The skills of village council clerks to effectively write projects for submission to funding agencies have been significantly enhanced through a series of ongoing capacity building workshops.
The workshop which was held for village councils in the East and South East of Dominica earlier this week, is now being hosted for councils from the South and the South West districts at the La Flamboyant Hotel.
Speaking to the media, Administrative Manager at the Dominica Association of Local Community Authorities Inc. (DALCA), Junella Trotman, said lobbying and project writing are some of the areas being taught.
“Right now we are having a series of workshops for the local authorities of Dominica …we have seven districts and what we have done is we have divided them into three groups …..we are having a series of workshops for them in capacity building …. they are going to be taught skills in strategic plans for their councils, project writing, lobbying and leadership skills,” she explained.
Trotman said that the knowledge learnt will be put to use to develop plans for a community project to further local authorities to provide means of employment.
“In so doing they will be able to go back into their respective councils develop those plans and develop the projects on their own,” she stated.
She said the projects will be submitted to donor agencies for funding.
“Additionally what we want to come out from the workshop is to have three strategic projects which we are going to submit to VNG and other donor agencies for further funding,” she said. “So VNG in the end is going to get a final report of the training which is undertaken as well as three strategic plans for the three groupings that we have done for the seven districts and projects.”
Field Officer for the Dominica Association of Local Community Authority Inc., Vincienne George told reporters that one of the developmental components of the project is the area of computer literacy in village councils.
She said most council members around the island are not inclined to technology and she wants that changed. “We will also be developing them and ensuring that they are skilled in that areas in Microsoft excel, Word, and so on and improving their work programs, helping them to develop work programs so that they can be more efficient to their council and in turn help their communities,” she stated.
The workshop is being facilitated by Nadette Langford and Francesca Joseph. It was organized by the Dominica Association of Local Community Authorities Inc (DALCA) with funding from the local government department of Holland (VNG) Int. and the Caribbean Association of Local Government Authorities( CALGA) under the Ariel program.
A similar workshop is planned for village council clerks of the North and North east regions next week in Portsmouth.
Good effort, hope it can bear some fruits. There are some Clerks who are very good in that area, hope the see it as a refresher,and the others grasp as much as possible.
The politics in Council is so terrible now, no longer can we boast of impartiality in Council, the Councillors actually walk out of meetings if you tell them leave the politics outside and just try to see your community. They tell u straight in your face “but is my party that put me there”.
Some Clerks themselves come in with attitude and it’s frightening, but I guess that’s Dominica now; but that too shall pass.
Good Luck.
That might be a task. Now with party politics is all sort of illeterates on the councils. Some still cannot read or write. All they know id mepuis….
Good effort, lets hope that changes some minds for the better.