9th January 2025
In this podcast episode, we take you on a deep dive exploration of a transformative programme designed to address the unique challenges faced by women working in the education context in crisis affected communities across Pakistan.
In July 2024, participants engaged in the Women in EiE Fundamentals and Transformation of Training (ToT) programmes, which aim to build a skilled group of female trainers. This initiative – developed by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy in partnership with Save the Children Pakistan and the Pakistan Education Working Group – supports women EiE professionals, especially in areas where only women can teach women.
We published the initial story of the training as it happened, and in this episode we present an audio journey of this initiative by sharing voices from the training room and beyond.
Ka Man Parkinson (HLA Communications and Marketing Specialist) takes us behind the scenes through a series of conversations with:
- Efren Lubuguin (HLA EiE Professional Development Programme Manager for Asia Pacific)
- Co-facilitators Ehsan Ullah and Humaira Naseer (Pakistan Education Cluster Working Group co-leads from UNICEF and Save the Children International respectively)
- We also hear the voices of four women participants, captured in the training venue in Islamabad in July 2024.
We discover the origin story of this initiative, how the training unfolded together with reflections on successes and lessons learned.
From the participants, we hear firsthand how this training is strengthening technical expertise and responses to climate-induced emergencies – in particular monsoons and flooding – while also supporting women in navigating the constraints that they can face within their work and communities in different provinces across the country.
This episode – introduced by Casey Pearson (HLA Technical Learning Specialist) – shares a optimistic and compelling example of sectoral cooperation to help untap the power and potential of women educators in Pakistan.
The conversations are packed with a wealth of expert insights and personal accounts and experiences, highlighting the role of feminist pedagogy and centering women’s voices in EiE work. Tune in!
Who this episode is aimed at
This episode is an insightful listen for:
- EiE practitioners, trainers, and educators
- Programme managers in the humanitarian and development sectors, particularly those focused on working with communities and gender sensitive programming
- MEAL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning) practitioners
- Research and evidence specialists across the humanitarian sector
Keywords: EiE, Education, women, gender sensitive programming, Pakistan, Education Sector Working Group, emergency preparedness, climate induced emergencies, emergency response, technical expertise, feminist pedagogy, feminist leadership, training, humanitarians, capacity strengthening, capacity sharing, localisation, local leadership, inclusion, advocacy, impact, theory of change.
Listen to the episode now available on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Spotify*, Amazon Music* and more!
Access note: listeners in Pakistan may experience issues accessing the episode on Spotify and Amazon Music. At the time of publishing in January 2025, listeners in Pakistan are able to access the episode via Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout and other platforms.
We must continuously explore the centrality of women’s voices and leadership in the teaching and learning of technical expertise, such as EiE within the humanitarian sector. From this experience, this will potentially yield stronger impact to communities in crisis where women’s potentials are untapped. So I would say one woman voice, one girl child’s step at a time.
For the future, I would like to place myself for the more leadership task. And when I put myself in the leadership role to demonstrate, to make them see the change is happening – when the woman is a part of planning, the processing and the implementation so there the change will be happen. So I think this approach will impact the females and girls around me and in communities as well.
Episode chapters
00:00 Chapter 1: Introduction from Casey Pearson
02:00 Chapter 2: The training background: coordination, design and implementation – with Efren Lubuguin
15:00 Chapter 3: Feminist pedagogy and the centrality of women’s needs and voices – with Efren Lubuguin
24:05 Chapter 4: Reflections on how the training unfolded in July 2024 – with Efren Lubuguin
27:37 Chapter 5: The power of collaboration, contextualisation and localisation: reflections from Pakistan Education Cluster Working Group co-leads from UNICEF and Save the Children International – with Ehsan Ullah and Humaira Naseer
58:10 Chapter 6: Key learnings from the training: Efren’s reflections
63:03 Chapter 7: Voices from the training room: four participant reflections
72:06 Chapter 8: Evaluation and future aspirations and next steps – with Efren Lubuguin
About the speakers
Casey Pearson is Technical Learning Specialist, Humanitarian Leadership Academy. Casey leads the HLA EiE Professional Development Programme and is based in London, UK.
Efren Lubuguin is Education in Emergencies Professional (EiE PDP) Regional Development Manager for Asia, Humanitarian Leadership Academy. Efren is based in Manila, Philippines.
Humaira Naseer is the Education Cluster Coordinator for the Pakistan Education Sector Working Group, Save the Children International. Humaira is based in Islamabad, Pakistan.
Ehsan Ullah is Education Officer for the Pakistan Education Sector Working Group Coordinator, UNICEF. Ehsan is based in Islamabad, Pakistan.
Ka Man Parkinson is Communications and Marketing Specialist, Humanitarian Leadership Academy. Ka Man is based near Manchester, UK.
Credits: This episode was produced by Ka Man Parkinson in January 2025. The participant interviews were conducted by Sakina Babar from Save the Children Pakistan.
Discover more
Explore information resources on feminist pedagogy shared by Efren, a concept he highlights in this episode
Play, protest and pedagogy: A Transnational approach to feminist-worldbuilding – Institute of Development Studies. Accessed 08 January 2025
Feminist Pedagogy – Gender and Education Association GEA. Accessed 08 January 2025
02 Feminist Pedagogies.pdf. UN Women Training Centre. Accessed 08 January 2025
Tungpalan, M. T. V. Processes and outcomes of group learning approaches among women: In search of feminist pedagogy. University of the Philippines. Accessed 08 January 2025
Related content
HLA EiE Professional Development Programme
News article on the Women’s EiE training Pakistan
Podcast episode: Education in Emergencies: the viewpoint from Asia in 2023
Article and videos sharing the story of the HLA EiE Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) Asia residential in Bangkok that Ka Man refers to in this episode
Article on EiE Fundamentals in the Pacific Islands which Ka Man briefly mentioned in this episode
Contact us
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Feedback/enquiries: please email info@humanitarian.academy or connect with us on social media.
The views and opinions expressed in our podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of their organisations.
Podcast episode transcript
[Intro music]
00:01 Chapter 1: Introduction from Casey Pearson
Casey: Welcome to Fresh Humanitarian Perspectives, the podcast brought to you by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy.
