THE BANNER

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Yesterday - as part of my “Organisational Development Advisor” role here in India (working in a Voluntary Service Overseas placement), I conducted my first formal “training workshop”.

It was on Budgeting and Finance - for program coordinators and managers from small fairly new community based organization working in HIV & AIDS.

It went really well considering the language barriers (let alone the complexity of the concepts for some). There were some in the group of 15 who really spoke no English at all (e.g. the three ladies from the Female Sex Workers cooperative).

So anyway - I was happy enough with all that - we did a lot of translating via those who had good English. The event (for it became an “event” was in an A/c training room at Red Cross - with the works (powerpoint, flip charts, AND.... the Banner!!).

So let me tell you about the “Banner”. It seems here that if there is any event at all - specially when it's paid for by a funder (my workshop was sponsored by an international funding body with a local office here - so all costs were borne by them including room hire and lunch etc..) then a banner is ordered and pictures are taken with everyone around or in front of the banner. This then seems to end up being confused with the OUTCOME of the event - the picture goes to the funder who then can proudly put it into their Annual Report as proof of their great activity.

The banner is made of a plastic material - and there must be a whole industry out there in India that is supported by NGOs and Corporates ordering banners for their various events.

Anyway - I did do a formal evaluation so that for me there were more measures of outcomes than just a bloody banner!!!

I am told that all these ‘banners’ get usefully re-cycled - when the rainy season comes, they are given to street people to use as cover on their shanties. So…. I guess that’s an outcome for sure.

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Photos

My workshop and BANNER
This shot will probably not do for the Annual Report - the Banner is not readable! Anyway it says "Training on Program Management" with the date and sponsors etc.. Even has the venue in case those in the room did not realise where they were!

Candlelight Vigil event and BANNER
This is a more significant banner - and the guy talking is a wonderfully talented young man who manages a CBO which supports sexual minority populations.

Music events and the BANNER
Of course a musical concert needs a banner as well - this one was in Pushkar - again, a one-off use for one night's event. Probably not going in any

Comments

[Diana]

thank God they re-use those banners! we were fighting hard NOT to make a banner for the World Environment Day, but lost the battle. I was trying to explain to the local coordinator that making this plastic banner just for a few hour event doesn't really go together with the topic of the day. So I proposed that the old banners could be sewn into shopping bags. I promised to make the first example, lets see if the idea finds support here...