project planning

It's little bit busy these days. I facilitated a meeting for management project topic. the participants were staffs of local ngos. i prefer to say that the meeting was a sharing meeting rather than positioning speaker-participants meeting. i rather to say that we are equal for the sharing.

project management topic is broad and we chose to discuss focusing on the topic of project planning. Despite of discussing the theory of the tools applied for project planning, we went down into practicing the tools. we think practicing the tools would be more understandable than discussing the theory of the tools itself. so it's very much practical discussion oriented. I experienced in many meetings i attended about the topics, it was very much talk in the air so that it could not be fully grasped. But in the meeting, we chose to go down to earth, if it could be said like that.

the interesting points were the spirit of them to discuss the topic. we completed the 4-day meetings with their fully participation. we chose one the project plans of lbatani, an ngo, to design it. at the end of the meetings, we finalized the materials of project planning; preparation, anylisis and design, work plan, budgetting and proposal.

another topic we much discuss was more about idealism of a project. we explored the idealism of some projects happened in this island. there were a lot projects that were very much not based on the community need but rather than the 'interest' of the project itself. i mean, some projects were designed by 'someone' else 'somewhere on this earth' and then partnering with local ngos with the issue. what happened then is the disconnection with the need of the community and the projects. so, no wonder then when there were a lot complaints from the community abt the projects. the community dont feel that that is our project too. there is no sense of belonging on it. i heard too much complaints expressed by ingos/un agencies as if the communities were no-cooperative or no-thanking of the projects. we found that was an impact when a project is disconnected with the communities. i witness how ingo and other organizations blamed the community. and tha was an easy way for not to admitting that their projects were lack of disconnection. it's sad.

another hot topic was the relation between ngo and its partners (funding, agency or whatever you and they call themselves). this is a sensitive issue. yes, i am fully aware on this. and it is not easy to find the root of this issue. somehow, we found the injustice here. and i wonder how we, ngos, very much talk about injustice and it become the motivation of working in this field, but at the same time we witness the injustice among us. the unequal relations, superior-inferior relations. i do understand when the participants expressed how they were 'systematically' put on the corner so that they (local ngos) had no options. this is most thing that made me myself skeptical on this field. but again if i just could hear the reasons behind it from the funding sides. never heard them exploring the issue though. i dont see often a serious attempt to discuss abt thiss either.

in the middle of meeting, we discussed about the christianity teaching. i was tempted to explore this issue when i found one of the particpants graduated from the theology school. we came how protestanism ethics by max weber supporting the capitalism and how we (those claiming work for social injustice) fight for injustice created by capitalism at the same time and how the theory doesnt completely work on this island (trigering the development) in which more than 80% of its population are protestants. we're going to have small discussion abt it tomorrow again. :) for brain feeding..