I’m Casey Pearson, the Technical Learning Solutions Specialist in Education in Emergencies here at HLA. And today we’re sharing the story of a very exciting training initiative led by my colleague Efren Lubuguin, who is the HLA’s EiE Professional Development Programme Manager for the Asia Pacific region.
Earlier this year, we identified a critical gap in training provisions that are tailored to meet the unique challenges faced by women in the Education in Emergencies settings.
And in this episode, we will hear the story of how a training was conceptualised, designed and delivered specifically for women in Pakistan who are responding to climate-induced emergencies across the country.
We’ll hear interviews between my colleague Ka Man Parkinson from the HLA’s Communications team together with Efren, Humaira Naseer, and Ehsan Ullah from the Education Working Group in Pakistan. We’ll also hear from some of the participants themselves.
These reflections have been captured over the course of six months, so it’s a live case study of the story and impact of this training, which for me is incredibly interesting and insightful. It’s a great example of what can be achieved through strong relationships and capacity sharing.
So listen in, let us know what you think. The episode touches lots of themes, from a practical and pedagogical perspective, so maybe of interest to EiE practitioners, educators, trainers, as well as colleagues in MEAL and research and evidence roles across the humanitarian space.
So enjoy!
[Intro music ends]
02:00 Chapter 2: The training background: coordination, design and implementation -with Efren Lubuguin
Ka Man: Hi Efren, welcome back to the podcast!
Efren: Hi, Ka Man! Thank you for inviting me again here at the podcast and share the EiE PDP work.
Ka Man: Oh, that’s great, it’s so nice to have you here with us today. So, long time followers of the show may recall that you were a guest back in September 2023 where you were setting out your vision and plans for the year ahead. And what a year it’s been! It’s been so great seeing these plans come to fruition with so many exciting outcomes.
And for me on a personal note, one of my professional highlights of the year was getting the opportunity to meet you and work alongside you in person at the EiE Asia Certificate of Advanced Studies Residential in Bangkok in October, so it’s really nice to have this opportunity to connect with you again.
So let’s go back to the beginning. Could you explain how this training came about and why the HLA worked with the Education Cluster in Islamabad to devise and deliver this intervention for women?
Efren: Thank you, Ka Man. Yeah, I would say there are four steps here, first is the exploration step. You know the EiE PDP global team with Casey Pearson, our Technical Specialist, noticed that we only have a maximum of three women for every 10 participants in the EiE Fundamental group course across various countries, so Casey suggested to me, early around March of 2024, if Asia region can explore an all women EiE Fundamentals course, for which I gladly and immediately accepted the idea.
At the start, we would like to find out the reasons of the low participation of women and how this affects the EiE Cluster work and what can we do in HLA to support the Cluster in developing more women professionals in EiE.
So the second step is coordination. So then we need to pitch this initial concept and identify an Education Cluster who would be willing to explore this with HLA in terms of identifying the need or rationale for an all women EiE Fundamentals course, select the participants, co-design training and include this initiative to the overall capacity building plans of the Cluster, whereas you know they will carry on after the training.
So Humaira and Ehsan of Pakistan Education Working Group agreed to the concept note. And I should, we must also thank the support of Save the Children Pakistan management team, especially Sehar Taimoor, Education Advisor of Save the Children Pakistan who is also a current CAS student, for their support to this initiative.
And then you know what is exciting here is that Humaira coined the term ‘We EiE’, which stands for Women for Education in Emergencies, which I loved and pick it up from then on like about March of 2024.
So the next step is actually, Ka Man, is the design step. So with the support from Education Working Group, we administer training needs assessment and pre-tests. I’ve done a series of consultation meetings with the Working Group and Save the Children Pakistan.
To determine the priorities, the needs and the rationale for this training and then we adapt the EiE Fundamentals course that we already have in HLA EiE PDP.
And I think the key part here as well is that the Working Group are really played a very important role in screening of invite of participants through an application process. And in the end we’ve able to gather 35 participants with 31 females and four male participants. Six of them are from government, 11 are from local NGOs, and 12 are from international NGOs, and six are from UN agencies.
So it’s really the Education Working Group who is doing the steering of you know, the preparation for this training. And then later on we realised that in the design stage we need to include EiE TOT – or the Transformation of Training – and that’s a training module that we deliver in EiE PDP. And that is to equip this women in training others, know, I am training other local actors in the humanitarian and EiE within the different provinces of Pakistan.
So I pause there Ka Man, or you want me to continue with the implementation and the post training assessment phase?
Ka Man: Well, just thank you so much for outlining that. I’ll just share a couple of brief reflections before you move to the next steps. Well, first of all, what struck me as you sort of outlined the exploration, I think it’s really exciting that Casey, by sort of analysing the data identified that there were only a maximum of three women for every 10 participants in the EiE Fundamentals course which is something that needed to be addressed and it’s great that this opportunity arose for you to then design and intervention specifically to address this need. So I think that’s a really interesting thing for me to hear.
And then on the coordination side of things, I think it’s really great and also impressive that you were able to then pitch this concept to others and bring on board the Pakistan Education Cluster, because it’s so relevant to their context and needs and how you’re able to bring on board advocates like Sehar Taimoor from Save the Children Pakistan.
So I think that’s that sort of origin story, if you like, is a very interesting and exciting one, and I’m sure other people who are listening, who may be in a similar field, considering and designing training interventions, will be encouraged to hear about the progress that you’re able to make with this, and how it’s able to gain traction in a relatively short space of time from my perspective.
Efren: Thank you, Ka Man. Yeah. And so with the implementation step, I didn’t actually facilitate this alone, so Sehar, Humaira and Ehsan co-facilitate sessions with me.
But essentially, we’re bringing in the EiE Fundamentals course that is based on INEE Standards, which is normally we deliver within 4-5 days, and mostly lectures, presentation and group workshops.
But then when we are conceptualising this Women in EiE, we thought of why don’t we kind of like push it a bit further and contextualise the EiE Fundamentals those based from the recent experience of the March 2024 flash floods in Pakistan.
