The Dreams Come Through: How UNFPA Indonesia Mainstreaming CLCP into 8th Country Programme

[Risya Kori]

On July 7 – 9, 2010, for the first time after 2 weeks of IndoCompetence legally established, together with Constellation, I, Gaston, Dewi, Wiwin and UNFPA team (Retha, Lily, Salmiyati, Widad, Ady and Olivia) facilitated the Learning Event of Integrating CLCP into UNFPA Indonesia 8^th Country Programme with 32 UNFPA Indonesia Country Office staffs in Bandung, West Java.

This is the 4 years journey since October 2006, when UNFPA (Pak Zahid and I) along with friends from Local AIDS Commission of Papua and West Kalimantan were exploring the SALT visit in ChiangMai, ChiangRai and Phayao. Having IndoCompetence established and Introducing the CLCP with all UNFPA team are my dreams that fortunately came along together…..

It was the 2, 5 days memorable moment for UNFPA team in Bandung when for the first time they interacted in a SALTY ways as one family, where boundaries and hierarchies are forgotten. Everybody was enthusiastically contributing her/his best to build the avenue of their dream as an organization that pioneering the approach within their programme and working environment.

Since CLCP has been integrating into 3 of UNFPA mandates (AIDS, Gender Based Violence, and Reproductive Health) within some pilot areas, some of UNFPA Indonesia Country Office staffs were experiencing or at least recognizing the approach. To have everybody equal understanding on the approach and ability to integrate within the 8^th Country Programme were the challenges faced by the facilitation team, especially UNFPA team is on the process of finalizing its Country Programme Action Plan (CPAP).

“We are good in providing data and analysis but we are not good enough to stimulate for solution”, Zahidul Huque, UNFPA

We started the first day deeply more into the way of thinking and the way of working to have everybody basic foundation to move on, we revisit the whole process at a glance and at the end of day 1, the UNFPA team did their SALT Self Assessment and freely expressed their understanding of SALT within the big paper of how each word means to them……thank you to Dewi for her brilliant idea! We put all the pictures on the wall as appreciation of UNFPA’s team ownership of these principles that will embedded along the way when they will practice the whole process. The session was continued with the team’s SALT Self Assessment.

“After two years working with UNFPA, this is the first time I’ve heard personal story of everybody….” Abby (UNFPA)

The day 1 was an ice breaking moment for the team especially when everybody shared the story of her/his personal live from the past that created “turning point” and the team SALT Self Assessment when everybody openly discussed on their strengths as well as their willingness to improve.

“Thank you for those who willing to share good, bad and sad story from her/his live….I really appreciate that and see your strengths from there…” said Ade Rianom (UNFPA) when we ended the day 1.

On the day 2, after short brief, the team divided into 6 groups to conduct the SALT Visit to the community of volunteers, youth, and the CSO’s partner of UNFPA, PKBI. Since the SALT Visits were the first time conducted by the whole team, varies experience among the team raised during the AAR as I was fascinated by the transformation of Richard Makalew, one of UNFPA senior staff who proudly spoke on how he learned and captured the strengths from the youth community he visited. Something that totally different from day 1 when it took him sometimes to share his experience of “Learning” within our group because he was struggling to associate the learning process with the “community” as “those who live in a certain area as a target group”. He finally realized that we can learn from anybody, even the loved ones.

After revisited the whole CLCP process, our biggest challenge during the facilitation process were setting up a strategy on how we can accompany the team to integrate the CLCP into 8^th CP without imposition but still in line with our recommendation. In the same time, we faced time limitation as we got enthusiastic proposal from UNFPA facilitator’s team that the SALT Self Assessment should be elaborate more in order to create more solid working environment for UNFPA team.

We need the concrete Action Plan for both, integrating SALT into UNFPA working environment and integrating CLCP into 8^th CP, meanwhile we had only 2 hours on day 2 and half day on the day 3. In the same time, there was a big consideration to keep create enabling environment of UNFPA support staffs (financial & administration staffs) to speak out more as part of the team.

“The biggest challenge in integrating the CLCP into 8^th CP for me is to make myself more salty, I have tried it and I will make it one day, I need to be more patient and listen more! “ Melania Hidayat, UNFPA

Thank to Gaston who delivered very strategic message at a very strategic moment to stimulate the UNFPA team to come up with their idea on integrating CLCP into UNFPA 6^th CP through team brainstorming. The switching agenda came smoothly with the support of solid facilitation team while several UNFPA staffs were sharing on their experience in integrating the CLCP into their own context. At the end of the day we didn’t find any difficulty to synergize our proposed idea with the UNFPA’s as their ideas were just need to be stimulated. We gathered more than 10 ideas and simplified it into 8 ideas in which one of the recommendation was to follow-up the SALT Self Assessment into more concrete Action Plan.

