Coming back from my usual morning jog and looking forward to a hot cup of coffee when I noticed a young girl standing outside the gate to our house. I ambled up to where she was while wondering what it is she was looking for or selling that early in the morning!

It was 9 year old Esther, a twin and an orphan. Both parents had died some years back from HIV/AIDS. Esther and her twin sister were in the care of grandma in the village close by.

Esther had been one of the 20 orphans selected by the local school to participate in a 12 days, 10th to 22^nd May 2010, S.A.L.T program. The program was co-sponsored by Canadian University students on holiday and Spring of Life. During the period, we sang, did some art work, took instant photographs of ourselves and the community around, flew kites, played soccer, had sewing lessons but the highlights were when we shared our perceptions on care, community, change, leadership and hope at different age levels,at the end of each day. How transfer can be more effective through trust, attitude and presence while using every day things that people are able to respond to and are familiar with.

Ultimately community is based on communication. Communication can be heightened and exciting using sport, art and other activities.

Esther had come to collect her photo and frame. The day we all had collected ours, Esther had gone to the hospital to pick her Anti Retroviral drugs. You should have seen the smile in her eyes as she looked at her photo and frame.

As she turned round the corner, I found myself thanking God for the experience and privilege. I thanked God for the years I had spent in Chikankata where the Home Care concept was first practiced as the option to respond to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The experience has continued to define my work and responses to personal, community tragedies and/or celebrations. Especially in the area of HIV/AIDS.

It was in the ‘80s when it happened. HIV/AIDS. Mental images linger, of a small group of staff huddled together in prayer after another trip into the community where shock, negative emotions and thoughts were slowly consuming the community. HIV/AIDS was slowly moving everyone from the natural state of faith and hope to that of fear and loss of memories of the way it was. Theirs (the team) was a mission in worship, a genuine resolve to succeed and identify with the community not as providers but facilitators and partners in the search for the inherent responses.

The lessons and outcomes were a miracle. Individuals as well as communities had capacity as well as resilience to respond to trauma because they live believing that, ‘I am because you are’. Given the environment where interaction is based on ‘as human beings’ with whom, my capacities combined with yours do lead to solutions and sustainable development and not pre-established social roles’ which can hinder true dialogue

The outcomes were the realization that we all want to go ‘home’ when in pain and fear where those who love us and we love are! That, some of the traditional and/or cultural beliefs were the reason for our pain i.e. ritual cleansing, polygamy, lack of moral boundaries that protect our rights etc while some were beacons of our strength i.e. extended family and sharing in our sorrows and joys! Defining lessons for the facilitators!

Pain tends to isolate us not only from ourselves but even those around us through our thoughts. Sometimes, hospitals and other care environments do make it hard for us to detach our self from the situation as they emphasize the thought that I am a ‘victim’. A quiet environment where our name is quietly whispered not as a number but as one of us is invaluable as it gives us moments to forget the pain. To receive and allow.

The understanding and use of S.A.L.T as a method does not only encourage participation but promotes spontaneity, lightheartedness and real joy to everyone involved. Authentic relationships become possible because social images disappear. Genuine approaches activate inner resolve to succeed. SALT is more than sympathy and acknowledgement, it goes beyond forums, and it understands the rules and knows the exceptions. Effective facilitation makes everyone feel valued as interaction is based not on content but presence.

The biggest lesson is the opportunity to re-define our realities and the beginning of discovering who we really are!

We did that with the mothers, teachers, students and Orphans for two weeks. Soccer was most interesting at the age of 57(my mother wonders why 22 people can spend all their energies chasing a round rubber thing).

Joy is doing something you love and

have a passion for. It is internal and never external. Something we were created for

Please pass me the S.A.L.T.!

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I recently visited with a youth gathering; before the session begun one youth leader passed on a message to another, Leader 11 responded in quite a hostile manner and this spurred some negative response from others. Through stimulating a discussion with leader 11 she has concerns. Her problems stemmed from her childhood

Her story: Her father died, her mother migrated for betterment for her and other siblings. She was 13 years old. She was impregnated by her uncle. Went to court; stop attending to find a job to take care of her siblings and her new born child. She also dropped out of school. She got married; have a 'nice home' but He was a means to an end, she does not love him. She has seen her siblings through school. . She is an unhappy person trying to build a better life in terms of education and skills training. We will be meeting to discuss the Way of Thinking and Working through this.

SALT can be added anywhere. Just recognise the need and apply it.

Today was presented the opportunity for the participants to practice their SALTiness; their ability to apply the process to a community. The group was divided into two groups to work with the two communities that came today for the sessions. there were the parents' group from Youth Challenge Guyana and the HIV peer educators from the Guyana Defence force.