And we would like the training to be more hands-on, participatory and practical training, on improving their, you know, appreciation of EiE principles and concepts, and developing an EiE response plans.
So we came up with that idea. So instead of having a four-day training, we come with a three-day training. But it’s more hands-on. I call it ‘activity-based learning approach’ where they will be using a real case study which is the March 2024 flash floods in Pakistan and yeah the participants will be able to learn the principles, the theories and at the same time, applying their knowledge and new skills to come up with an EiE response plan.
So that that’s the whole idea of the implementation. We did that because we also have to integrate the two – we have to include the two day EiE Training of Trainers because one of the concern of the Education Working Group when I am consulting them is that they need a pool of women trainers in EiE who can actually deliver trainings in the local settings where men trainers are not allowed to train women in schools or in government or in communities, so there is this cultural barrier that male trainers cannot train a women trainer.
And so that came to the idea of why don’t we have a three-day EiE Fundamentals and a two day ToT back-to-back so that the whole aim of this training event is to equip a pool of women trainers in EiE Fundamentals, yeah, and will cascade training at the local levels in in Pakistan. So yeah, so that’s the whole idea.
And I am just so lucky that the Education Working Group is very supportive and so we were able to administer post-training assessments to be able to, you know, to later on to track the progress and the impact of these initiatives, so we were able to utilise different tools, such as post-session feedback, pre- and post-testing evaluation, post training, evaluation and now we are conducting the post three month survey.
So in a sense this initiative, Ka Man, has actually all the data needed to be able to come up with our own analysis and assessment if this strategy works or not. So yeah, I’d like to end there and I’d like to hear your thoughts.
Ka Man: Yeah, no, that’s fantastic. Thank you, Efren. What I’m hearing really is that you’re able to sort of develop this very contextualised, tailored EiE Fundamentals to suit the Pakistan context for women – it’s a very robust framework – in such a short amount of time, and that’s really thanks to the shared expertise and support of all the stakeholders that we’ve talked about – the Education Cluster, Save the Children Pakistan to meet the specific cultural and the practical needs of women educators to work in certain areas of the country.
And bringing in the case study of the 2024 flash floods made it a very practical and real life example, so I think that is such a sort of focused, agile and rapid roll-out of that training, so it’s a really timely and contextualised intervention. So that’s really impressive for me to hear.
15:00 Chapter 3: Feminist pedagogy and the centrality of women’s needs and voices – with Efren Lubuguin
Ka Man: So you’ve already outlined and touched upon some of this just now, but going back to sort of EiE Fundamentals in general, could you share the kinds of adaptations that you made for this programme for women? So I know you’ve already outlined some, but if you could take us behind the scenes a bit more on that, that would be great.
Efren: Yeah. Thank you, Ka Man. Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, this is fundamentally lifted from the EiE Fundamentals course of HLA. We just made some adaptations or contextualisation based on the need based on the priority of the Education Working Group and the invited participants.
But aside from that, looking at it as the lead implementer or lead facilitator I would say that the teaching and learning delivery of these women in EIE is consistent with HLA training principles of adult learning. It is based on dialogue, it is participatory, and it is experiential or practical you know.
But I also would like to think that as a facilitator, it is very important that you carry on within you as a facilitator the idea or the principle of feminist pedagogy. And feminist pedagogy is not really different from adult learning principles, because feminist pedagogy is assumes that a learning process and an environment must empower women, you know, and as a facilitator, you must be conscious or you have the sensitivity to recognise that there are restrictive environments where women in the sector has less voice and take less leadership roles, so I think that’s very important. You carry that as a facilitator – that recognition, that’s some women have you know are living in a restricted environments.
So, I’d like to think that in the learning sessions, the way we facilitate it is. If the evoking women’s voices and stories are embedded in each of the learning sessions, so most of the time we hear about their stories as programme managers, as teachers, as school heads.
And, really, to be honest, you know you cannot stop them from sharing real stories from the recent flood experience of Pakistan, like sharing stories of how women in communities, how women teachers in communities, you know. That’s their part in the response.
So I think as a facilitator you must have that sensitivity to actually gather that stories and I would consider that as a learning I would say as a learning specialist, Ka Man, is that I would consider that as part of the silent curriculum or the hidden curriculum of the training design. It’s more, it’s more runs within the facilitation strategies that attitude where the women’s voice voices to be surface. Those are facilitation strategies that you use at the moment of facilitating the training and the last part I would say is weaving those voices into strategies in improving EiE response plan.
So I think the whole idea of facilitating a feminist pedagogy such as this is capturing their voices, capturing their stories, and how you put them together and build it as a as a coherent strategy in developing an EiE response plan.
So yeah, I don’t know if that makes sense, but that that’s my reflection, yeah.
Ka Man: Absolutely! I absolutely loved everything that you just shared just now in this segment. It really resonates with me. Feminist pedagogy – that’s such a great concept, and thank you for explaining what that might actually entail in reality and your reflections as a facilitator.
As I mentioned at the start, I had the pleasure of working with you, alongside you, in person at the EiE CAS residential in Bangkok, where you were working together with the participants from all across the Asia Pacific context – including participants from Pakistan, across the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia.
And what was, what I actually saw is some of this in practice. So you do practice what you preach here, Efren, that you were incorporating strategies to respond to the different needs – the different social styles as you called it – of the participants and taking that to into account to ensure that you create a safe and inclusive learning environment, and that was one of the very impressive things that I saw – not just saying that to flatter you Efren! But that was something that was really inspiring and I could see the cohort, the dynamics of the cohort sort of shift and adjust over the course of the week.
So that that was great to see that that how powerful that those adjustments and sort of sensitivity to the needs of the participants and how that can actually play out in the training room. So I could go on about this for days because I think it’s so fascinating! [laughs]
But if someone is anyone interested is because I think this is such a fascinating topic that will resonate with people even outside of the Education in Emergencies sphere. If anyone is interested to know more about feminist pedagogy and this topic that you’re talking about, are there any sort of resources or anything that you could signpost people to just kind of get under the skin of this a bit more because I think it sounds so fascinating.
