Organizing a Workshop Cameroon Style
on The Road Less Travelled (Cameroon), 09/Feb/2010 10:05, 34 days ago
On Monday Pierre told me CARE had asked him to organize the logistics for a workshop they are going to hold in the Far North updating their partners about the Global Fund to fight AIDS. He was told this workshop would take place between the 25th of January and the 10th of February. Funny how he was told of this on the 1st of February!! However, he thought given the late notice the workshop would take place sometime after the 10th of February. So we spent Monday looking over the contract CARE sent and signing it.We heard very little from CARE until Thursday morning when they sent the money for the organization of the workshop along with the message that it was to take place Tuesday February 8th. Great! That gives us two working days and a weekend to get things organized. So we ran around like crazy buying paper and ink to make the invitations for the participants, markers and conference paper for the actual conference, other materials we needed, and booking a room and a video projector. By the end of the day on Thursday we had some invitations ready to go and got some delivered.On Friday morning we finished the deliveries and we started on preparing some of the conference documents and planning the reports that we will need to write after the event. At about 10am, someone kindly pointed out that the 8th was Monday not Tuesday! Uh oh!!! Frantic phone calls ensued to make sure people were aware of the date and would show up on Monday.On Sunday evening I met up with Pierre and another colleague (Adji) and we went to set up the conference room. We had rented a room at the catholic mission which is at the far west end of the city. We set up tables and chairs for the 44 attendees. It is quite a nice location with lots of light and a good breeze. After setting up the room we decided that on Monday morning I would meet Pierre at the office at 730am to pick up the conference materials (paper, notebooks, pens and sign in sheets). Adji was to come straight to the conference room to set up sign in tables and coffee break tables outside the room. Pierre would meet me at the office and then go pick up the video projector and we would get the secretary (Danedjo) to go to the bank and change the large bills into smaller bills so the reimbursements will be easier at the end of the meeting.On Monday morning I showed up at the office at 730...Pierre did not...I waited and waited. He finally showed up at 8am sheepishly saying he had gotten held up getting ready. I ran into the office, grabbed the materials and then hopped on a moto taxi to take me to the meeting. When I pulled up Adji rushed up to me and asked why I was so late (the agenda said the meeting was to start at 8am!!). I let him know Pierre had been late. So Adji and I set up the sign in table and began signing in some of the early arrivals...oh wait they were the on time arrivals. People slowly trickle in for the meeting...at 9am Pierre arrives with the projector. I ask him where the presenters are and he says that they called him last night saying they were getting into Maroua quite late and wouldn’t start the meeting until about 930am!!! Hmmm, he couldn’t have let us know that before?!?!?!At 930am the meeting starts and it goes quite well. We learnt all about the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) for the Global Fund to Fight HIV, Malaria and TB. It was very useful especially since all the attendees were representatives of local organizations which do HIV/AIDS work and knowing the process to get funding through this fund is useful to everyone. The CCM coordinates all of the proposals that come out of Cameroon and acts and the funnel which connects them to the Global Fund in Geneva. The presenters were two representatives from Yaounde who sit on the CCM as representatives from the Ministry of Women and Family and the Islamic Association of Cameroon. The meeting was targeting civil society organizations to inform them about the CCM and the process for submitting proposals. It was pretty obvious from the meeting that there needs to be a regional coordinating group for the far north province here since many organisations expressed the desire for better communication amongst far north HIV/AIDS organizations and an opportunity to share information and ideas. I hope to perhaps encourage Pierre to take a lead to try to organize such a thing.The lunch was nice. It was Pierre’s wife who did the cooking. That is a common occurrence here, whoever needs to organize a meeting or workshop will always have their wife or wives cater since that way they can earn some money for their family. We had the regular Cameroonian conference food which was rice, a green type of vegetable (zoom – similar to follere), tomato sauce and hot sauce. Pierre’s wife had also made fresh juices (lemon, ginger as well as hibiscus).On Tuesday morning I met with Pierre and Sandrine (treasurer) to go over the finances for the conference. Surprisingly enough we were below budget which is great. ACDES was able to earn some money for the coordination of the meeting. Now I have to make sure most of that goes into ACDES’s account and not into people’s pockets.I am so happy the meeting went well and that everyone enjoyed it.