TFEM Workshop on ADVOCACY AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS BUILDING

TFEM was conducting another skills building workshop in Bangkok on Advocacy and Communication. This workshop was held on June 27 - 29, 2008 and made lively by the participants from Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand [Phanga and Mae Sod]. The workshop was actually a combination of advocacy, basic GIPA and communication skills.Greg Gray, the advisor of APN+ was sharing about the GIPA Principles to the participants. All participants had the chance to do discussion and brainstorming regarding GIPA, in order to see their understanding on the issue and also how to integrate the GIPA Principles into their works. The discussions were around What is GIPA? | Why GIPA? | What are the benefits? | Why GIPA is important for populations? | How does it suit migrant workers situation? | How can GIPA make a difference? |

In this opportunity, CARAM Asia also introduced their new look of brochures and their first Annual Report. The brochures had been designed in a more attractive and colourful themes. It contained brief information on CARAM Asia and its Task Forces.
There were a lot of interactive activities during the workshop as well as brainstorming. All the participants had to write "perceptions" on meta-cards and try to put it on the board and sort out accordingly to the similarities. The participants were learning on how to group the issues and avoid the repetitions as well as learn on how to identify same issues wrapped in different terms.

Grouping the migrant's issues based on country.

Grouping the issues based on similarities and themes. Apparently it wasn't THAT easy.... Joel [facilitator] was helping the participants on grouping the issues. These issues, later on, will be collated to be core messages from where the participants should create an advocacy plan.

It is always said that Regional Workshop had a lot of challenges including language barriers. But participants can always resolve the language barriers. We were not only building the capacity here, deeper than that, we were building friendship and family-hood here. And in friendship and family, there's no such thing as LANGUAGE BARRIER.

Apart from the language barriers and dozens of assignments, the participants were not just learning all the time. We had fun too! We had many games that brings us closer as family, and the good thing is, in these games, nobody cares whether you can speak English or not, because the most important thing was YOU NEED TO HAVE A GOOD LAUGH... :)

Every country had several chances to do presentations and everyone was paying full attention to each and every presentation made by other participants. A lot of questions, inputs and suggestions were made during this interactive sessions. It was, clearly, a learning process for everyone. And more over, it was also a forum to share.

During country discussions on action plan and advocacy plan, all participants got the chance to have full supervision and consultation from the facilitator. They can ask questions and consult their discussion result with the facilitator in order to get the best result to be presented. Furthermore, cross-discussion with other countries also very much encouraged. Learning from other country's experience has always been the best method for everyone to analyze and compare the results.

Finally, the presentation of Country Action Plan! All countries had to present their Action Plan. They are guided to produce the most simple and doable plan, and were expected to implement the plan as soon as they go back to their country.

Finally, everyone was happy to be in this workshop and excited to share the knowledge with their peers in the country......