Jayne Cravens:
Capacity-Building Work with and in Developing Countries
and with Various Constituencies in "the West"
Much of my professional work has been
focused on building the capacities of others. Through onsite and online
workshops, mentoring, training materials and written guidelines, I have
tried to help people in a diversity of regions and countries and from a
range of backgrounds to develop a variety of skills to help them do their
work and serve their constituencies more effectively.
My capacity-building activities are focused on communications,
community/volunteer involvement, partner/donor relationships and
management basics for nonprofit organizations, non-governmental
organizations/civil society, and government-based programs.
My goal in any training, mentoring or other capacity-building activity
is to give participants tools that they can use immediately and that give
them a base on which to further build and improve long after our
interactions are over.
Below is a list of capacity-building activities in which I have engaged,
however, please note I am capable of engaging in capacity-building
activities regarding any of my core
professional competencies:
- Advising federal ministry staff on media and online outreach
strategies (Afghanistan)
- Training federal ministry staff on how
to gather and present written information for government, donor and UN
reports, proposals and presentations (Afghanistan)
- Training federal ministry staff on how to monitor news wires and the
web (Afghanistan)
- Training federal ministry staff on how
to take photos in a culturally-sensitive manner and to meet various
needs, e.g. to show female participation (Afghanistan)
- Training federal ministry staff to maintain offline and online (Flickr)
photo archives (Afghanistan)
- Training federal ministry staff in how to be pro-active and reactive
in distributing information and photos to various offices (Afghanistan)
- Creating and delivering a presentation
for Afghan women on public speaking (Afghanistan)
- Training federal ministry staff in posting information to appropriate
online fora, such as developmentgateway.org
(Afghanistan)
- Advising on how to prevent folklore,
rumors and urban myths from interfering with development and
aid/relief efforts
- Creating and presenting all-day intensive onsite workshops and
engaging in one-on-one consulting re: business
planning, monetizing services, and donor/client relations, as well
as strategic planning and demonstrating program credibility and
transparency, for education advising centers throughout Eastern and
Western Europe (some are local NGOs, some are based in local government
offices, some are based in local university offices) affiliated with EducationUSA,
a global network supported by the U.S.
Department of State(Budapest, Hungary and Belgrade, Serbia)
- Advising a volunteer center regarding its online interface for
potential volunteers (Cairo, Egypt)
- Training local UN agency staff working in mid-Eastern countries and
regions (Lebanon, Jordan, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Egypt) in
the basics regarding involving
online volunteers (Cairo, Egypt)
- Authoring, frequently updating and distributing "Basic
Fund-Raising for Small NGOs in the Developing World" (online, with
requesting NGOs based primarily in Africa and Asia)
- Creating a web page offering advice
for hotels, hostels & campgrounds in transitional & developing
countries
- Mentoring an Afghan entrepreneur on how to
create a small cleaning business, by researching and writing a
detailed Afghan-specific guide that walked the entrepreneur through each
cleaning business development step (including how to ensure the safety
of female employees) and by recruiting the owner and manager of a
successful cleaning business in the USA to edit the guide and answer the
entrepreneur's specific questions.
- Researching and promoting the elements necessary to ensure success in
using "Theater as a Tool for Development",
with examples from Africa, Asia, Europe and the USA.
- Advising aspiring women bloggers,
as well as female students of a variety of ages, from Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and various locations
in "the West."
- Creating online materials to build the capacities of organizations
working in and for the developing world to involve and support
volunteers using the Internet (online, via onlinevolunteering.org
- Training UN staff regarding volunteer
management and online
communications (Germany)
- Advising international and national organizations based in the USA
regarding using their web to better promote their involvement of
volunteers, to better support current volunteers, and to better recruit
new volunteers (online).
- Advising on volunteer-involvement relating to Information
Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) and online volunteering
for the Southern
Africa Capacity Initiative (SACI), a UNDP/UNV effort to address
the challenges of HIV/AIDS in nine countries
- Advising regarding volunteer management and online community
development for various UNV and UNDP-affiliated projects in the
developing world, such as development of a volunteer center in Sri Lanka
- Researching and preparing pioneering articles on working
with volunteers via Instant Messaging, and volunteers
using PDAs and other handheld network technology
- Creating a module regarding
effectively involving volunteers for UNESCO's Multimedia Training Kit
- Working directly with organizations throughout the world in setting
up and expanding online volunteering programs (onsite in the USA,
Germany, Switzerland and Egypt; online throughout the world)
- Training in communications activities, such as how to create a
community newsletter, and how to approach local media in-person, by
phone and by fax, for the American Indian community of the Southern San
Francisco Bay Area
- Training nonprofits regarding web site accessibility, through Knowbility
- Advising a Youth Resource Center of Guria, Georgia (formerly part of
the Soviet Union) regarding promoting volunteerism to youth
Countries I've visited or lived in:
Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Great
Britain (England and Scotland), Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Jordan,
Luxembourg, Macedonia (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Mexico,
Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia,
Slovenia, Spain (Catalunya and Castilla), Sweden, Switzerland, USA, United
Arab Emirates, Vatican City
Quick Links
Disclaimer: No guarantee of accuracy or suitability is made by the
poster/distributor. This material is provided as is, with no expressed
or implied warranty.
Permission is granted to copy, present and/or distribute a limited
amount of material from my web site without charge if the
information is kept intact and without alteration, and is credited to:
Otherwise, please contact
me for permission to reprint, present or distribute these
materials (for instance, in a class or book or online event for which
you intend to charge).
The art work and material on
this site was created and is copyrighted 1996-2011
by Jayne Cravens, all rights reserved
(unless noted otherwise, or the art comes from a link to another
web site).