Efren: Yeah, yeah. Actually yes Ka Man. There is a lot. It’s one body of knowledge and literature that we that is available online on feminist pedagogy because I mean my earlier career life, I was trained in community development and in participatory approaches. So this is what this is, the period where I, you know, I encounter this so yeah so feminist leadership, feminist pedagogy. Yeah, and it’s basically also as I’ve said very much a link or related with the adult learning or andragogy that we are using in HLA and basically we are saying that teaching and learning must liberate individuals or empower individuals.
So that’s basically the premise of feminist pedagogy as well. But also if in the feminist pedagogy you also have to you know, as I’ve said, recognise that there are restrictive environments where women have less voice and have less leadership roles, and so yeah, it’s part of the given.
And so you must know something to surface women’s voices so that they will be able to, yeah, claim their leadership role. They claim their, yeah, distinct role in the society or humanitarian response in general.
Ka Man: That’s fantastic. Honestly, it’s so fascinating. And if you share any sort of links or anything, I can drop that in the show notes so that listeners can find out a bit more into this fascinating area.
Efren: Sure.
24:05 Chapter 4: Reflections on how the training unfolded in July 2024 – with Efren Lubuguin
Ka Man: So, I had the pleasure of catching up with Humaira and Ehsan from Save the Children and UNICEF respectively, the Education Cluster Coordinators, in October, so a couple of months ago now. I think at that time you’re in Papua New Guinea delivering EiE Fundamentals there. So I was able to get there sort of immediate post, well, not immediate, but post training, reflections a couple of months down the line.
So before we sort of bring their voices in, I wonder if you could briefly describe your overall experience of how women’s EiE Fundamentals played out. And yeah, just some brief thoughts before we hear from Humaira and Ehsan.
Efren: Thanks, Ka Man. Yeah, I think I have three things that I wanted to share about my experience in general.
This is a challenging one because it’s a new concept and strategy, so in a sense you are challenging the status quo. What I mean is that yeah, you know when if you are in a restricted – in some restrictive environments – they are, some people would not be used to have women speaking or women leading. So yeah, you’re basically rocking the boat, so it is a challenging one.
Second is that, but you know getting the support of my co-facilitators and the positive feedback from participants encourage us the whole team to continue. So during the process of our training, we have mood checks. And so yeah, I would usually get, you know, quick feedback from participants like how they are doing the in the sessions, how do how do they like the sessions, can they participate, can they actually, you know, raise their voices, and speak up. So, yeah, getting those encouraging comments from our feedback from our participants really actually help.
The third one is the you know I just maintained the attitude of exploratory learning to sustain my motivation to innovate at training delivery strategies. Because I mean, it’s something new. When I was presenting this to Casey, both of us actually are not sure if this will work or not, but you know we’re, I’m so glad that Casey was very supportive of me. You know, OK, let’s try that.
And so, having that exploratory learning attitude really helped and I am just lucky to have Sehar, Humaira and Ehsan because they are there in the process, and organically we learn together as we facilitate the training.
And it’s not easy because we have 35 participants and 31 are female and four male. and we have one participants with physical disability. And so we have we have to make a lot of adjustments along the along the implementation. Yeah. Thank you Ka Man.
27:37 Chapter 5: The power of collaboration, contextualisation and localisation: Reflections from Pakistan Education Cluster Working Group co-leads from UNICEF and Save the Children International – with Ehsan Ullah and Humaira Naseer
Ka Man: That’s great. We’ll now hear from Humaira and Ehsan bring their voices in from when I caught up with them in October to hear their perspectives.
[music jingle]
Humaira: Thank you very much Ka Man for giving us an opportunity. First of all, my name is Humaira Naseer. I’m the National Cluster Coordinator for the education Sector Working group from Save the Children.
And as you are aware, all over globally, Education Sector Working group is co-led by UNICEF and Save the Children. I’ve been here in this role from last one and a half years and previously before that I was in United Nations, Sudan and Pakistan as an education specialist. And I’ve also worked in the capacity of the same role, Cluster Coordinator in Sudan also. I have been a programme manager in Aga Khan. Education has been my field from the last 15 years. Thank you.
Ka Man: That’s wonderful, what rich experience you have in the sector Humaira. Thank you very much for being here today. Now coming to you, Ehsan, welcome. Please could you let our listeners know a little bit about yourself?
Ehsan: I’m Ehsan, I’m working as the Education Sector Working Group Coordinator at national level with UNICEF and I have been involved in the sector and Cluster system since 2010.
Ka Man: Brilliant. Thank you, Ehsan. Thank you very much to both of you for being here today. Ehsan, could you please tell us a little bit about the Education Cluster in Pakistan and why you decided to collaborate with the HLA and Save the Children to organise this particular training session in Islamabad in July that was centred on the specific needs of women.
Ehsan: Yeah, I just wanted to give you a background. In Pakistan, we have the Education Emergency Sector Working Group. The sector is having all those functions which a typical Cluster is doing and this is something which we are basically are doing coordination with the government and with the humanitarian agencies.
And now coming on that, how or why we connected the Humanitarian Leadership Academy is something that we wanted to learn from the Academy which has a wealth of experience, trainer, knowledge, packages which could be customised in the country context.
And also the HLA is offering other services including the Kaya platform and it has a range of different expertise.
So since we wanted to prepare our sector, our members in the in the Education in Emergencies sector, and most prominently, we were looking to build capacity of the woman in education emergency. And this was something which we discuss among ourselves, myself and Humaira from Save the Children as a co-lead, and then we approach the HLA to have a customised programme for us, which basically went very well.
We have observed that nearly 34 women from the all the provinces attending at that training and they really expressed satisfaction and then are expecting to use this knowledge. And they are responding in the different emergency at the local level.
Ka Man: That’s great. Thank you very much, Ehsan. And Humaira, would you be able to share your perspective from Save the Children International?
Humaira: Thank you very much, Ka Man, again. I just wanted to endorse what Ehsan has already said. I will not duplicate that information, but add into the information he has already is that that Humanitarian Leadership Academy initiated an Education in Emergencies course already last year in November with the Education Sector Working group through Save the Children and where me and Ehsan successfully collaborated with them. It was a mixed group of more than 35 people in Islamabad where me and Ehsan had had discussion with the Humanitarian Leadership training manager Efren.
