03 CHAPTER VOICE’S LINKING AND LEARNING JOURNEY: Meandering and gently Growing
These stories illustrate how the rightsholders experienced changes to their knowledge and skills as well as changes to their attitudes, behaviours, and practices. Looking toward the future, these stories were share in an empowered, optimistic and hopeful voice.
“After 3 months in the programme, we were asked to choose what we wanted to do in terms of education. The options were, going back to formal school or vocational training institutes. Both are very good ideas. I opted for the latter and went to St. Charles Lwanga training centre and enrolled on food processing technology, a one-year course. Luckily, I received a placement at Morning side restaurant for 3 months. Through my hard work and skills, I was transitioned into a full-time employee. I am now fully committed to my work and earning a decent living. I am now a person of substance in my family and community. My dream is to own a hotel, provide employment opportunities for the youth within my community who have no means of earning a living and change their lives the same way CFK impacted mine.”
It started with words
linking and learning (L&L): “L&L envisions learning not as something coming at the end of a project when a report needs to be written or an event has to be organised. It is a process threaded throughout a grantee’s time with Voice, hopefully even after. Some may have L&L already embedded in their practice. Others, however, may need help in thinking what L&L can mean to them at both a personal and an organisational level.” And through the joint journey, a community of linking and learning practitioners formed. The further we embraced and engaged with the principles of NOthing about us Without Us (NOW Us!), Leaving No One Behind and Putting the Furthest Behind First, new questions and thoughts came up. How inclusive are we? What do these principles ask of us? How can we avoid the principles from becoming hollow phrases? And, how can these principles really influence the way things are done and the way we engage with the grantee partners and the different rightsholders groups Voice serves?
In April 2016, we started the linking and learning journey with words: words scattered throughout the Voice programme document, describing in somewhat technical jargon what linking and learning within the Voice programme could look like.7 Although integral to the grant facility, developing the linking and learning component was a journey by itself. This chapter shares some of the learnings that have been gathered along the way, interwoven with the experiences of Voice grantee partners as well as the Linking and Learning facilitator organisations from Uganda, the Philippines and Nigeria. Linking and learning was a new concept and as such, we all had different understandings of what it entailed. The ensuing challenge was to explore together what linking and learning meant to each of us and to Voice. Hence, we embarked on this journey led by questions rather than answers. In January 2018 Zack Lee, the then Linking and Learning Officer for Indonesia and the Philippines described the building blocks of
Moving on
The reflections on the rightsholders’ journeys with Voice in this chapter will inform the further implementation of the programme as well as strategic considerations for the extension phase and beyond. The extension phase opens opportunities for further interactions between rightsholders and the Voice teams. Analysis and reflections on the Stories of Change, Impact Stories and Outcome Harvesting, is an approach Voice will continue in this phase. To reflect on the validity of our Toe as well as engaging in conversations with other grant-makers and development organisations to recognise this approach as a good practice. After this deep dive into the work and achievements of grantee partners and rightsholder groups, taking stock of the validity of our current Theory of change, we are taking you on a last journey. The exciting journey to shape Linking & Learning as a programme strategy. Complementary to Voice’s grant making strategy, linking and learning provided the platform for relationship building and learning with grantee partners, otherwise constrained by the call for proposal modality. Read on to find out more about Voice’s unique legacy: Link & Learn.
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