I had the opportunity to sit in with the group working with the peer educators from the army and my impression is that they did a very good job in keeping the community interested. Again i stress that planning goes a far way in ensuring the fluidity of facilitating as a group. i was impressed the skills demonstrated by the facilitating team. Their after session planning yesterday paid off.

I liked how they were able to adapt activities that were done with them putting an interesting twist to it; for example instead of using fruits to associate with their names foods were used instead. I like this twist for participants connected with it. Facilitators the use the famous "are we human?" question which as usual brought out the connection with hopes and concerns. As humans we have hopes and concerns which as individuals we feel not capable to mitigate.It is only when we sit as a group and we hear and understand that others have similiar hopes and concerns that we realize that we are all sailing in the same big ship. It brings about the realization as well that if we work together as a team we can achieve more.

the group then moved into doing dream building with the participants, it was interesting to see the dreams that these that these army personnel had. One of the dreams that stood out to me was one that wanted to do his " masters" however because of the policies and guidelines which governs the army it is harder for him than a civilian. Other dreams were related to the concerns of participants, most persons dreamed of a community where all was perfect, a community that was clean, healthy, self sufficient, impartial and more. It was good to observe how the facilitators were able to work with the group after just two days of exposure to the process. It warms my heart to see the enthusiasm and feel the energy.



Facilitators did an AAR



Lunch

Autry with the help Of Michael did an AAR with the entire group aftet communities would have left. participants were able to reflect on how they worked as a team in applying the SALT process. All in all they had fun accomplishing the task at hand..

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I was so excited to see what today would turn out to be. After having so much fun yesterday i was anxious to experience learning in a fun-filled, laughter filled environment. I admit, i feel the love in the room with all the participants being fully involved in the process.

I liked that most participants turned up on time. I could feel the enthusiams in the room, after yesterday people wanted to have more. This is a good thing, we should always have people wanting more, not because we want them to but because they want to. When we facilitate an environment where persons can share and appreciate each other experiences they are inclined to learn and share more.



The day started with Autry doing a weather check. It is always good to do a check how people are feeling before the training. This information in hand helps us to ensure that we do not leave anyone behind. Checking the weather inside also helps persons to reflect on the previous day's activity. In their quiet moments after persons would have gone home they would have done more processing of the information collected during the day. Most persons were ready and anxious to begin the day's activity.



Michael and Tricia introduced self assessment and illustrated the five levels by using healthy eating as an example. People are becoming more aware of healthy eating habits in Guyana so this was a perfect time to illustrate the five levels using the concept of healthy eating. After explaining what the different levels meant, participants were asked in groups of five to identify a level that they were at when it came to healthy eating. persons then had to explain to the rest of participants why they were at that level. What this brings out as well is that as individuals we have different perceptions of where we are and why we are there. Someone may feel that s/he eats healthy because s/he eats vegetarian food compared to someone who eats meats at the same time someone eating meat may think the same of the other person who eats vegetarian foods. I really likes this for it stimulates discussions and creates the foundation for what takes place when self assessment is being done. When doing self assessment as a group, consensus must be had.

Tricia took charge of the next step, having participants go into groups and come up with practices that are necessary to achieve their ideal communities that they dreamt of yesterday. As usual persons actively participated in their groups. This step is vital in ensuring that communities come up with their own practices; elements that they themselves can measure in actualizing their dream community. Participants then returned to present on their practices.

Michael with the help of Korey then did titling, where we the group was asked to identify common practices across the groups. These were then put under a common titles by the participants. It is always a good thing to let the communities come up with the titles. What this does is that through discussion they understand what they mean when they use a specific word. After general titling was done Ruben stepped in to have the group come up with simple definitions for the titles using the simplest of language. Having the the practices defined simply; group was then asked to again link common practices thereby making the list of practices smaller. Again participants found the commonalities and were able to successfully achieve the desired outcome, leaving us with 9 practices which were now defined in simple language.

This aspect of the training has always proven to be the most demanding of all the steps. This was reflected in the after action review. Some persons felt overwhelmed with all the work that was put into achieving the practices.



Lunch was great

After lunch Autry restarted the session, one of the participants did an icebreaker. Ice breakers are always useful just after lunch for this is the time most people suffer from what we call "ethnic fatigue" or as we learnt yesterday "food coma"; this is where people fall asleep during sessions.

Now that we had the 9 practices we were ready to do some self assessment with the group using the practices the group would have come up with. The large group was again broken up into the smaller group who were asked to refine the simple definition of 3 practices into a descriptor of a level five as well as identify what level they would be at for the three practices they would have selected of the 9. Again I loved the participation of group members in their groups in coming up with the descriptors and identifying their level as a group. Groups reconvened and created a river diagram the help of Autry. We will again on Thursday of next do a complete self assessment for the group, today's activity only being an introduction and practice session.

