SALT visits; the usual way and the SALT way

[Phil]

I would like to share with you a story that comes from Luc Barrière-Constantin about SALT visits. It helps me to be very clear about the difference between my 'usual' way of doing things and the possibility of doing different. Luc is a founding member of the Constellation and currently works for UNAIDS in Tanzania.

In his story he compares two visits that he made to the Karyako Health Centre in Kigali, Rwanda. In his first visit that he made in 1994, he came as an expert from UNESCO. He came with a 'very professional perspective'. The second visit was a SALT visit that he made with the Constellation in December 2006.

For him, the big change with the SALT visit was that 'we saw the staff changing their mind with regard to the visitors because they decided that they had something more interesting to share with us than the usual things that they talked about.'
I like very much the idea that people understand during a SALT visit that there are very interesting things that they have to discuss with each other.

Luc concludes his story with this advice to people who go on a SALT visit:

'I would say that it is more important to look at the people themselves, not at what they are doing, not at their place in the system. What is important is the type of interaction they have with the people around them.
I would say that when you go on a SALT visit, the informal interaction and the search for what makes people happy is a good starting point for the discussion.'

You can read Luc's full story in the version of Blended Learning that it open to everyone. You can find it at http://constellation.helsekompetanse.no/atutor/9/content/290/

You can also download a file 'Rwanda story by Luc.doc' containing the story at a Constellation Library that we are starting to build. Once again it is open to everyone and the link is http://constellation.helsekompetanse.no/atutor/library/file_storage...