And we came up with this new idea of launching a new training, another chapter of this training in 2024, where we exclusively planned women in Education in Emergencies programme.
And that’s how Save the Children and Humanitarian Leadership developed this programme with UNICEF as co-lead and through education sector we both came up with a concept note where we were of the opinion, both of us, that with Efren we discussed that in Pakistan when Education in Emergency is being hit through floods or earthquakes.
So the most affected people are the people cannot be reached and access is a very big issue as because Pakistan is culturally very diversified. And we have very strict cultural barriers also.
So for women were the only key – you can say agents – of emergency for us, both of us, who can go in the field all over Pakistan and reach out to teachers and children and community through Education in Emergency course.
So that’s how this entire collaboration emerged. And then it went as Ehsan mentioned you, it became very successful and more than 35 people from all over Pakistan joined it, with, through UN agencies, NGOs and government sector, and we had a very diversified group and it was a great success. Thank you very much.
Ka Man: That’s fantastic. Thank you very much for explaining that context in which you’re working and how you’ve co-created this training session. So I’d look I’d be really keen to hear a little more about the training session itself. Could you briefly share what it entailed and what you think makes this training initiative particularly impactful for women? Could we come to you first please, Ehsan.
Ehsan: Yes. This is something which we would like to highlight, the session and the methodology were adapted in a way where the participant were introduced to the key concepts. Then the impact of the of the disaster on children and then of course, knowing some of the global and the and the country level, the work including the INEE.
So the session flow really help the women practitioners to know the basic concepts, the frameworks, the different approaches which are used in education in emergency.
And mainly the theory of change where how the response basically address the impact on the children, on the schools as a learning unit, and then run on the system. So children, student and the system level. And of course, the first, most important is protecting the children and then continuity of learning and then build back better.
So a theory of change in a way that it talks about minimising the impact or at all level starting from child to the system level. And then of course knowing the key concept. And then the group work and the interaction between the women practitioners so that they have a deeper dive and then also localise it with their example within the training. Thank you.
Ka Man: That’s great, thank you. It sounds like there was a lot of thought and preparation put into creating this session with impact at the forefront, so thank you for sharing that.
So coming to you Humaira, would you like to add anything in terms of what the training involved and the impact that it sought to create?
Humaira: I would also want to add further to what Ehsan has already said that we have also come up with certain topics that we discussed with Efren, me and Ehsan when we were outlining the agenda, which was based around child protection, physical and psychological wellbeing of the children, teachers wellbeing and their psychological needs also.
As he already has touched upon INEE Standards, we also talked about coordination, coordination mechanisms, community awareness. Also, we talked on those parts also safeguarding also, assessments also, and gender and inclusion, and cross-cutting aspects.
And this was not just lecturing and just one-sided training. It was a participatory training as he has already mentioned, which was based on group work and the best part was the Humanitarian Leadership Academy’s resources, which has, you can say, add sparkles to the training by showing different kind of animated videos.
And then me and Ehsan gave a localised touch about like fun games, group work, energisers, and then asking all the participants – I mean, we kept them engaged through presentations, role plays and then giving us a brief insight about their own role – may they be government officers, may they be NGO workers, may they be UN humanitarian workers. So it was very, very impactful. And the impact was as on mentioned that these participants are further moving ahead with us now as trainers, which we will explain in the later part of the podcast. Thank you very much.
Ka Man: That’s wonderful, Humaira. Thank you very much for painting a very vivid picture of what was happening in the training room with all that interactive session and learning approach. Just as a follow up question, I just wondered, with the participants and the feedback they provided at the time, was this kind of training approach new for the majority of the participants, or have they experienced this very sort of interactive and participatory approach before?
Humaira: We do have a participatory trainings in our country, but this was a unique kind of content for first time because it was a mix of showing documentaries, animation videos and then we, me and Ehsan giving localised touch and then Efren giving a touch of Humanitarian Leadership perspective.
And me and Ehsan were just as co-facilitated the training through how the government challenges are affecting the emergencies, how the NGOs are having effect, and so the training was a kind of a new, I mean, we tried all, it was not a typical type of training, just group work and just presentations. So I want to take help of Ehsan over here if he wants to add something in this.
Ehsan: No, I think this was the very good approach, participatory. And then we also have learned that there was a follow-up session where some women leaders or practitioners were then entered into a transformative training basically on the EiE. So where they also learn that how they can duplicate this this training.
So for example the facilitation skills they were taught, and then they were taught that how different approaches could be used to further propagate or cascade the training at the field level. So yes, the training already was participative, but this Humanitarian learning Academy some more efforts into developed the country specific examples and then try to involve the participant as much as possible. Thank you.
Ka Man: Thank you Ehsan and Humaira. That’s really interesting to hear. I like how you describe that SCI, UNICEF, HLA and the participants all brought their own sort of perspectives and sort of ingredients to make this training sort of very special, and it all came together in a very holistic way.
And Humaira really liked how you describe HLA resources such as animations and videos, etc, as ‘placing some sparkles on the training’. So that was really nice to hear. So thank you for sharing that.
That so this training happened. As I mentioned in July. So a few months on, I’m, I’m interested to hear whether you have had any general learning points from this training experience and takeaways that you have applied or will apply for future training initiatives, could we start with you please, Ehsan?
Ehsan: My learning is that it was really good thinking that we involve the women. And it seems practical that if we involve them, they will help actually in the in the provincial level rollout. I will give example of two government officials who were trained in this woman training and then they have been involved in in cascading such training which the other agencies supported, for example UNICEF, so that the two women who were trained from the WEiE training facilitated some sessions. So this was one.
And the other learning was that if there are issues of the male or the societal tables that men cannot go to the female schools or they cannot have some limitation, but then this was a learning that the more women trained or teachers or the trainers if they’re available on ground, they can help actually or not. So this was another learning.
Ka Man: Thank you, Ehsan. That’s really great to hear, particularly how you mentioned that that government stakeholders were involved with the training and you brought them on board with all that you’re doing with this initiative. So that’s really encouraging. Thank you.
So coming to you, Humaira, would you like to share any of the your key takeaways from this training experience and how you may want to apply that to future initiatives?