The rest of day 3 was much easier, after prior discussion, we agreed to use the first two hours on the development of “SALTY UNFPA working environment”. It was a surprised when the team proposed to work on all 6 practices from only 3 priority practices that we proposed, “we need to work on all practice if we want to achieve UNFPA as a SALTY team”, that was the reason. A fruitful discussion among them on the ways forward and they even came with the ideas of having guardian angels for each staff as a guard to keep them salty and using AAR for internal staff meeting, the ideas that came from those who feel that they need to improve more in the office relationship. The toughtful discussion where all staff blended, treated equally with no title of programme, support staff or even the office driver.

We ended the Learning Event with how to integrate CLCP into UNFPA 8^th CP. The team divided by 4 groups and it was remarkabling that the group division was benefit all staff and gave opportunity off all staff to participate. Some programme staffs were focusing more on the programme level process such as integrating CLCP into the CP assessment, development of Annual Work plan and using it as a M&E tools, meanwhile the support staffs were more into the integration of SALT within UNFPA office such as Office Management Plan and Blended Learning Programme for UNFPA staffs.

“To have this event with UNFPA team is my dream, and I can feel how everybody start to improve the way we communicate and the way we will work in the office”, Widad, UNFPA said at the end of Learning Event

There was a doubt, worried and skeptical feeling during the 2, 5 days event. However, it was proof that all the doubtful and worries were gone as we had a combination of excellent participants and great facilitation team…. the strengths we’ve learned from UNFPA Indonesia team will spread more along with the implementation of UNFPA 8^th CP.

[Lawan Vejapikul]

Very well done, Mbak Ria : )

Congratulation to both IndoCompetence and UNFPA, Indonesia!!!

Miss you all,

Lawan : )

[Olivia Munoru]

Dear Risya,

You have a talent for remembering detail! You captured everything - you must be a great listener... The quotes are fantastic - and, now as I sit in the office in "action phase", these quotes help to motivate me to keep the momentum going here at UNFPA. The passion in Bandung was simply wonderful. UNFPA Indonesia will be an example for others to follow!

And on a personal level, it was such a pleasure to work with such a dedicated and wise facilitator team. I am lucky to be learning from the best! Thank you for your guidance, and the fun times.

Liv

[Lily Puspasari]

Dear Yuk Ria ('Yuk' pronounced as 'yook' means older sister, in a very mother-tounge slang of risya and myself)
It is an excellent memory and very well-written preceedings of the event. Some might know about my skeptical mind, but the event has wiped it out clearly. Now UNFPA Indonesia will handle a good and better grip of their upcoming 5-year programme cycle, that is for sure!

[rebeka sultana]

Dear Risya,

What a beautiful blog. Dream comes true. I loved reading your blog, the inspiring quotes and felt your pulse of passion for CLCP and UNFPA! Let we nourish our dream everyday!

Much love,
Rebeka

[chandra nurhasz]

Wow, great story!

I see simple quotations, close to our life both work and daily one, but very deep in the meaning. They are really inspiring.

FYI, mba Lany has share her knowledge assets on "Addressing Violence against Women and Girls in Sexual and Reproductive Health Service"s in the UNFPA publication to us, all project staffs (see http://www.unfpa.org/public/home/publications/pid/6233)

cn

[Dewi Rahmadania]

Dear Mbak Ria..,

Great Story mbak...
You makes me feel like i am there again..!
its beautifull how you can facilitate and i learn much from you..,

thank u...,
kecak clap..,
Dewi

[wiwin winarni]

Dear Mba Risya...

You not only such a wonderful mentor for me, but also very powerfull on sharing very details and inpiring process of learning we've experienced with UNFPA Indoneisa staffs. Thanks alot, this motivate me to learn alot from you. You did lead us splendidly at the learning event (and Indocompetence of course). Gaston also supported us alot, as always.

Best Regards

Wiwin

[Laurence Gilliot]

Wonderful blog, Risya, thank you so much. It was a great challenge to integrate SALT into the UNFPA plan and you all did a wonderful job. I'd love to hear from other UNFPA friends :-)

Laurence

[Gaston]

Wow! That's a wonderful capturing of what happened. Thank you so much for this. I'll still include some elements in the report. You remembered the quotes and changes so well. It was such a pleasure to work with all of you. You do have to Photo-shop yourself in the picture though!