Applied CLC POKHARA NEPAL

[Dipendra]

Last year, on the day of face-to-face Community Life Competence (CLC) session, all the CLC trainees of CLC were anticipated to contribute in roll out of CLC approach in Nepal. That day, we Pokhara team Nabaraj and Dipendra planned to carry out CLC program in our working organizations including, various social organizations and ethnic societies. After having series of trainings and visits provided in UNAIDS, we did SALT visits and launched series of CLC orientation program in peer educators of FPAN (Family Planning Association Nepal, Kaski), Hemja Youth Information Center, Arun Jyoti Youth Information Center, group of out of school adolescent girls etc. Lately, we conducted CLC on ethnic society called ‘Thakuri Youth Family, Kaski’. It was a wonderful and exciting experience in this youth organization, which we have learned many and would like to share!

1. We started conducting CLC program with Ice-breaking technique using entertaining ‘Snow ball game’. Since, new members were welcomed to Youth Family in this program, it really worked well in relating with one another. In addition, reciting ‘Ghazal’ enhanced ice-breaking method.
2. We introduced ourselves as a learner not the experts. For instance, we told them our NAME only and told them to share their experience so that we could learn and share with others.
3. It was better to engage participants in discussions rather than describing and going through slides.
4. Giving more examples that are practical and relating them with real life situation really helped.
5. As a facilitator, we must be flexible accordance to time and using techniques at various situations. For instance, due to technical deficiencies; program had been delayed for 3 hours. We almost went to the situation to cancel the program. It was due to patience and strong faith towards youth members; we managed to make our program a SUCCESS.
6. Assessment of overall program was also solicited from all the participants, which we believe it to be useful in enhancing our way of working (WOW).
7. During self-assessment process, facilitator needs to be conscious and influential to identify the precise level of competency.
8. Most importantly, the effective coordination between facilitators is a key to success of every SALT visit and orientation program.
9. Facilitators need to be a critical thinker, act and   behave like a community member; for this, we recommend other facilitators to adopt “DELA” approach that means (Dress, Eat, Language and Accommodation as of community people).
10. Handling a difficult person within a group was a challenging task. We handled that situation by letting them speak in a certain topic so that they may reenter into the session.
11. Lastly, never miss the fun part because youths become more involved and concentrate when we mix fun part during the sessions. For this, we used games like moving circus etc.

The program went so well that we could not notice as the time passed by. The feedback provided by the participants was so motivating for us to move and continue this work further. Moreover, they were thankful to have this training and apply CLC to achieve their dream, which they built during the session. They too knew how to assess their competency level as a Thakuri Youth Family.  CLC became a road map to assess their competencies and how to achieve their dream through their own realized competencies.

CLC Pokhara Team

Dipendra Malla and Nabaraj Adhikari