Cheryl Karzai
MUMBAI, OCTOBER 6, 2009: The Shelter Don Bosco R&D team once again organized an animated workshop on October 5, 2009 on; “Outreach Strategies for working with Marginalized Populations”. 16 NGOs of Mumbai with 34 participants took part in this interactive workshop.
The workshop was conducted in Marathi to suit the comfort of the grass root workers coming from various backgrounds
of working with marginalized populations of the streets, abused persons, pavement dwellers, construction workers and other types of marginalized communities, children and women.
Fr. Barnabe D’Souza opened the workshop with a prayer and welcomed the participants. He introduced Dr. Sunita Shanbahg the main resource person of the evening, who was not just a medical doctor, but one who has had 30 yrs of experience in the field with communities and working on extensively on a mother and child programme for the Government of Maharashtra.
Dr. Shanbagh got the participants to share their practical situations/experiences in the field and drew out the principle strategies and skills required in doing outreach and reaching out to these populations. Skills and principles such as Observations, Body language, Rapport, Understanding of the situation/s, being non-politically affiliated, being convinced of the organizations’ values, and meeting the right stake holders and persons in the community were some of the important tenets that Dr. Shanbagh pointed out.
These workshops have been a good platform to spread the Salesian system of education in social work; this has been well done through the Manuals published by the R&D ( Matunga). Volume 4 in the series of ‘Handbook for Children in Difficult Situations’ on ‘Outreach Strategies’ was well explained by co-author Ms. Rupal Vador. Ms. Vad
or gleamed through the Manual and showed how it could be used as an easy tool, with researched exercises and field examples to guide them in their own outreach work. Dr. Shanbahg reiterated that this manual should be the‘Bible’ of every outreach worker. The participants asked for it to be translated in Marathi as it seemed to be a very useful tool for all outreach social workers from across all marginalized groups.
One of the benefits of these workshops has been that the R&D has been able to put forward the Salesian method of working with the marginalized children to many more NGOs, who have been appreciative and coming to absorb more nuances of the Preventive system.
The workshop has been another opportunity to promote the ‘FINO’ photo identity savings identity card. The UDAAN 2009 Mela invitation was once again put forward to the participants. The latest Manual on, ‘Eliciting People Participation in Community Development’ was portrayed to the participants.
MUMBAI, OCTOBER 6, 2009: The Shelter Don Bosco R&D team once again organized an animated workshop on October 5, 2009 on; “Outreach Strategies for working with Marginalized Populations”. 16 NGOs of Mumbai with 34 participants took part in this interactive workshop.
The workshop was conducted in Marathi to suit the comfort of the grass root workers coming from various backgrounds
of working with marginalized populations of the streets, abused persons, pavement dwellers, construction workers and other types of marginalized communities, children and women.Fr. Barnabe D’Souza opened the workshop with a prayer and welcomed the participants. He introduced Dr. Sunita Shanbahg the main resource person of the evening, who was not just a medical doctor, but one who has had 30 yrs of experience in the field with communities and working on extensively on a mother and child programme for the Government of Maharashtra.
Dr. Shanbagh got the participants to share their practical situations/experiences in the field and drew out the principle strategies and skills required in doing outreach and reaching out to these populations. Skills and principles such as Observations, Body language, Rapport, Understanding of the situation/s, being non-politically affiliated, being convinced of the organizations’ values, and meeting the right stake holders and persons in the community were some of the important tenets that Dr. Shanbagh pointed out.
These workshops have been a good platform to spread the Salesian system of education in social work; this has been well done through the Manuals published by the R&D ( Matunga). Volume 4 in the series of ‘Handbook for Children in Difficult Situations’ on ‘Outreach Strategies’ was well explained by co-author Ms. Rupal Vador. Ms. Vad
or gleamed through the Manual and showed how it could be used as an easy tool, with researched exercises and field examples to guide them in their own outreach work. Dr. Shanbahg reiterated that this manual should be the‘Bible’ of every outreach worker. The participants asked for it to be translated in Marathi as it seemed to be a very useful tool for all outreach social workers from across all marginalized groups.One of the benefits of these workshops has been that the R&D has been able to put forward the Salesian method of working with the marginalized children to many more NGOs, who have been appreciative and coming to absorb more nuances of the Preventive system.
The workshop has been another opportunity to promote the ‘FINO’ photo identity savings identity card. The UDAAN 2009 Mela invitation was once again put forward to the participants. The latest Manual on, ‘Eliciting People Participation in Community Development’ was portrayed to the participants.