Conferencing
on It began in Africa (Kenya), 13/Mar/2012 11:54, 34 days ago
We've recently been to a couple of conferences that in some way (large or small) we helped bring to fruition. They were very different experiences.The first was a VSO conference that the volunteers designed, facilitated and 'workshopped'. Set in an 'almost' complete mid-range hotel in Nakuru, a small group of plucky volunteers where given two weeks to help organise this conference from scratch.I have been fortunate at various stages of my life that when important things need doing I am surrounded by very smart individuals, as I was for this, and the group that gathered to develop the conference were full of enthusiasm, diligence and expert facilitation skills. I was clearly there just to make up the numbers and look relatively important (its the grey hair, you know). Sowith just a couple of weeks and some ingenuity (why does this sound like the opening voice-over to the A-team?) 90 delegates participated in a three day conference which featured experts in a range of topics from Climate Change to Advocacy. The team also called in contacts and favours so that we had Kenya's leading Paralympian,Henry Wanyoike, as a guest speaker. You could think of it as a volunteer version of aTED Conference.You can't have a conference without flip-chartsSo what did we learn from this volunteer conference?:You can't have an adovcacy campaign in Kenya without a t-shirtNo event, protest, forum, workshop, training session, campaign or march will really capture the hearts of the 'wananchi' or masses in Kenya if you can't throw in a branded t-shirt with a catchy slogan. Which must come with the corollary:You can't have an advocacy campaign in the West without an awareness dayBack home the t-shirt is substituted with 'awareness days' preferably with some arcane facebook status update that one section of society will never quite understand:'Pink Tuesday' because that's how we cure cancer, make people wear condoms and stop men beating women. Actual education and peer review - what's that for?The FacilitatorThe final thing we learned at this conference was that VSO volunteers in any number and in any given location will find the quickest path to the bar and have that bar opened with an efficiency that belies their status as development workers. Coupled with this, the up-country volunteers who haven't seen any fellow-VSO's for a long time will spend the first 48 hours talking non-stop, trying to download everything they've experienced in the last four months, from the frog that lives in their sink to the neighbour's kid who caught typhoid.Our second conference was the sort of international NGO conference that many back home would find more reminiscent of the worst kind of excesses found at the UN. We were holed up in theOle Sereni, a fantastic hotel formerly the US Embassy pitched alongside Nairobi National Park. Living as we do a short 20 minute walk from the venuewe weren't sure why we were there and as we sauntered through the air-conditioned lobby to a lunch of fresh sushi we did ask ourselves when the staff were going to discreetly ask us, a pair of scruffy volunteers, to leave. Needless to say we kept a low profile, drank G&T's with ice and enjoyed the sensation of having a shower in the morning and still feeling relatively clean at lunchtime.The View: Nairobi National Park& the swimming poolThis conference had more of the rambling discussions and non-consensus that we are used to during our meetings in Kenya, and I sympathised with the English/ French interpreter who had to transition form translating western style presentations, full of self-deprecating humorous asides, to African style discussion and grandstanding ('Mr Chairman, I have not so much a question for the honoured delegate from Botswana but more a comment on the sector as it stands today...') all using development lingo (for reference a 'self-advocate' is 'auto-representante' in French).The conference may have been low in outcomes and impacts but its worth noting that that each of the delegates were given just a few days respite from their every day battle for the rights of persons with disability to share their experience with colleagues from all of over the continent. Even soldiers come away from the front line every so often and when they do they let loose a little, so with our delegates we were treated to an evening of Pan-African dancing, singing and free wine. Favourite moment? Our lovely colleague Cecilia, when complimented on her dancing, replying: "Yes, I am hot! Where is my husband?! Hmm?"Delegates dancing the night awayBut of course the last laugh was on the mzungus. After a year in Kenya, battling death-defying matatus, dodging pickpockets and yelling at street kids, I can confirm that there is nothing more terrifying to a mzungu than a Kenyan dance floor. We suck, we don't have hips and our knees stay firmly locked to upright. While we have to be forced practically at gunpoint to strut our stuff, even the most dignified of African mamas will need no more invitation than a raised eyebrow from the MC to break out the moves. At no point during our two very different conferences was the cultural divide wider than on the dancefloor.