Humaira: I think first of all, one of the biggest key takeaway was we gathered successfully women from all parts of the Pakistan like women from Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab and KP Province were there. And then we also were able to manage the government, the NGOs and the UN agencies participants.
The best part was that all of them were working in different education emergency projects. Some of them were bringing children back to school. Some of them were digital education. Some of them were focusing on TLCs establishments, and some of them were provision of psychosocial support and teachers, training and community mobilisation with parents.
So it gave them a chance. The key takeaway was it gave them a chance to discuss their project opportunities they are implementing in during the emergencies of flood and earthquakes.
And the other key takeaway was we managed to, as Ehsan mentioned, a cadre of trainers who are now willing to execute this training in all parts of Pakistan because we had a discussion with Efren and Ehsan to take it forward in a way where this training can be rolled out to provinces.
And as he mentioned you just now that some parts of Pakistan we have challenges of societal and cultural barriers. And the women are through as teachers or as community workers are more easy advocates on gathering the empowerment for education in emergency areas.
So this was some of the key takeaways which we feel that me and Ehsan are very happy about and we are looking forward – and we have just, as you mentioned you just now – we have come, I came back from Punjab for this training, where the two trainers have given a session on gender and inclusion, and it was very well received by the government department officials there.
So I think that’s a great take away that we empowered the local people in Education in Emergency and the career goes to, first of all the Cluster and then Save the Children and Humanitarian Leadership Academy and UNICEF separately, and then as Cluster also I hear I mean it’s a great success which can be very well documented all over globally.
Ka Man: That’s wonderful. Thank you both Ehsan and Humaira for sharing the key takeaways and learning points from this training initiative. It’s really exciting to hear how through this single series of workshops and Trainer of Trainers that you were able you were able to engage stakeholders from a range of provinces, each dealing with very specific Education in Emergencies contexts and they’re able to apply the knowledge that they have gained to their work in that province. And also through their Trainer of Training are able to cascade that knowledge and up skill their teams as well. So that’s really exciting to see through the ripple effects, the cascade effects of this training. So it’s very exciting to hear.
So you’ve already touched upon this through your previous our previous discussion, but wonder if you’d like to share any more on your aspirations for the longer-term impact of this training and next steps? Could we come to you please, Ehsan?
Ehsan: I think we are aiming to develop a pool of the trainer. And that could be then readily available at the local level to guide the response planning, particularly in the disaster prone districts, this is one and then also in touch with those who are trained in case they have some further learning needs engaging them through different mediums, for example, we have this WhatsApp groups we regularly conduct our the sectoral meeting at the national sub-national level.
And then also see that how we can give them a hand holding support from the remote or visiting them. So in a way that properly utilised the trainers’ knowledge which has been transferred and then also see that how we can do some local level activities to get maximum use of the training so that could be for example if no active emergency response. That could be the preparedness part. That could be the advocacy part, and that could be the coordination part actually. Thank you.
Ka Man: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Ehsan. It’s very exciting to hear you speak of this network that you’ve built by maintaining that contact, that active collaboration with the people who were trained in this. So that that’s really there’s so much power and potential that can be harnessed through that. So yeah, thank you for sharing. So, Humaira, how about you? What are your aspirations for the longer-term impacts of training?
Humaira: I think belong to aspirations as discussed with Efren and Ehsan that I look forward that Humanitarian Leadership Academy support in terms of Education in Emergency trainings continuous with the Cluster.
In terms of other different groups which are other than women are, we can go into Community training also like training of parents also PTAs also in which we call our parent teachers association.
And I also feel that as Ehsan mentioned that we will be gathering, we have kept the WhatsApp group where we are gathering day-to-day, the challenges they are coming up with the education in emergency areas.
So a new area has developed it is called Anticipatory Action and I feel with the with this on, with me, of confidence that we must also design a training with Humanitarian Leadership Academy on Anticipatory Action for the same cadre, not only for women, but also for Education Sector Working Groups, because Humanitarian Leadership is quite well trained on Education in Emergencies, and I’m sure the team is also working for Anticipatory Action also. So I look forward these aspirations come true.
And secondly, in the context of Pakistan, I feel that we as Cluster execute these trainings at provincial level. We must conduct these Women in Education trainings in Punjab, in Sindh, in villages and in KP with these people provided that we have a common collaborative resources also with Humanitarian Leadership Academy, we are very grateful they have been financing these trainings from the last two times when they have done these trainings. So looking forward for this aspiration that we keep benefiting as Cluster from the Humanitarian Leadership Academy as Cluster Coordinators. We wish to train more professionals in Education in Emergency and Anticipatory Action also.
Ka Man: Thank you Humaira. When you speak, when you speak about the initiative that has passed – that’s just happened, and aspirations for the future, what comes across very strongly to me is this really strong sectoral cooperation and collaboration harnessing collective strengths to really meet the needs – sector needs – so this by identifying anticipatory action as an area for future potential training is very interesting to hear, so thank you very much for sharing.
Humaira: Yes and one more thing, Ka Man, as Ehsan mentioned you that they were so enthusiastic and involved, they not only because they are used to of seeing me and Ehsan very regularly we come across meeting them and in some areas, but when you call that they, they were reaching out to Efren and they were explaining their needs and their challenges to him also.
And he was very, you can say openly addressing their needs, and he was he was inviting them to the ongoing courses that will be soon launching for the for the Humanitarian Leadership Academy is offering for the professionals in education in emergency like CAS or SHIP courses. So I think these are some of the things that was innovation in for me, people coming from provinces and identifying their exposure internationally was a great aspiration also.
Ka Man: That’s really wonderful to hear. These participants, I love the fact that they don’t just undertake the training and then that’s it, they’re on their way and have to go it alone. I love that continuity and that they have you, Ehsan and Efren. They’re still, you’re still focal points for them. And they’re able to reach out. And I don’t think that should be underestimated, the personal and professional impact that this could have would have on those participants. Yeah. So thank you for all your continued work as well in this area.
So before we wrap up, would you like to share any closing remarks with our listeners if we could come to you please, Humaira?
