Creative in Conflict: Project Management Training in Syria via WhatsApp

The war in Syria has created one of the most challenging environments for NGOs to operate in. Financial resources are extremely limited, communication networks are poor and electricity is in short supply. The security situation has forced almost half the population to flee to safety which means there are fewer skilled people left in Syria and those trying to enter the country face numerous risks and problems. As a result, NGOs are in desperate need of project managers but are struggling to recruit or train them.

Marifah for Social Entrepreneurship in Turkey decided to tackle this problem by utilising one of the most reliable free communication tools it has access to: WhatsApp. With the organizational motto, ‘Creative Investment in Creative People,’ they came up with the idea of providing training in Project Management for Development Professionals (PMD Pro) using WhatsApp to engage trainees directly through their phones or computers.

PMD Pro Flex – The Reality

A guest post by John Cropper, Director of Capacity Building Solutions at LINGOs.

In September, we launched our first pilot of PMD Pro Flex – a self-paced, facilitated, moderated, virtual and social way to learn PMD Pro. What’s happened since then?

A new way to learn PMD Pro

A guest post by John Cropper, Director of Capacity Building Solutions

How do you help people doing good to do it better? This has always been one of the main challenges with training NGOs in project management. Most NGO staff working on projects work long days and often long nights. They spend a lot of time in communities, on the road and in difficult and often hard to access locations. In addition, they often have to respond to multiple and often unpredictable demands ranging from humanitarian crises to unplanned visits from HQ or donors. It is like juggling but with an ever varying number of balls in the air at the same time.

LINGOs takes on the dynamic world of Social Learning: What have we learnt so far?

A post by Ross Coxon, Director of Learning Collaborative at LINGOs

Social Learning is creating quite a stir in the L&D and academic worlds and if you haven’t yet engaged in this type of learning, you really should. As L&D professionals we need to be conversant with many different approaches to online and social learning.

So LINGOs (our members, Gus, some other friends and myself) just hosted and finished our first MOOC. Or did we?