Signing of formal MoU between SENA and ACCC

This week we have a variety of important meetings in Bogota between the senior management of SENA (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje) and the ACCC (Association of Canadian Community Colleges). As reminder: while I continue to be under contract with Niagara College Canada, I am this year "on loan" to the ACCC as a Technical Advisor to SENA.

From the ACCC headquarter in Ottawa we have this week visiting Paul Brennan, Vice President International Partnerships, and our Senior Program Officer (with whom I do most of my day to day communications from Bogota about the project management). We also have the Manager from CIDA (now DFATD - Department Of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development) Ottawa over who is responsible for the monitoring of the EFE program in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia (are we doing what we promise?; are we managing the funds correctly?; does our approach seem to be effective and efficient?; can we face the Canadian public with head up about good use of these tax payer dollar for international development?).

One of the objectives today was to sign the formal MoU between SENA and ACCC by Paul and by Gina Parody, Executive Director of SENA. The above "news flash" from the communications department made that right away public via SENA's website. It is nice to see this happen after all the preparations the past year. All the senior Directors of SENA were present:

On the left Diana Basto, Director International Project (I do most of my work as advisor with some of her team members next to the operational managers in the provinces of Bolivar and Antioquia). In the middle Gina Parody, Executive Director. And on the right Paul Brennan of ACCC.

Tomorrow we have a full day "Project Steering Committee" meeting, the first official coordination meeting to review progress so far and formal approval of the work plan for the coming year.