Humaira: I think first of all, I again would like to thank you and then Efren and the Humanitarian Leadership Academy for collaborating with Save the Children and UNICEF, Cluster for executing these Education in Emergency courses – not only for the humanitarian workers, but also for women humanitarian workers.
And it was it was open for all the provinces, which was very good and then it was very encouraging to through Humanitarian Leadership Academy that they were providing a platform where all these people have joined us and such wonderful content was shared, which was a mix of Education in Emergency, international education needs, standards, coordination, physical and psychological wellbeing, safeguarding, our children’s participation, children’s protection, teachers wellbeing, teachers participation. And then assessments how to conduct assessments and then applying was also made what further plans we want to preparedness plan and other things.
So I think this platform needs to be open for Pakistani people especially we are a country where we come across the floods emergency, the monsoon emergency, the earthquake emergency after every two to three years. So I pray that this doesn’t happen very frequently, but we must now be trained fully to handle these emergencies through and, I think Humanitarian Leadership Academy is a great, great platform which I feel can be cashed and can be utilised very effectively.
And you, all, as team are very open. I am very happy to explain very openly to you our mutual thanks from me and Ehsan, that you are very open people. We have never felt any resistance from you as team from Efren, very open, very accessible and very resource – full of resources. So a big, big shout out to Humanitarian Leadership Academy for continuing such great work. I thank on behalf of Ehsan and me, and Save the Children and UNICEF and Education Sector Working Group.
58:10 Chapter 6: Key learnings from the training: Efren’s reflections
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Ka Man: It was so great to hear Humaira and Ehsan’s reflections when I caught up with them in October. So back to the conversation with Efren now coming to you. Back to you as a facilitator and the driver and organiser of this training, what were the highlights of this experience for you?
Efren: Thanks, Ka Man. Yeah, I think I have three major learning from our highlights from this training.
One is that looking at the process a five-day process with the participants, it’s a good thing that you could actually observe how women participants find their voice and how they female and male participants work together and how the diversity and the inclusion principles are actually lived within the group processes. So yeah, I think I will not expand, I don’t need to expand on that, but yeah, it’s diversity and inclusion as a principle becomes observable during the process of training, because women gets to speak, women gets to lead, and the men and women participants are able to work together, and that leads to my second point that equitable leadership within the sector is observable as well.
And so and I know I would say Humaira and Ehsan actually demonstrates this. They really work together well as male and female national coordinators of the Education Working Group. So imagine seeing that in a 35 individuals working together for five days, so those are the two highlights.
The last highlight I would say and this is I’m from my experience from doing other participatory training processes before, this is somehow expected, but it’s still it surprises me how organically the sisterhood is being celebrated, you know, and I would say we can expand it in the idea of solidarity within the group or within the sector. You can actually feel it, you can actually experience it. The genuine concern for each other is, they are talking, they have genuine friendship, I would say, and camaraderie. So that’s what I like, you know, it’s and it’s organically growing within the five-day training and I would say and I think Humaira and Ehsan mentioned this as well, is that until now they sent emails to the group or to the WhatsApp group or e-mail you know if they need the material that they will be conducting EiE training. They are asking for support, for references, and that includes, you know, asking support from me from Ehsan and Humaira.
So that’s what I mean by celebrating sisterhood and solidarity with within the sector. So, yeah, I love those ideas that becomes very observable during the training. Thank you, Ka Man.
Ka Man: Do you know, it’s just so lovely hearing you speak about this and your immediate reflections from the facilitation room and beyond that this organic development of increased confidence, this network, the solidarity, this network that’s grown, that sort of facilitated and supported by both Ehsan and Humaira. It’s really such a beautiful thing and it’s something that I think it’s sort of set out – what you set out to do – you’ve seen it grow in front of you and I think that’s really wonderful. So encouraging to hear and really inspiring.
63:03 Chapter 7: Voices from the training room: four participant reflections
So on the note of women’s voices, what I’d like to do is now bring in some of some sound bites from the participants, so our colleagues from the communications team at Save the Children Pakistan actually spoke with a selection of the participants representing INGOs, UNICEF and local organisations, as well as government, to get their immediate reflections and honestly, what Efren has just shared. You can hear it in the women’s voices they are sharing very similar those kind of sentiments that you’ve just expressed Efren about – that increased confidence, knowing that they are going out there, they are role models in their community and that they actually really embracing this. So I think that’s wonderful. So let’s hear from the participants now.
[Jingle]
Female participant 1: I’m working as Deputy District Education officer and I have to deal whenever in there is any emergency.
We appreciate this training module and as well as the concept behind it, because the training is about the women education in emergency. So it revolves around the women and I have learned a lot about education in emergency there, because this is something new for me in a way like we are the ones who deal emergency and who deal education in emergency. But we are not focused actually what how to respond in such situations, and to make the response plan in such situation.
So that was very targeted approach and I have improved my competencies regarding thinking about child, school, community overall, and the government regulations and the coordinations between all these stakeholders.
As I have direct contact with teachers with especially with female teachers, assistant education officers and girl students, so I think I can guide them that how to deal in such emergency and especially regarding preparedness, because you guys are not prepared that God forbids if such emergency situation happens, then how to respond properly.
And more importantly, I have learned that education is a very, very important thing to give immediate response on this. Females, or the girls students, are the ones who suffer a lot in that situation. We have studied few cases like we have worked in some case studies actually from the KPK and we got to know that girl students percentages more than the boy students who have suffered in such situations. And so we have to more focus on the students’ needs and specifically it should be the gender sensitive programme wherever it is needed.
As women relate to other women easily in the society I’m living in and the rural area I belong to, there are women who usually don’t work independently and who usually don’t feel the importance of themselves. So when they see someone from their gender respond in such situated situation with confidence and bringing them back to the school is, I think, more relatable.
Female participant 2: Recently I am working as education specialist in a national organisation RSPN, Rural Support Network Programmes.
Female education, particularly when we talk about the community, when we talk about the rural communities, there are still challenges, you know, there are still barriers for the female education, there are so many, you know, barriers in there. The prioritisation of the girls, education, early marriages and you know the girls are, you know, sharing the domestic burden of the mother and the family as well. So these are the challenges and poverty as well.
