and energize people and to make friends and contacts.
The high of the workshop and the energy generated - specifically the visions
generated and fantasized often come crashing back to earth because the real
world is a "bit" more difficult than the workshop + positive environment.
Group energy works differently from individual energy

The "real world" has lots of distractions and other attendent problems -
physical resources, problem solving capabilities, human resources. The
poorer and less connected the community the harder and slower it is to make
things happen.

A question i have for participants of workshops (esp the hands on one) is
that how many have a plan of how they are going to use their learning. -
Frankly this is a very tough question to answer. How many workshops build
into their programme a real follow up mechanism and a real assurance of
help. Workshop organizers don't get me wrong but across the spectrum this is
a lacunae - where do we draw the line between how much to spend on workshops
and how much to spend on enabling a programme.

Indians / South asians  (since thats my context)  on this list are free to
disagree - but we do not have the resource people who are willing to work /
help with small  less resourced projects - the bigger the project the scale
goes further away from the poorer communities.

ram

On 8/22/07, Vickram Crishna <v1clist at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Speaking as a 'local' from a 3rd world country, I have
> witnessed the difficulty faced in organising local
> events that will justify the time and effort put in by
> participants who will travel far and wide to be there.
> Thing is, so do the locals, often enough, although
> that doesn't seem to be so obvious to outsiders till
> they get (t)here.
>
> For such events to happens smoothly (and believe me
> this has nothing to do with 'self-organising', but
> unfortunately is perhaps perceived as being related),
> even the local groups need support.
>
> The regrettable truth is that the costs of such
> support are more or less the same as needed to meet
> the ongoing costs of such events anywhere in the
> world, but are considered to be out of 'proportion' to
> the results. Which is to say, locals cope with and
> often overcome obstacles that do not exist in other
> parts of the world. Naturally, this is not valued
> proportionately.
>
> A reality we all face is that the value of things
> (resources, efforts, human time and ingenuity) is
> equated to money, but that money (currently, or
> perhaps inherently) does not reflect the equitable
> value of the resources expended. Part of the wsfii
> think process is naturally aimed at overcoming this.
> Seems like Winneba has richly illustrated it.
>
>
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