LebRelief & World Waternet's online Training-of Trainers experience
In the last months, World Waternet has designed and delivered an online 'Training of Trainers' course to the LebRelief community staff. The course, eight sessions, covers modules 1 to 5 of the World Health Organisation Water Safety Plan, and prepares participants with the tools needed to engage with the local community of Tabbaneh Tripoli about water safety and awareness of the water supply system. Project coordinators Eleanor Treadwell (World Waternet), Nancy Akly (LebRelief) and Fatima Masri (LebRelief) share their views on the online Training-of-Trainers experience.
The ultimate objective of the training is to work towards increasing the water safety and the subscription rate to the North Lebanon Water Establishment by residents in Tabbaneh, Tripoli. The participants gained:
- an overall understanding of the importance of water safety;
- knowledge of the key stakeholders involved in the Water Safety Plan participative planning process;
- awareness of how water safety is approached from a health-based perspective.
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LebRelief says: "This training is important to us as we want to apply water safety planning in Lebanon's most vulnerable locality, after assessing and providing all the infrastructure needed. LebRelief acknowledges that water safety planning approach supports the advocacy for increasing subscribers to the (newly implemented) drinkingwater network, and ensuring provision of the proper water quality by responsible parties. Consequently, the 'Training of Trainers' sessions were vital for building our organisation’s internal capacity, while inducing a sense of responsibility within all of the participating team members. Our LebRelief teams need to be well equipped to ensure proper information and dispersion to the communities. We strongly believe in the power of knowledge and encourage our members to not only learn but also to teach and inform the community. After all, knowledge must endure." |
Left: Drinking water inspector Aziz Saleh (Waternet) in action. Right: World Waternet and LebRelief Training of Trainers team 2021.
Community spirit
In another time, this training would have been conducted face-to-face, with Waternet staff visiting Lebanon and the participants visiting different locations in the community. However, this was not possible and the participants of LebRelief and Waternet staff demonstrated true resilience and adaptability, as they adapted the training in response to the changing lock-down restrictions in Lebanon. A real community spirit emerged throughout the training and we succeeded in creating an engaging and participatory 'Training of Trainers' with interesting discussions through the online meeting room and Whatsapp group.
We asked LebRelief coordinator Nancy Akly, to share the key takeaways and lessons learnt from this experience:
As a 'Training of Trainers' coordinator, I was eager to acquire technical knowledge along with practical methods for further dissiminiation the know-how. Through World Waternet’s assistance we learned more about the implementation of water safety planning through practical exercises and tools based on the first 5 modules of the WHO WSP approach. These tools included indicators screening, scenario reading, identifying stakeholders, SWOT analysis, water treatment network and plants functioning. Most importantly, we highlighted that the solution begins from the moment we start perceiving water as a substantial and valuable resource.
As water is part of a cycle, the water safety plan is owned by all stakeholders in a locality. During the training, we also looked into other internal techniques of advocacy approaches through community engagement. What was most remarkable to me was the way these sessions were seamlessly conducted while the team had different backgrounds both in terms of education and culture. I ended up with an organized Water Safety Planning structure, a practical manual and enriched insights, through the diversity of the sessions’ actors, brought to light through the exposure and exchanges.
It is important to note the role the trainers themselves played within this exchange, as they reflected key expertise fields with practical examples and presented positively throughout the online sessions. From our perspective, we learned how effective and influential such a role can be when the boundaries of formalities are surpassed, and the learnings go beyond the set program to a human learning as well as a technical one, and as a coordinator I am able to see the value in the professional and personal growth this training provided. The impact the trainers had by being patient, generous, understanding, with an extremely humble attitude, added an extra layer of learning to the training, reminding us that no matter how experienced we get, the well of knowledge never runs dry, and we must keep seeking it.
