SENA Cartagena

Today I will take you on a short "virtual tour" of a business & technical vocational training center in the city of Cartagena in the north of Colombia. Cartagena is the capital of a province called "Bolivar" which stretches from the Atlanctic ocean deep into the country side. SENA has in each province one or more of their training centers. One of the three centers in Bolivar is located just outside of the city of Cartagena near a large industrial area and not too far from some important agriculture areas. The center offers a wide variety of training programs (as you will see at the photos), but its main focus is on agriculture (& husbandry) and mining. These are the two main economic sectors of the Bolivar province and therefore many vocational training needs exist. Here is the center's sign:

Bibiana and Jaime are two of the senior managers of the center (behind them on the wall you can see the map of the Bolivar province with in different colors its municipalities). Jaime is the Director for the entire SENA operations in the Bolivar province, and Bibiana runs this specific center. Bibiana is my main project partner in our EFE program and the past 3 weeks and coming 3 weeks we spent a lot of time together "on the road" visiting our EFE program "pilot sites" (more posts about that later).

Bibiana gave Sandra (my main colleague in the SENA Bogota office) and me a tour of the campus:

One of their business programs: the open concept again - both larger group and small group work going on in the same space. They are college students but they are also wearing uniforms here...

One of their chemical laboratories. They were doing applied research on animal products that day.

A group of students in their computer repair/engineering program. And then baking and culinary:

Their training restaurant (and in the background the "laboratory" for bartending). In the corridors the Colombian Red Cross was doing the day we visited a voluntary blood donation clinic (and they also used that opportunity for an AIDS awareness and STD information campaign):

This training center has a modest horticulture program and a small experimental agriculture farm:

Throughout the campus they have a reclying program and the empty plastic bottles are used for the planting of experimental seeds in the farm area. Bibiana would love to also offer practical programs in husbandry, but at this campus there is no space (nor permission) to keep animals. They hope to get a dedicated campus for that somewhere further in-land in a more rural area.

The province stretches a long way geographically with many areas where there are only dirt roads. In order to reach out with training programs they have "mobile laboratories" such as the one above.

One of the important focus groups for SENA training are "youth at risk". Below is a photo of a session on "life and work skills" for such a group of young adults living in low income areas of the city. Doing these programs in an urban setting is challenging enough. Doing them in remote rural areas is even more difficult and this is one of our main challenges in the EFE program.

For the rural areas, land use has long been an area of little attention. SENA tries to bring change with programs making use of today's GIS technology. Below a few photos of the equipment used to plot acurate land cards. The SENA team goes out with student teams to do measurements (see the field measurement kit), then digitalizes the results on the computer and plots the maps on their own printer

Here is the GIS teacher team with Bibiana. The male teacher explained in excellent English that his girl-friend is from Canada.... small world of course. For their work they also use some solar powered equipment as well as water & soil testing equipment:

After all the touring we went back to our work on the EFE program planning. A very interesting day in Cartagena with the SENA Bolivar team. This was after we visited a very remote rural area of the province where we will pilot our EFE program with new training programs for small scale miners and small scale farmers. In the next few posts more about that... !

Week in Lima

The "Education for Employment" (or EFE) program co-financed by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and implemented by the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC) takes place in three countries in the Andean region: Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. There are also EFE programs taking place in Africa (Senegal, Tanzania and Mozambique) and the Caribean region (9 Anglophone Island States + Belize, Guayana and Suriname).

The past week (February 12-14) representatives of the 3 Andean countries held their first regional coordination meeting in Lima hosted by the Peruvian Ministries of Education and Labor:

We reviewed the work so far done (only the first year of mostly planning activities resulting in what CIDA calls the "Project Implementation Plans") and the work to be done the coming four years. One of the main objectives of these three days was to see what the areas of common interest can be and how we can stimulate increased cooperation between the three countries on those topics. Form the Canadian side we had prepared some presentations and discussion topics on environmental impacts, gender mainstreaming and working with so-called "non-traditional learners".

