|
Latest News
BRIDGE TtF in Accra - Ghana
The first TtF workshop within the African Union (AU) and International IDEA's joint project "Capacity-Building Training of Election Administrators in Africa" was held in Accra – Ghana in English from Monday June 8 to Friday June 19, 2009.
IDEA and AU Organise a Workshop in Accra
The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and the African Union, with funding from AusAid, conducted a BRIDGE Professional Enhancement Workshop for 18 participants from 10 Francophone African countries in Accra from 20 to 24 April 2009.
Read more...
Yemen continues BRIDGE
The Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendum (SCER) conducted another series of BRIDGE trainings in cooperation with IFES with support from UNDP and USAID.
BRIDGE Workshop for the Egyptian Parliament
The last fifteen years witnessed an increase number of election all over the world.
AEC staff deliver BRIDGE sessions in Timor Leste
Brian Latham (Lead and Accrediting Facilitator) and Gordon Marshall arrived in Timor Leste with short prior notice to deliver three workshops consecutively over an eight working day period.
Read more...
First ABRIDGE for Political Parties in Kabul
An ABRIDGE workshop was conducted in Kabul for twenty four political party representatives between May 9 to 13, 2009.
CEDP Update
BRIDGE Civic Education Development Project's (CEDP) July 2009 Progress Report
The aim of the CEDP is to expand the current BRIDGE elections (E) curriculum to include the democracy and governance (D and G) component. Starting in 2008, and due for completion in September 2009, this phase of the project (funded by AusAID) saw the development of one of the foundation modules Democracy in Our Place (DiOP). This module was tested in the Pacific (Vanuatu) trial workshop in May 2009 and the Asian (Bhutan) trial is scheduled for 25-29 August 2009.
The CEDP team is pleased to report that it has been shortlisted in the third round of UNDEF funding, and we are in the process of completing a detailed submission to secure these funds. If successful, the new phase of the project will include:
-
The establishment of a Community of Practice (CoP) of civic education practitioners in the region, including setup of a ‘Knowledge Portal’ for the CoP, and other structures for communication and sharing (e.g. website)
-
The development of a Training of Trainers (ToT) for delivery of CEDP modules, and further work on the existing DiOP module – to be used as a resource for the CoP.
-
A combined CoP meeting and training workshop, incorporating the new ToT, the DiOP workshop, and the opportunity for CoP members to network and share – to be held in an Asia Pacific location TBC.
-
Development of a module in Democratic Governance or Civic Education Programs, and further development of information resources.
The CEDP team is also working with AusAID to determine the next steps. At the moment AusAID has given in principle support to providing limited funding for the 2009-2010 financial year to complement the proposed outputs of the UNDEF-funded project. In essence, if the funding is approved, it would be seen as co-funding the UNDEF project and would give the CEDP team a chance to trial the new curriculum to be developed under that project, and further refine the mentoring and contextualisation process. It would also provide an opportunity to further establish the CoP.
More information about the CEDP and the above information is on the BRIDGE website. The Third Ceezine newsletter (#3 July 2009) has now been uploaded to the website.
|
Main Story
A Change in Facilitation Levels
One of the key outcomes of the last BRIDGE Partner Meeting in Sydney last year was the change to the facilitator ‘levels’.
As BRIDGE has expanded, a need for clear guidelines around what different facilitators can and cannot do was identified, and this is why facilitators are now given ‘categories’.
The original system gave each facilitator a level from 1-5, with new, partially accredited facilitators at 5, and the most experienced facilitators at 1. Level 1 facilitators were the only ones able to accredit other facilitators.
Under the levels, a facilitator who did not wish to become involved in deeper implementation tasks such as scoping, but who needed to accredit, had to reach level 1 status.
With the categories, we have identified that there are four kinds of facilitators – those who are partially accredited (Semi-Accredited Facilitators), those who focus on facilitation (Workshop Facilitators), those who facilitate, mentor and accredit (Accrediting Facilitators) and those who are involved in all aspects of BRIDGE, such as implementation and scoping, as well as facilitation and accrediting (Expert Facilitators).
The new categorisation system also provides clear guidelines on what each category of facilitator is able to do, and how to move between categories. This was an issue we received a lot of queries about in the past, and the new system clarifies these concerns.
For detailed information on the new categories, and the guidelines for their use, please refer to the new Implementation Manual.
We’d like to emphasise that the categories are not necessarily a hierarchy – two BRIDGE facilitators each with five years’ experience may still belong to different categories. For example, one might love facilitation and this is where their expertise lies – they are a Workshop Facilitator. The other might like to focus on the mentoring and accrediting side of BRIDGE, and so they are an Accrediting Facilitator. Again, the emphasis is on skills.
So how does this affect you as a BRIDGE facilitator?
The BRIDGE Office has allocated all facilitators to a category. The criteria used for this transition was an assessment of the amount of BRIDGE work a facilitator had done in recent years, and the type of work they had done – the BRIDGE Office could only work on information received from the field. So very experienced facilitators who had been heavily involved in scoping, implementation, mentoring, accreditation and facilitation, as well as having a strong background in either elections or BRIDGE itself, were in general considered Expert Facilitators. Those who had been accrediting, mentoring and facilitating, but not been as involved in other BRIDGE activities were considered Accrediting Facilitators.
It should be noted that the levels do not exactly correspond to the categories – not all Level 1 facilitators have become Expert Facilitators, and not all Level 2 facilitators have become Accrediting facilitators. This reflects the different skills-based approach of the new categorisation system.
If you would like to confirm your category, please contact the BRIDGE Office. If any facilitator wishes to dispute the category they have been allocated, they can submit an application to the category they believe they belong to according to the Implementation Guidelines.
|
