On 30 July, 2014, STT hosted a training seminar for 10 representatives from different communities. With the support of the European Union, STT funded the training course and bought smart phones for use in the session. The course started at 7:30am and finished at 5:00pm, and included a morning snack, lunch, and an afternoon snack.
The purpose of the course was to teach community representatives how to use information technology and the Internet to circulate news regarding the abuse of land rights, human rights, evictions, security, and other issues. Through the guidance of Mr. Nget Vanna, the program focused on helping representatives better serve their communities. The training also included a game, which used a model community to illustrate the importance of social media networks and benefits of it. Mr. Nget Vanna explained the theory with a slide show, making the information more digestible.
After almost a full day of training, it was wonderful to see the participants gain valuable knowledge through on-site testing. This exercise showed that the representatives from those communities have the capacity to teach fellow community members how to solve some their daily challenges. At the end of the program, the representatives were happy with the knowledge that they had acquired and made a commitment to solving issues in society together.
Absence of some community representatives because of participation with other Organizations,
Some of the community representative who were invited to the training seminar were absent because they had to attend meetings with other organizations. Of the the 10 community represetatives, there were 2 people who missed STT’s seminar because they were busy meeting with the Women for Peace and the Human Right organization at Sithi Hub. Even though they were absent on the 30th, STT still trained them on August 4, 2014.The community representatives who attended were also provided with snacks, lunch, and some money for their travels.
Their training was no different from those who participated on the 30th. In the end, they received the same course and they were very pleased with the knowledge they gained. A lot of the information was new to them and so was the technology, especially regarding the use of social media.
Our final conclusion was that training for 10 representatives was extremely successful and followed the planning of the organization set up under the ICT project.