The topic of non-traditional learners is something for which I have developed a great passion during the past 10-15 years. I was able to share experiences from work done in Peru, Argentina, Brasil, Mozambique and other places. After plenairy presentations we split up in smaller groups and discussed ideas and plans, to afterwards share again with the group at large:

 

 

 

Of course we had our lunch breaks and we had some short visits to schools in Lima and to the offices of the Ministry of Labor of Peru where they showed us services they offer to people looking for work

 

 

 

 

Just a few more photos (all taken by a professional photographer by the way) of these few intensive and productive days. Sharing experiences and ideas (and passion for social change) between people from a variety of countries is always a stimulating event:

 

 

 

 

The last photo is Ximena Rizo in action. She is my main sparring partner at SENA; a real "mover and shaker". It is s true privilege to be able to work with Ximena and her team, many of whom are such hard workers. The task for my colleague "Technical Advisors" in La Paz, Bolivia and Lima, Peru, and me is to do a lot of "active listening", ask questions and stimulate project development:

 

Roger working in La Paz

 

                                                               Sylvain working in Lima

And in the end some "thank goodness we survived these long days" photos were taken......

 

On the right Elsa, a labor market analist of SENA, then Ximena, Director Corporate and International relations at SENA, Maryvonne, the writer of our 100 page "Project Implementation Plan" as consultant for ACCC, and Bibiana, Director of the training center in Cartagena with whom I will be doing a lot of work this year.

 

We also visited the city a bit and I have photos on my iPhone, but they have to wait for another time.

 

The coming ten days I will be in Cartagena working with Bibiana and her team. We will visit a few of the pilot project communities in the area 6-7 hours south of Cartagena. Next blog entry will be posted in early March. Hasta luego y que vayas bien!

 

Feelings and emotions

A friday evening after a really busy week with work. Catching up on e-mails and Face Book and then finding some feedback from my friend Sue Dolan. She asks me some interesting questions, and maybe more readers wonder about these things, so here goes....

1. How to make comments "stick"? I know several people have tried to send comments, even my tech-wiz daugther Hilary. I thought it would simply go if you have a gmail account, but that does not seem to be so. Cassandra Mussungayi, if you are reading this... send me/us some advice, will ya?

2. Too many acronyms... I know, I know. I tried to explain them in my early blog entries, but I guess I will have to repeat the explanations or avoid using them. ACCC stands for the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. I am this year "on loan" from Niagara College to the ACCC and work as "Technical Advisor" on a development project on capacity building of instructors of SENA. And SENA stands for Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (if you want to practice your Spanish and get an idea of this very large training institute, go to www.sena.edu.co ).

3. My work explained in "laymen's terms". I am here to get the process of implementation of the program going. Sort of getting the locomotive in motion. SENA trains 6 million Colombians each year. Half of them via "virtual" on-line courses. Many youngsters to get them interested in the trades and technical studies (see my last blog). Many "mature" learners who need to be re-trained. And about half a million in similar 2 and 3 year diploma programs as we offer at Canadian colleges. SENA has training centers throughout the country. All their training is free of tuition. Their target group of clients come from lower income families. Colombia is a geographical very complex country (you will see some of that during my blogs of the next 4-5 week when I will be in very remote areas of the country). Many communities have been excluded from training programs because of the geography and SENA is now trying to reach out to them. Many Canadian colleges also work in remote regions of the country and have assisted many training institutions around the world in such situations. The program in Colombia will target new training programs for artisanal gold miners and small scale farmers in the areas where gold mining is the main source of income generation. My role this year is to introduce SENA to a variety of interested Canadian colleges, who with the CIDA funding (Canadian International Development Agency) can work with SENA on new vocational course development and improvement of teaching techniques in training programs. Once SENA has decided on 4-5 Canadian partner colleges, they will start three years of cooperation here from 2014 to 2017. By the end of 2013 the "locomotive" should be in motion with these partnerships.

4. My feelings. I think of myself as an "activist", but one who likes to quietly work with communities in developing nations. Listening to their needs and then trying to "broker" some assistance for them. Creating partnerships is what I live for. Being here in Colombia is a fantastic opportunity to do field work again. I loved my two years with MSF/Doctors without Borders in Mozambique (1988-1990) just before Mary and I tied the knot. The past 20 years did not offer the opportunity to do more real field work. I travelled a lot always for my work, but there is a big difference between being somewhere one week or one year. I am happy, very happy, to have a chance again to do field work. I like to think of myself as a team player who looks for practical solutions. But I also like to listen every now and then to John Lennon's "Imagine" and agree with him that he was not the only dreamer. Having positive feelings is the best fuel for a fullfilling life....

5. What do I do in evenings? There is a lot of work to do in this initial program phase. During the day I work with SENA colleagues and in the evening I am busy in my little "home office". Mary and I try to catch up via SKYPE every evening, and sometimes I also get a hold of our kids Hilary and Mark. I regularly make these blog entries. I have visited Bogota already many times since I was here for the first time in 1983. I know a fair amount of people here and now is a nice time to catch up quietly during dinners. Of course I also meet a lot of new people. I try to spread out the social activities a bit because I also need time for myself. I work out every other day in the gym accross the street where I took a membership. I love to just walk around and watch the daily life. I do that a lot during the weekends. And of course there are evenings which are good for some reading or a movie.

