State-level meeting cum training for CREAM Coordinators at BREADS

BREADS organised a state-level meeting cum training for the Child Rights Education and Action Movement (CREAM) coordinators on 5 September 2019 at BREADS. The district project coordinators and social activists were part of the one-day training on the final documentation and evaluation of phase II of CREAM project 2016-2019. A total of fourteen staff were present for the meeting from ten districts of Karnataka (Mysuru, Ramanagara, Bangalore, Chitradurga, Davangere, Ballari, Raichur, Kalaburagi, Yadgir and Bidar).

Fr. Joy Nedumparambil, Executive Director, BREADS inaugurated the training by lighting the lamp together with  Mr. Manjappa.B – Coordinator, Davangere district,  Ms. Veena – Coordinator, Chitradurga district and Mr. Siddalingappa – Coordinator, Raichur district. Mr. Manjappa welcomed the gathering. Fr. Joy, in his presidential address, thanked all the project staff for their tremendous efforts towards child rights education in the districts that paved a way for great impact and success. The coordinators were also reminded of the external evaluation of the project to be  carried out during the final stages of the project to assess the impact and achievements of the CREAM project over from 2016 to 2019.  The first half of the training was animated by Ms. Cheryl- Manager, Research and Documentation. Ms. Cheryl brainstormed with the participants to elicit and capture the stories, flavours, impacts and changes created by the effective implementation of the CREAM project. The coordinators also shared the practical difficulties at the grassroots level and highlighted the flavours of CREAM from each district. The internal project evaluation will examine the shift that has taken place from children as agents of change in CRCs at the school level to the community level, the role of children and community in protection of child rights, the best practices in the project areas. The coordinators from each district will showcase themes, issues, and impact in a very contextual manner.

In the second and final session, Mr. Benny Augustine, Manager, Projects guided the participants on strengthening the internal system of project reporting and documentation for better consolidation of impact and evaluation. Mr. Benny together with the coordinators, evaluated possible errors in the process of documentation and the best way to capture details of the project activities, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The format developed by BREADS was shared and extensively discussed with the coordinators for organising data and reports effectively.

Fr. Joy concluded the meeting with a short summarization of the training and exhorted all to invest qualitative time in the coming months to capture  information in the format discussed. Mr. Sharanappa, Coordinator, Ballari district, thanked BREADS and all the participants for the active involvement, learning and input.