mikocanares Associates, Capacity Building, Facilitation, Monitoring and Evaluation, National Government Agency, Results-based Management

Step Up Assists PCW

PCWStep Up Consulting Services assisted the Philippine Commission on Women in refining the results chain of one of the components of a project it implements with the support of AECID.  This activity was done in a training workshop held in Manila last 19-21 November.

The training workshop was attended by representatives from 6 provinces, namely, Aklan, Albay, Iloilo, Mindoro, Saranggani, and Surigo del Norte as well as by representatives from the Project Management Office and the Philippine Commission on Women.

The objectives of the training-workshop were to make participants understand the  basic concepts and principles of RBM as a tool in project development and management; practice the use of the RBM tools using the three-year project target for LGUs; arrive at clear indicators for the 3 year-targets and provide an overview of project development and management including its planning methodologies and tools.

The participatory, inter-active, and activity-based learning sessions proved productive with the adult learners.  The participants were able to efficiently assimilate new concepts better because of this approach.  Likewise, the RBM workshops helped crystalize ideas of participants and made more explicit their theories of change in so far as the project is concerned.

The diversity of outputs is impressive in terms of sectors and themes.  Saranggani concentrated on indigenous communities and indigenous women, Aklan on VAW victims, Albay on disaster-prone communities.  Surigao del Norte and Mindoro focused on women entrepreneurs while Iloilo tried to cover several marginalized women groups.

Step Up will continue to assist PCW in this project.

mikocanares Facilitation

Step Up Assists Bicol Center for Community Development

Step Up Consulting Services assisted Bicol Center for Community Development (see logo in this post) in its recent Strategic Planning Workshop held in Daraga, Albay last June 23-24, 2012. The workshop was attended by its board headed by Mr. John Abejuro and the organization’s staff headed by its Executive Director Ruby Desolo.

The workshop intends to craft the organization’s directions in the 2013-2017 by revisiting its vision, mission, and goals, analysing its current context including its organizations capabilities and the challenges confronting the communities that it served or intends to serve.  These two processes led to the redefinition of BCCD’s core services, the criteria for outreach, and the strategic directions that the organization wants to pursue in the next five years.

Ruby Desolo, ED of BCCD expressed appreciation to Mr. Michael Canares, Step Up Managing Consultant and lead facilitator of the 2-day workshop and reported that BCCD Staff and Board were so happy of what they have accomplished in two days because of the latter’s excellent facilitation.

Step Up Consulting Services has long years of experience in strategic planning exercises.  The firm is committed to assist organizations in their pursuit of better performance and the attaintment of organizational directions.

mikocanares Capacity Building, Facilitation

Step Up Consulting Trains Jagna Community Development Facilitators

ImageStep Up Consulting Services assisted the Municipality of Jagna by training 20 municipal government employees as facilitators. The training, entitled Facilitating for Development, intends to equip  facilitators with the necessary skills in facilitating participatory community development sessions.

Facilitating development in communities is a crucial process that entails maximum preparation on the part of facilitators.  As distinguished from training, facilitation involves not an instructive approach in bringing about learning from individuals but a bottoms-up approach in drawing conclusions based on participant’s knowledge, feelings and experiences.  Facilitation, as a process entails a lot of listening, not only to verbal but also the non-verbal cues happening at group processes and requires appreciation and not judgment of participant’s responses. The training covered these theoretical grounding.

Participants expressed appreciation to Step Up Consulting Services team for the efforts in making the training enjoyable, productive, and enriching.  The firm handled content as well as administrative arrangements for the total three-day training.