The power of knowledge and practice exchanges The learning described above greatly influences how knowledge and practices are exchanged within Voice. We began with needs assessments and training led by the facilitator teams. Things quickly moved to (individual and collective) consultations with grantee partners and rightsholders to self-identify their needs and interests and to prioritise these. We have been at the forefront of identifying the strengths and knowledge of the various grantee partners and finding out who could respond to the needs expressed by others. Or who could share skills and approaches of interest to a larger group, facilitating peer-to-peer learning.
In Niger, to celebrate International Rural Women’s Day (15 October), Timidria and Mooriben, two Voice grantee partners, organised a joint linking and learning activity. Under the theme “Strengthening resilience to the climate crisis of women and girls in rural areas”, Mrs Hadjo Djibo put her know-how and experience as a food processor at the service of the 20 women of the Naney group in the village of Gounti Koira where the association Timidria is active. A practical exchange took place transferring skills to process groundnuts into groundnut ‘cake’ and oil. Another grantee partner representing women with disabilities also participated in the exchange. At a different level in Niger, the interaction led to new learning expressing a growing interest in others, their challenges and joining their struggle. One grantee partner [unnamed] wrote:
Besides these knowledge and practice exchanges in-country, Voice also organised several ‘global’ knowledge exchanges. These were focused on learning questions related to the three pathways of the Voice Theory of Change. The two lndabas (Voice-wide learning events) and Knowledge Exchanges that took place were a great success. Bringing together grantee partners and rightsholders from all Voice countries around selected themes or learning questions, they were an opportunity to explore new approaches through open space work and creative reflection. They allowed for sharing and deepening our learning across borders, across rightsholder groups and impact themes. The first Inclusion Innovation lndaba took place in early 2018 with the first batch of global Learning from Innovation grantee partners. A wonderful opportunity to deep-dive into some amazing empowering methodologies like artivism 11 and ‘Looking In, Looking Out’, it deepened our understanding of empowering processes and having a voice.
As in most countries, in Uganda grantee partners actively participate in peer-to- peer knowledge exchange activities. For example, Sorak Development Agency, an organisation having successfully utilised a Music Dance Drama approach9 (participatory theatre) in implementation of their Voice supported project (teens to teens project), linked up with Brass for Africa and Dorna Centre Home of Autism to learn from their experience. Brass for Africa was looking for different ways to demonstrate change and to use music in creating awareness about autism. After the exchange, they started to work with parents of children with and without autism 10 to develop educational materials and create awareness. Peer-to-peer knowledge exchange
“For example, many of us learned to say hello in sign language so that we could have at least one direct interaction with a hearing-impaired person participating in the activities.”
9 Sorak had a music group that was comprised of girls and boys, majority being girls as a dummy group from which other competing schools could learn, as well as a full-time trainer who could sing, write and produce music. In terms of advocacy (edutainment), SORAK would prepare the message and the trainer composes a song. 10 See; My Voice Footprints documentary found at: https://www. linkingandlearning.ug/#/publications
11 Artivism or artistic activism - the use of creative expression to cultivate awareness and social change
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