Sylvia's Journal

We spent today (Friday) planning and practicing the various sessions we will conduct on Monday to launch the leadership program with stakeholders at the central level. We want their benediction and also create a bit of a buzz. We used the model that is central to our leadership program, the challenge model, to design the event, giving the brand new facilitators from the ministry of health another chance at practicing what they learned earlier in the week.

They are brave souls, taking on sessions that they would not have expected to run in their wildest dreams only a week ago. After lunch we had ‘micro-facilitation’ sessions which we applauded and then critiqued with a view to making them better.

I put the finishing touches on the slides with instructions so that we don’t have to make too many flipcharts as the number of invitees is high (50). This will be a bit of a management challenge.

And while I was doing this I watched French TV which, probably like any other station, showed one horrendous catastrophe after another. I can see why people sometimes think the world is going to hell in a hand basket – you would if you watch TV all the time: Afghanistan, Ukraine, Iraq, Korea, Abudja, Syria, South Sudan – all terrible stories of woe and terror, nastiness and incompetence. Luckily I know of many more instances where goodness wins the day and people focus on making the world a better place. There are always more of those than the nasties or incompetents.