See you in August Maputo

On Saturday in Pemba we had lunch at "Pieter's Place", a small lodge built around a gigantic old baobab tree. History of the nature humbles and it gave us great shade on a really hot day.

From Pemba the two hour flight down south to Maputo on Sunday and back in the Cardoso hotel where we normally make our base for the activities and meetings with the Ministry of Education and our colleagues from CICan (Colleges and Institutes Canada).

On the other side of the bay (top right hand side of the photo above) is where Edda and her husband Coenraad have their "Gallery Hotel". Quinn and I went to see it on Monday afternoon going back and forth on an always adventurous ferry ride. We are planning to organize a planning retreat with the five General Directors of the five partner institutions in this hotel in August to reflect on almost two years of training sessions with their five management teams.

It had just been raining so the photos turned out a bit dark. They have room for about 25 guests in a variety of very nicely done rooms in the hotel. Very authentic and all materials and furniture made by local producers. A true labor of love this place with a beautiful view of the skyline of Maputo.

They are building a large bridge with a toll route over the bay which will have an important impact on the tourism and hospitality industry of Maputo and region. The bridge is being built by a company from China as part of their 60 billion $ investment in the infrastructure of countries in Africa.

Edda and Coenraad built a small jetty in which they host special events and conferences.

And since they are originally from Belgium, they serve special beers from their home country!

Continuous improvement

All done for the week here in Pemba. The participants worked their way through five days of training on "effective communication strategies". Nancy and Azhar are on their way back to Canada. Quinn and I will have a day rest tomorrow before flying to Maputo on Sunday for project meetings there with colleagues from the Ministry of Education, Colleges & Institutes Canada and Global Affairs Canada. Preparing for the next project training workshops to take place in May, August and October.

Greetings from our little place in Pemba on the beach of the Indian ocean......

TVET reform in Mozambique

Creating change to adjust Technical and Vocational Education & Training (TVET) here is quite the balancing game (like this lady with the cargo on her head). It is one thing to come in from abroad like we do and give them good advice; it is another task for the colleagues in Mozambique to create change within the challenging context and struggling economy of the country. The past three days we worked on the first part, and afterwards we did some shopping + treated ourselves with a nice dinner.

Nancy and Azhar did a great job preparing the workshop materials and then facilitating the learning and reflection during the first three days of our week here in Pemba. Edda, the gender specialist for the Canadian STEM program (Skills Training for Employment in Mozambique), and Quinn, the project manager at Seneca for our work in Mozambique and Tanzania, complemented the work of Nancy and Azhar in many ways. Well done team!

Today we are back at it under the guidance of Fernando, who we contracted as a local leadership trainer. He worked for government and multi-national companies in and outside of Mozambique and has a passion for creating improved skills training in his country. Fernando facilitates days 4 and 5 of our week of learning & reflection with the colleagues of the five partner institutions in Mozambique.

It is great to see Fernando create and guide very involved discussions about the vision and mission of the TVET institutions. It is fascinating and an honor for us to be involved in this process. Our teams will be back in May, August and October this year. Afterwards we will start a process of 1:1 coaching with many of these TVET managers in Cabo Delgado and Tete provinces in northern Mozambique.

Old and new

This one belongs in a museum. In the "old" days these kind of work benches for trades training were the core of the IIC Pemba (Instituto Industrial & Commercial Pemba). Nowadays there is not much training done at technical schools anymore on these machines; also here the automation is dominating production facilities and factories. The IIC is moving more towards training in the hospitality industry, which is expected to grow locally once off-shore oil & gas industry starts its work in the region. The IIC Pemba has just completed its new building of a hotel school which includes 20 fully equipped hotel rooms, a reception area, conference rooms and an upgraded culinary institute.

Because of irregular electricity and water supply systems the institution still needs to have back up systems, such as this water system recently installed with the assistance of the European Union.

Just peeked in through a window in a classroom where students have a meeting......

Today our workshop trainees continue to do a lot of group work around the topic of communication from verbal and non-verbal (body) language, written documents (with focus on e-mail protocols) and group dynamics. Just a few impressions.....

Workshop in Pemba, Mozambique

Departing Dar es Salaam in Tanzania during the afternoon on a Sunday gave us a nice view from the air over this important harbor city. The international flight to the much smaller city of Pemba in the north-east of neighboring Mozambique took an hour. A few shots upon arrival...

Our team of four from Seneca consists here of the two business professors Nancy and Azhar, Quinn (the project manager) and myself. We also have a gender specialist who works under contract with CICan and already lives in Mozambique for more than 20 years (Edda is from Belgium). On Thursday and Friday we also have a communication expert from Mozambique in the team. Fernando worked many years in the mining industry and part of his career he worked for a Canadian company. He will do a few parts of the program about communication topics best to be discussed among the Mozambicans. Our Canadian team sets a theoretical framework during the first three days and then Fernando brings further reflection with the local business and education context.We have 24 participants from 5 technical institutions in the north of Mozambique. The training workshop this time has a focus on "communication" and we are hosted by one of the schools in Pemba.

The General Director of the school in Pemba welcomed us this morning during the first day of the workshop together with a representative of the provincial Ministry of Education of Cabo Delgado, who also spoke a few words of welcome and encouragement.

Nancy started the workshop with a number of interactive introductions on the topic of how we communicate in the workplace (in the background Azhar). Nancy was born, raised and educated in Canada, but her parents came from Portugal to Canada and she speaks fluent Portuguese. Azhar grew up in South Africa and came to Canada 16 years ago.

The Seneca team stays in a nice small hotel just outside of town on the ocean. After the days of workshop delivery they prepare for the next day in a nice relaxed setting. It is hard work (especially because the delivery is all in Portuguese with translation for the parts Azhar leads), but the setting is beautiful. A few pics from the hotel to close off this posting.

Friday afternoon in Dar

After evaluating the workshop and planning the way forward with our colleagues of the MVTTC (Morogoro Vocational Training Teacher College), our week of work here was almost done. We had a meeting with several Ministry representatives on the quality of applied training & education for the second consultancy we are starting in Tanzania on the design process of performance indicators.

Afterwards we returned to our hotel and I start - as every day while being on the road - cleaning up my work e-mail inbox. But the "office setting" here in the hotel for this part of the work-day is of course quite nice:

This impressive tree of hundreds of years of age is overlooking us and supplying welcome shade. Tomorrow (Saturday) we have to map out the work-plan for the performance indicator consultancy and on Sunday I fly to the north of Mozambique to the city of Pemba (an hour south of Dar).

Building Leadership

At the end of the leadership workshop groups of participants were asked to compete to build the highest construction with spaghetti sticks and sticky tap. It is always a very energizing activity good to reflect on afterwards how teams communicate under time pressure and find solutions.

Another good three days of reflections, debate, brainstorming and making further personal career development plans among the participants. Thank you to CICan (Colleges & Institutes Canada) for the ISTEP program support, to GAC (Global Affairs Canada) for the financial support and for the facilitators of the MVTTC and Seneca for delivering this professional development.

Well done, team of facilitators Kevin, Anicia, Martin and Enelisa (and John)!