RSPN is working from the last 40 years to work strongly on to support strongly work in communities. This training is very close to my work right now. You know, the first step is that I will incorporate the EiE competencies in my manual in my module and in my practices as well in the programmes or for the proposal or proposal point of view or I’m planning to, you know, to share all these training materials, the other you know the other educational-related project in my organisation, so I can support there.
So, for the future, I would like to place myself for the more you know, leadership task. And when I put myself in the leadership role to demonstrate, to make them, you know, to make them see the change is happening. When the, you know, when the woman is a part of planning, you know, the processing and you know the implementation so there the change will be happen so I think this approach will impact the females and girls around me and in communities as well.
Female participant 3: I work as an education specialist. The name of my organisation is Street Child UK and one thing that I must would like to say is Street Child’s mandate is localisation and within this training we discussed a lot about localisation because when we say EiE Education in Emergency, it means that local who are there in the field on the ground when the emergency hits their capacity should be the best to react to that. So those strategies, I’m very happy that we are going to develop further on it that how we can improve it so that more and more local partners are capable enough to be part of EiE, yes.
Women leaders are not – I don’t see many of them. So this is a great, great opportunity where we can basically we are starting off and if we build the community of practice from this core group, so we can lead to it. And of course I want to be a practitioner who can, you know, improve the project implementation in the EiE because there’s a lot that we need to tell and like contexualisation of the materials and reaching to the community, and malpractices, and there’s a lot that can be done so I think women’s role, it’s great initiative that we are looking at it in this way.
Female participant 4: I work for education sector in Balochistan and I support the government schools, government department, and all the relevant stakeholders in uplifting the educational outcomes in Balochistan.
I was on maternity leave for almost one year and I was also a bit of out of, you know, my work and I did not get a chance to renew my skills. So now we have regular emergencies in Balochistan and we also have a threat of new emergency, flash floods in Balochistan in the upcoming season in monsoon.
So it’s good for me to, you know, update my skills, especially after a long leave and also have tabs on the what’s happening under EiE and how I can help if god forbid there is an emergency.
And then this is very, very important and relevant to my current job because as EiE person, I have to support the my government counterparts, my implementing partners and my staff on how to respond to any emergencies, especially in education.
As I mentioned that we have a threat of monsoon rains and flash floods, so I’m just going to immediately plan a workshop two or three day workshop for my implementing partners and staff on EiE response – education in the emergency response – and how to respond to an emergency and how to, you know, improve the situation if, god forbid, there is an emergency.
So I have already had discussion with Humaira and Ehsan and how can we plan a proper workshop for my colleagues because most of them usually due to staff turnover or because of their regular work, they are not updated on the skills so it will be good. I have learned many skills, I will try to transfer those to my staff so that we can respond to emergency properly.
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72:06 Chapter 8: Efren’s reflections – evaluation and future aspirations and next steps
Ka Man: It’s really wonderful to hear directly from the participants – what fantastic, fantastic, immediate, impactful outcomes. So let’s come back to the conversation with Efren to discuss some key findings from the post-training survey and aspirations for next steps.
So Efren, you’ve developed a great training model that’s demonstrating all of these positive impacts and outcomes in a short space of time. Now I’m wondering, is this training scalable and can it be replicated in other contexts?
Efren: Thank you, Ka Man. Yeah, you know, we’re just we’re wrapping up our post-training survey and we usually conducted three post three months after the training and we, you know, we already found out that the women in the EiE participants are utilised either to scale up their own EiE programmes, revising education policy, to facilitate field level and school-based EiE trainings, initiate team and staff training within the organisation.
And, but based on the survey as well is that they are particularly putting a lot of importance on the cross-cutting issues and strategies in EiE, designing an EiE response, physical and psychological protection and wellbeing in EiE, and improving learning outcomes in EIE.
So these are very encouraging results, I would say Ka Man because these are just three months after the training and we only receive out of the 30/35 participants, we only receive at this time, about 18 responses, so we are still waiting for more responses, but these are all positive indications to me that these are scalable.
Like you know, we just need to identify really, a committed Education Working Group or Cluster to do this with HLA, you know, looking at prioritising local leaders, women leaders in the education sector or EiE sector.
And yeah, identifying that need and the rationale – why we need to train more women to participate in the EiE work in a country like Pakistan or any other country. Yeah, I think this is replicable. And I would say that after the training in July, each of them, like each of the organisation represented in that organisation, in that training, they’re doing their own training locally. So imagine the impact that this could lead us, you know, in preparing communities and schools in responding to crisis.
Ka Man: That’s fantastic, Efren. That’s so inspiring and I feel really encouraged by this sort of this, this rapid progress that you’ve made in such a short space of time, and like you say, this is just a few months down the line – let’s see what happens in 2025, what kind of impact we can see there. And yeah, if anyone is listening, anyone from Education Clusters are interested to hear more or yeah, reach out to us, or reach out to Efren. Yeah, that’s my sort of call to action there.
So before we wrap up, Efren, thank you so much for sharing all of these highlights and learning points with us. Do you have any closing reflections to share with us?
Efren: Thank you, Ka Man. So yeah, WEiE or women in EiE is worth the try though it will be good to track outcomes and impact as a result of this initiative in the long term. But on a short term we must continuously explore the centrality of women’s voices and leadership in the teaching and learning of technical expertise, such as EIE within the humanitarian sector.
From this experience, this will potentially yield stronger impact to communities in crisis where women potentials are untapped. So I would say one woman voice, one girl child’s step at a time.
Thank you, Ka Man.
Ka Man: Thank you so much, Efren. What a wonderful message – and powerful message – to end on. Thank you so much for all the work that you do. This has been so great to gain these deep dive insights into this training and this initiative.
And it’s wonderful and so encouraging to hear what you’ve achieved together with the Education Cluster in Pakistan and Save the Children in Pakistan.
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So thank you very much, and thank you to our listeners for joining us for today’s episode of Fresh Humanitarian Perspectives from the Humanitarian Leadership Academy.
Note: This transcript was generated using automated tools and is intended for reference purposes only. While efforts have been made to check its accuracy, minor errors or omissions may remain.