Training MVF – A Success ! by Ashok Aritakula

Today, August 3rd 2009, was the last day of the training and yet another training got successfully over.

Thanks to Paul, who kept calm and made sure that training went on in spite of technical difficulties we faced.

I was really impressed to see how interested MVF was in our application. They were questioning each and every feature of the application and were making sure that it is fitting their needs. If not they were making instant request's for modifying the feature.

It was really great to see the real users of this application. I had a chance to meet many MVF Workers and I found that they are all simple and hard working people ,with a zeal to eradicate child labour. For them, seeing us from Logica, was a great motivating factor and when they came to know that we brought them an application (CMS), which can help them do their work faster and better , they were thrilled.

Many of them personally, came to me asking about the usage of the application. The main hurdle during this training was that they were not comfortable with English. But three guys from MVF, Mahindra , Krishna and Amit made sure that they translate instructions in English to their native language. Thats when we also identified that these three people are the ones who can and will take care of the further deployement and usage of CMS in MVF, once we are gone. We awarded them a Certificate as Experts.

Overall, I feel the training was a complete success and MVF is really happy and serious about deploying the application across different sectors.

As I knew their native language, they were very comfortable talking to me and sharing their views with me frankly. And it was really great to understand as what they think about this application , about Logica's contribution and the role they have to play in using this application. What I understood , from their views is that they have now the clear visibility of how they can use this application to make their work better and faster , In their casual talks they already started talking about how to use and where to use. They even planning to change the way they do survey, so that more and more authentic data is fed to the application.

Being part of all this was making me feel really great. Thanks to Veronica and Malti :-).

Even though, this phase of training is now over, I feel this is just the beginning and Logica is becoming really good at it :-).

Thanks,

Ashok

The last blog. On the finalday we had still a busy program: evaluation and discussion about next step, printing certificates, final lunch with everybody, visiting giftshops. No time to publish this blog. Hereby.

Sightseeing and the final training

Sunday we hired a taxi to make a sightseeing tour in Hyderabad: Salar Yung Museum (a.o. fine miniature paintings; I missed the famous musical clock), Charminar and surrounding market streets, Mecca Masjid; and outside the city: Golconda fort. Everywhere you see traditional India: shrines, temples, believers performing rituals. But also modern India: e.g. a motorized station for measuring pollution by traffic gazes. Cars, motorbikes and rickshaws are checked and advised on improvement.

(ceremony for godess Kali)

Monday was the final training day. As in every school class there were very fast trainees, somewhat slower and very slow ones. I myself has learned a lot about giving a training in a different language and culture. For one thing: Dutch seems to be a compact language; when you unzip it into one of the Indian languages (Telugu), then you need somewhat more words. The trainees understood it better and It gave me time to look ahead to the next subject. Looking back I think that as a train-the-trainer project the project was very successful. Some other trainees will need a fresh-up when in the future they start using CMS. Also it was good as a reality test: everyday new points for improvement came up and some questions about ‘should it be as it is now’ were discussed. It was a great pleasure to work together with motivated people

in a very good atmosphere.

(the last group)

A training day: Thursday

9.02 By rickshaw to the office; a ‘kermis’ drive of 10 minutes through the hilarious traffic.

9.20 Installation of the latest version of the application on mine laptop. Start other 5 machines to be used by the 7 trainees. One machine always starts scanning the whole harddisk. Another has always to be rebooted.

09.50 Ready to start; wait for the trainees. Planned start: 10.00.

11.10 Everybody has arrived. They are pardoned: they traveled 150 km and left home at 05.00! So I start with a warm welcome. I am glad that Mr. Mahender (staff of MV Foundation) translates mine introduction. These are mostly fieldworkers, living in poor villages (“a village is poor per definition”).

11.40 Power cut! Suddenly it is quiet: the fan, everything is dead. I cannot let them install the application on their own machine. Go on with 7 trainees on 1 laptop. Some has problem with typing: mine keyboard is different. Others are very quick to pick it all up.

12.25 Lunch around the table. The mild spicy food (very tasty) and the warmth makes me sweat.


13.20 Continue story. Mine laptop runs out of power – I switch to the laptop of Geert Jan. It becomes rather warm in the small room. Sometimes I have problem to understanding a fieldworker: he cannot explain me in for me understandable English what he wants to do – so I cannot help him further. Mahender and Ashok are nearby. I have the feeling I have made myself dispensable.

15.10 Noise again: power returned. Everybody gets started on a machine. When each has done the main thing at least once, I finish the training with the subject: making reports. After that they resume the training on their own initiative!


16.10 Powercut again!! Disappointment - an early halt of the training. The fieldworkers who came from far, stay in Hyderabad and will follow the training tomorrow again.At the end I am not unhappy with the result.