Posts Tagged ‘ottawa’

Posted on September 10, 2008

Skills for Working in Development (SKWID)

We are BOTH set to go on our way to Ottawa – Sept. 12th – 16th.

A quick blurb about SKWID below from VSO Canada.

“SKWID is a five-day course that explores the behaviours, attitudes and skills required to successfully implement a placement in one of VSO’s development programs. This course is a focused opportunity to consider and develop your skills as a development worker. Sessions in the course explore a range of common requirements of a placement with particular reference to developing the actionable individual skills that will help you to be effective in implementing different aspects of your placement in ways that are consistent with and will contribute to VSO’s overall approach to development.”

Course outline below:

Aim
To introduce you to the practical skills and attitudes you will need to implement VSO’s approach to development in your placement.

Objectives

By the end of the course, you will have:

• Analysed your placement in the context of VSO’s approaches to development.
• Identified the different roles that you may undertake at different times in your placement, working as a facilitator of change.
• Practised skills, attitudes and methods that you can use in these different roles.
• Reflected on your learning through the course and planned for how you will continue your learning in placement.

Themes

• For VSO, participation is a process of collective analysis, learning and action. The volunteer’s role in this process is to facilitate and/ or to be involved alongside other stakeholders.
• Participation underpins VSO’s three organisational approaches to development: Empowerment, partnership and commitment to learning.
• The volunteer undertakes different roles at different times in their placement as they work as a facilitator of change; these roles require different skills.
• Because of the very nature of VSO’s methodology, of working through individual volunteers, cutting across the public and private sphere, all volunteers have an advantage in working on inequalities between men and women, as well as other forms of disadvantage.

Features of the Course

• An emphasis on integrating action, theory, reflection and planning through active and experiential learning.
• Opportunities to design and practise participatory tools and facilitation skills.
• An emphasis on increasing the impact of placements through working with multiple stakeholders

Posted on June 6, 2008

Preparing For Change: Day 1

(Aside: Renting bikes in Ottawa is a great way to get around and see the city. Ottawa has the best city bike paths I have ever seen (riding around the canel, Rideau River, popping in and out the city hot spots was awesome). For about $70 at RentABike, we had our own wheels for a week which was great to take to and from the VSO/CUSO office).

Finally, the day has actually arrived and we immediately got right down to it.

First up, we were introduced to our Preparing For Change (PFC) leaders, Richard and Joel. Both have had volunteer overseas experience and were very engaging and thoughtful mentors. We had an overview of the PFC course, discussed house-keeping/session rules, and of course outlined the overall goals, objectives, and expectations of the course.

Because of scheduling conflicts, we immediately had presentations about “Traveling Overseas” from Hi and “Staying Healthy Overseas” from Dr. Mark Wise. Dr. Mark is a well-known family doctor and director of the Travel Clinic in Toronto. He is the author of “The Travel Doctor™ – Your guide to staying healthy while you travel” and he is the official medical doctor of VSO Canada. Some of the most memorable parts of his talk were:

• 4 types of malaria (1 can actually kill you) and the myth of malaria where “once you get it, you have it for life” is not exactly true. Basically, once you are cured of malaria sometimes it can lie dormant in the liver and release itself anytime later in life.
• be wary of dogs (rabies). had a good-time doing the role playing for that one.
• be pro-active and know where the health clinics are
• poly-pharmacy (take these 7 different pills and call me in the morning)
• “Try not to worry about the bumps on the road and enjoy the journey” – however, most of the roads are really bad and you should really hang on for your life.

“Travel smarts” from Hi: make sure you have a back-up plan in case there is no one there to pick you up at the airport; getting a VISA can be tricky depending on the country; and don’t over pack – you can probably buy everything you need over there.

What have we got ourselves into?

(Dinner was pretty darn good, thanks Stan!)

Posted on June 4, 2008

Ottawa via Via Rail

After a great, festive, and "being-the-centre-of-attention" event with the family and friends in Orillia, Tlell and are off to Ottawa via Via Rail. To catch our 9:30am train at Union Station in Toronto, we had an amazing limo driver (yup, a limo) who strategically battled the rainy-morning Toronto commute (diving in and out of the highway and calmly waving thanks to people who we budded in front of).

It’s been several years since I have taken the 4 1/2 hour long train ride between Ottawa and Toronto, and this time I was really stoked about using their Wi-Fi connection to do all my Internet-related activities.

$8.95 plus taxes later, I was only able to read 1 newspaper article and the subject line of a few emails.

Yes, Internet connection was extremely slow. Who knows what the problem was (if it was me or them). At every stop however, download speeds seemed to pick up (picture me whipping out the laptop and cursing every time the train started to leave the station).

ASIDE FROM THAT, the train ride was pretty smooth (comfy seats, great scenery, and interesting voyeurism views of people’s backyards).

Posted on May 14, 2008

Ottawa bound! – Preparing for Change

We are set to go to Ottawa (my old career stomping grounds) for VSO Canada’s Preparing for Change course.

Preparing for Change (PFC) is an introduction to VSO’s approach to international volunteering. During the three day event, we’ll be  exploring a range of factors that will contribute to successful adaptation to our potential new work and living environment overseas. Through a learner-centered approach, we’ll explore  aspects of personal health and wellness and the role of ourr values and behaviors in intercultural settings. We’ll also look at the broader development context – the political and economic constraints affecting people’s lives – and how our volunteer roles and activities within that context can contribute towards achieving VSO’s goals.  Finally, we will also learn about VSO’s fundraising and media outreach programs and about volunteer strategies to contribute to ongoing public engagement activities at home and overseas.

THEMES OVERVIEW:

The course includes three themes which, underlie the purpose, the methodology, and the content of PFC. Throughout different sessions, each of these themes is drawn out and displayed:

Tools, Resources, Techniques and Models
The course provides a range of resources, as well as opportunities to practice using them.

Behaviours, Attitudes and Skills
This theme concerns the role of volunteers. The course is designed to support the development of the behaviours, attitudes and skills that you can develop and that will contribute to the success of your placement.

Development Contexts
This theme completes the picture. The course explores the circumstances in which the other two themes must operate. It includes an in-depth analysis of VSO’s approach to development in the context of broader development issues.

OVERALL OBJECTIVES:
At the end of the course, we will be able to:

* Compare our expectations of volunteering with VSO with the expectations VSO has of us.
* Foresee events overseas that might make us feel vulnerable and isolated, and we’ll be able to consider appropriate coping strategies.
* Describe how the links between culture, values and behaviours influence our relationships and overall success of our placement.
* Consider power and empowerment when developing personal and professional relationships, and when problem solving.
* Describe VSO’s programmatic approach to international volunteering.
* Continue to develop our understanding of development work, at various levels, and of the many factors that contribute to it.
* Give examples of issues affecting the lives of disadvantaged people that are linked to global policies and activities.
* Take part in media outreach, public engagement, and community fundraising before, during, and after our placement overseas.
* Identify and plan for continuous learning opportunities pre- and post-departure, within and outside of VSO.

That’s all for now (without cutting and pasting the entire agenda). We’ll keep you posted.