Korey and Coleen took over and divided group into two for salt visits tomorrow. Groups were given time to plan for same, having guidance from facilitators when necessary. What was very inspiring was that even after sessions were finished today, there were some participants who remained to ensure that their preparations for tomorrow was covered.



After action review brought out the fact that participants felt overwhelmed with all the work and would have liked an icebreaker or a change of focus in the latter part of the morning.



I can't wait to see how tomorrow turns out to be.. looking forward to the fun times...



HAPPY WORLD PEACE DAY!!!!!!!

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Today saw the beginning of the another Community Life Competence (CLC) training in Guyana. it brought back memories of my training in February of last year. I remember trying to have an open mind yet curious to know what the training was all about. From listening to participants expectation I could have sensed that a lot of them felt the same way i would have felt on the first day of my training.

As participants came in today, signed registration sheet, collected their training packages they were greeted by Korey who kept them occupied by chatting with them about the CLP process and their expectations. Sometimes as facilitators we fail to connect with training participants at this critical stage.We forget that sometimes participants may not be familiar with each other and this can sometimes make people feel uncomfortable. Having Korey chatting with them as a facilitator and made them feel more comfortable and created an environment where persons began to settle into the training environment. This proved very useful for by the time we were ready to start persons were comfortably chatting with each other and were eagerly waiting on the formal opening of the training.



The Training was formally called to order by Constellation Coach Autry, who in his usual jovial way introduced UNAIDS country coordinator Ruben Del Prado welcomed participants on behalf of UNAIDS and sharing on why the organisation supports the process. Ruben also shared on the vision of Guyana Community Life Competence which contains the elements of effecting change by empowering minds, through working to creating competent communities and improved quality of life; identifying and building on strengths promoting community ownership and fostering partnership at local levels to address challenges. He stressed that " all of us in the room will contribute to accomplish this dream" Our ways of working and ways of thinking will ensure that we accomplish the vision.

Tricia took over the floor and introduced herself by letting participants know "this is the face to the voice" i liked that little statement, it says a lot.Tricia did a lot of the initial contact with the participants via telephone. I think it works in that it sets the tone for what is going to happen next. It brings the connection to fore, lots of times people wants to connect with the physical. She continued by having persons introduce themselves by saying their names and associating themselves with a fruit. As usual this brought out smiles and laughter from the participants and facilitators. Michael then took over and had the group come up with some ground rules by which the training will guided.

Autry took over an gave an introduction to the SALT process, what it is, how it is done, how we can be involved and how it has been working for us. He then proceeded by doing the "Are you human?" excercise, this question really brought out the "human connection". i believe it sets the foundation for everything that follows. for constantly you will hear participants referring to it. Autry then continued by having participants writing their hopes and concerns on heart shaped paper which were then shared with the group and pasted in a big heart on the wall. Autry also took the opportunity to have persons placed in groups with with the names of fruits, these groups were asked to select photos on a table and look for strengths in those pictures. This I think begins the process of having person changing their ways of thinking. People usually looks for weaknesses but this makes them look for strengths.

There was a short break

A video prepared by the constellation was shown after which a skype Connection was started with Gaston. Who spoke about the Constellation and also the Blended Learning programme. The discussions that followed was moderated by Michael. I always believe that we should use to our advantage the tools that are available to us; this use of technology I think only demonstrates that we can use several ways of working. The interaction attained during the discussion I think was truly beneficial for it helped participants to appreciate where the process would have come from.

Lunch

The afternoon saw participants Colleen and Korey with Support from Tricia, building the dream with the group. It started with an individual dream after which they were placed into three groups to come up with a group dream and illustrate that dream by drawing their ideal communities on a flipchart. There was lots of fun during this activity, persons were laughing heartily while drawing their dreams. There was full participation of all group members (fullticipation). Groups were then given the opportunity to present their illustration of their dream to the rest of the group. Participants really enjoyed doing this. After all would have finished presenting the group then worked on drawing a community dream using aspects from the group dreams. This was completed with participants all contributing to what the dream community looks like. This was presented to all.

Ruben and Michael with support from Korey discussed what it was to do an after action review. The opportunity was also used to do an after action review with the group. Participants reflected on the days activities and were all happy with the way things went. Persons thought that the process was one which they can apply to their communities while some persons felt that they were already doing some aspects of the process in their work.

The days activities ended on a high note...Can't wait for tomorrow!!!!!!

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