A TtF in The Hague

Subsequent to the success of the first BRIDGE Train the Facilitator – TtF Course, a joint collaboration between The Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy – NIMD and International IDEA, which was held in Pretoria, South Africa on 6-17 February 2012, NIMD organised another TtF in The Hague, Netherlands on 14- 24 May 2013. In order to strengthen the institution and its affiliates in building capacity of the staff and to transfer skills to be able to facilitate training courses in their contexts especially those who work with political parties and EMBs, NIMD identified BRIDGE training curriculum as the best resource in terms of the methodology and course content that meets their needs and expectations.

NIMD and it’s partner International IDEA are among the major players in democracy development and the two organisations execute development strategies through various interventions that include facilitating consultative forums, designing of curriculum and publications on different topics and fund capacity building programmes, training and dialogues with different stakeholders including the EMBs, Political Parties and Civil Society worldwide.

Eighteen participants who attended the second of NIMD’s aspiring annual TtF in The Hague were from the headquarters; country offices and its worldwide country partners. Already on day one of the TtF this group of participants were quickly dubbed the ‘NIMD-family’. The participants were taken through an intensive 10 day programme under the guidance of experienced Lead facilitator Sibongile Zimemo from South Africa with her dynamic and capable co-facilitators, Njeri Kabeberi, executive director of NIMD’s Kenya country partner Centre for Multiparty Democracy Kenya (CMD-K) and NIMD-HQ staff member Jerome Scheltens.

The countries represented were; The Netherlands, Georgia & South Caucasus (with participants from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) and NIMD Uganda. NIMD partner countries staff participated from Kenya (CMD-Kenya), Malawi (CMD-Malawi), Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe Institute), Tanzania (Tanzania Centre for Democracy), Egypt (Egyptian Democratic Academy, and Egypt Political Academy), and Indonesia (KID and one of its local Community Democracy Schools).

NIMD and its affiliates are striving for democratisation through political party support, and therefore throughout the TtF the focus on ‘electoral contestants’ was adopted. With NIMD as strategic and funding partner and applying an intensive joint annual planning cycle, the outlook for future implementation on BRIDGE modular trainings in the related countries is bright.

Two participants who were trained during the first NIMD TtF-group in Pretoria, South Africa in February 2012, have since completed their field work and received their full accreditation as workshop facilitators, two have co-facilitated a TtF, and several more are planning to implement BRIDGE modules in their countries as part of their annual country programmes.

Some comments from participants………

Important thing learnt during the course-  “One can improve facilitation skills substantially over the course of one week”.
Many thanks to NIMD and the organizing staff for professionalism, friendliness & generosity! , Irakli Kobalia
Excellent facilitation and very supportive facilitation team that builds through positive feedback, Ann Maganga
Richness of BRDGE content & process facilitation, Eugenia Boutylkova
The presence of participants from other countries – has widened the scope of experiences, offered freshness, opportunity to cultivate networks, re-assurance and a sense of commitment to a cause. Naidoo Nyoni
Thanks a lot for this amazing experience, Anahit Shirinyan
Thank you so much, I could never thank you enough, in fact I wish to take you all with me to Egypt. Thanks a lot (..),  Shireen Zayed
How did you manage to gather together such beautiful people?(..) I loved all of them. (..) , Emin Aslonor

Thank you very much to the entire NIMD family, wishing you everything of the best in all your endeavours!