Campleader Manual
The project was realized in the framework of UNCRO Program of the Dutch Environmental Foundation Milieukontakt Oost-Europa in June 2004 – March 2005.
Project purpose was developing manual for campleaders, which would include both theoretical information and practical suggestions for activists involved in the projects of SVIT, to help them in organization and realization of workcamps as campleaders; and provide training on placement for placement officers of the year 2004.
Development of campleader manual has started with planning meeting, followed by period of writing, evaluation, and a working meeting to evaluate the manual and discuss follow-up possibilities.
Present: Artem Bobko, Irina Bogdanova, Maxim Agadjanov and Marta Guzniczak, Viktoria Zhurbik, Andrey Kurasov, Julia Myasyshcheva
After all the chapters were finalized, evaluation criteria were developed for each chapter and manual in general. Ideas and criteria for design and layout were discussed. The chapters were evaluated using the following criteria:
- the content of the chapter corresponds its title
- logic in the content, links with the other chapters
- information presented fully, in interesting way
- combination of practical examples and theory
- the language is easy to read and understand
Having the criteria for evaluation, not just those who were involved in development, but all SVIT members were invited to submit comments to the first version of the manual. All comments received were put together and discussed by project team, which of them should be considered, what parts of the manual should be amended, what is missing and what needs to be shortened, some parts of annexes should be removed to the main text and vice versa. The result of this work was second version of the manual, which was to be printed and used by campleaders during the season of 2005.
Ideas for design and layout were also discussed, starting with possibilities for printing and binding. First version of layout was elaborated and presented to everyone for comments, afterwards relevant changes were made, both Ukrainian and English version edited and printed by the end of March.
During the evaluation meeting, which took place in
Artemovsk in
As the manual was not used by campleaders in 2004, it was decided to reserve time during the training for campleaders specially for the manual, present it to campleaders, what it is meant for, and possibilities to get feedback from campleaders to improve the manual for the next years. The workcamp season 2005 presents more possibilities for proper evaluation, due to more workcamps and more people involved as campleaders for the first time, who did not contribute to elaboration of the manual. So their feedback and results of their evaluation would allow to make the manual present wider views, more practical examples, improve its structure and content. The project team agreed to develop and distribute special evaluation survey to campleaders, results of which will be collected prior to the annual meeting, and will be discussed there.
The whole project, development of campleader manual, have allowed SVIT activists to put together practical experience and approaches in organization of workcamps, suitable for local situation; develop information source both in Ukrainian and English – which is making it useful both for English- and non-English speakers among SVIT activists, allowing the second to assist with some practical and technical arrangements in running workcamps, and not just being a passive participant. Having the manual available in Ukrainian opens space for involving and training new activists with not so good command in English, sharing the information with potential local partners for the workcamps. It has created printed and electronic source of information on organization of workcamps, which will be of use for SVIT during the next years, and make procedure of preparation and training of campleaders much easier – additionally to training is it extra source of examples and information. Internally, it helped to reveal and improve potential of activists in developing materials, translation, team work and planning, which will be considered during elaboration of other publications, and work on long-term projects in general. Some weak points and problems which took place during this project were evaluated and discussed to avoid them in the future, as:
- time planning and keeping deadlines
- teamwork, fulfilling own part of work and remembering about collective responsibility and result
- delegating tasks and responsibilities to other activists in case someone from the team is not able to meet the deadline
- constructive criticism
- communication as a whole team and person-to-person
- sustainability and follow-up of results
- capacities of activists, experience and expertise available among SVIT members (for publications, organizing training sessions, handout materials etc.)
Project coordinator
Julia Myasyshcheva
For more information on the Campleader manual, please see the content here, or contact us at svit_ukraine@yahoo.com