6. Do I connect with people or am I lonely? I love time for myself as I just described, but of course it is one of the special things of being here to socialize with Colombians. There are 47 million of them and 10 million live here in Bogota. I try not to "over-do" it. I like to spend time one on one with my old friends and new Colombians I get to meet through work and net-working. It often results in discussions which go a bit deeper. But every now and then a beer with a group is of course great as well, and the city of Bogota has way more choices for going out than I can handle... As I described in one of my blogs, I do miss my life-partner Mary a lot. That was predictable. And it is good to notice that we indeed miss each other's company.

7. Do I "coast on the surface" here? In a way yes of course. I will be here longer than many people who visit Colombia, but it is still only one year. It is my"home away from home", but my real home is where Mary and I live together. As "expatriates" we always live a bit "on the surface". But I do not hang out much with other foreigners.

8. What are my impressions of people here? As anywhere else in the world there are so many different Colombians. It is very entertaining to hear my colleagues poke fun at each other from where they come from in the country. Just tonight I had some late afternoon snacks with two colleagues (Sandra and Alvaro; I have talked about both of them in previous blog entries). Sandra is from the coastal area and Alvaro grew up in Bogota. I can't really explain what they teased each other on, but it would be the same in Canada with a Torontonian and somebody from the east or west coast. I will try througout the year to share "people stories" with you.

9. Last question: how about the food? This is going to be the weak part of my blog... I love going out with people for meals, but hardly ever pay attention to the food. What for me counts is the company and the conversations. The food.... well as long as it does not kill us. Of course there is a rich variety of typical Colombian dishes from the many different parts and cultures of the country. I will do my best to make some photos of dishes every now and then (but I tend to forget that all the time). It is past midnight now.... time for a sleep rather than talk about food. Stay tuned...

SENA TecnoParque

Today Sandra invited me for a visit she had organized for two visitors from US colleges (from Boston and Philidelphia) to one of their vocational training centers. They call these centers "TecnoParque" which freely translated means "Technology Centers". The center we visited is located in an old factory hall in a low income area in the south of the city. The photo below is taken on the outside and on the hill behind the center you can maybe see informal housing of which most have no proper sanitation or water supplies. SENA advertises via the internet and newspapers the option to compete for free training for different age groups: adult learners (re-training), high school graduates and also the age group before high school. I will explain below how that works with some photos.

SENA uses a lot of "mobile classrrooms" for areas where SENA can not (yet) build training facilities. You see some of these "labs on wheels" in the parking lot. They also have a few boats with labs and classrooms for the large river deltas where there are no roads.

You can see in this photo the structure of the former factory building. The entire place is an "open concept": one learning areas flows into another one. Hard to get on a photo, but I felt it is a very nice and inspiring concept rather than the "compartamentalized training units" we have in Europe and North America. Below is a group of young adults working on an IT project:

And behind them is a group of high school students (in school uniforms) working on a project:

Further in the hall I observed a couple of groups of adult learners. One group was training on simulators donated by Caterpillar. Another group was just starting in another integrated learning environment. And yet others were training on aircraft maintenance (see the small plane in the back of the last photo).

 

In smaller labs training is given in micro-electronics (see photo below of an instructor explaining the production of "boards"), "life sciences" (water treatment, food technology, etc) and electricity. They also have machines for the new technology of "3D printing" (to see how good the student's technical drawings work out) and CAD/CAM (see photos below).

The last photo is a theoretical class in their culinary training area. SENA training is all free and their target group is the lower income families. For the pre-high school age group it is to be compared with some of the North American "Mad Scientist" program to stimulate youngsters into technical careers. They get about 20,000 applications each year for that young category and select only 2,000 after quite an elaborate two week screening process. From these students 100 % move on in technician and technologists programs after high school (SENA also offers the Quebec GECEP system of the last two years of technical high school). Almost all of them find employment (in the bigger cities) or create their own small businesses (in smaller towns and rural areas). There are no statistics on this, but a good numbber of these students later in their career do university degrees. Something they could never have dreamt of when they grew up on that hill in very poor housing and many of them in broken families and too many criminal activities around them. The program with the young ones is only three years in operation as a formal national program, but it is already a huge success.

This visit was a wonderful showing of the incredible work SENA does around the country....