Supported by the HLA team in West and Central Africa, Save the Children Niger and the Education cluster in Niger trained 30 humanitarians in a 5-day Education in Emergencies Fundamentals programme in Niamey, Niger.
Education in Emergencies Fundamentals is a 50-hour facilitated course provided by the HLA, which aims to equip country office education and EiE staff with the fundamental competencies to be part of initiating, designing and implementing a quality EiE response in their context.
A participant who attended the training said: “It was a very rich session of exchange and sharing of experience in the field of education in emergency situations. The points raised were very clear and varied, enabling us to improve our future interventions. Thank you to the organisers of this training session.”
In Niamey, Honore Kabamba, Technical Adviser for Education and Idrissa Abdou Malam, Education and Protection Program Manager focused the training on Programme Design in EiE, Protection & well-being of children and teachers and for the first time included a module on Safe Schools Declaration.
My experience as a co-facilitator gave me a great deal of confidence in leading and managing large groups of seasoned adults. The interactions I had with the participants enabled me to gauge the level of listening skills and the attention the audience paid to my performance. On a completely different level, the daily preparations for the sessions to be presented strengthened my grasp of the content of the various training modules.”
The ESU [EiE] training last July was an opportunity to bring together various education inspectors from different localities in Niger (Tillabéri, Diffa, Maradi) as well as Save the Children’s technical team working on education projects, to share experiences and deepen our knowledge of education in emergency situations, one of SCI’s main lines of intervention. We benefited from outstanding facilitation that enabled us to acquire knowledge on this subject while strengthening our links and sharing lessons learned. Without doubt, an enriching training course and a great opportunity to get involved.”
Given the situation in Niger, no staff member of HLA was able to be present in Niamey, Niger. As a result, this training was facilitated entirely by staff from outside HLA. Technical support was provided prior to the training, to prepare the facilitators, who then managed the training on their own.
Idrissa who helped to deliver the training said: “This training session achieved its objectives. The enthusiasm shown by the participants demonstrates their commitment to their personal and professional development.
“In addition, the choice to involve staff from various institutions gave them the opportunity to learn from others and equip them with the fundamentals of the ESU [EiE]. This gives them the opportunity to improve the way they respond to educational needs in emergency situations in their different areas of intervention.
In short, this training will once again create a pool of resource people ready to provide support in emergency education responses in Niger in general and in the Diffa and Tillabéri regions in particular.”
As new Education in Emergencies projects are emerging in the country, at the same time there is expansion of operations into new areas; this training was needed and useful to strengthen the skills of new staff and partners. Knowledge tests at the end of the training demonstrated the training’s effectiveness and there are plans for analysis on knowledge application in the near future.
