ADEPT has partnered with Afrika Radio TV to organise a 3-day Intercultural Participatory Learning and Action (IPLA) training in Vienna, Austria from July 6 to July 8, 2018 targeting African Diaspora Experts/Consultants in Austria.
The training is part of an ongoing project of Radio Afrika TV to recruit a local Pool of African Diaspora consultants and experts in Austria and provide them training on how to use IPLA tools and techniques to develop programmes that address the needs of Africans in Austria and internationally.
Mr. Alexis Neuberg, Founder and Director of Radio Afrika TV and Vice President of ADEPT highlighted that ‘… traditionally, interventions that address the needs of Africans have been designed by outsider experts who have little or no knowledge on the social and cultural contexts in which Africans live with the issues and who extract data from people using very unsuitable ways and made decisions on what the community needs without significant input from Africans’.
This training will equip participants with IPLA tools and techniques and will improve their ability to design programmes that are rooted from local knowledge and that are people-centered, and action-oriented.
IPLA is one of the most pragmatic, innovative and hands-on participatory research and planning approaches and methodologies that specifically seeks out the local perspective and attempts to bring it into sharp focus on issues and difficulties that need attention in the community. A key element of IPLA, that distinguishes it from other research and planning methods is that it is people-centered, can empower and energize people to take positive action, and can maximize participation, irrespective of participant’s ability to communicate or their literacy level. IPLA strategies and techniques can be applied to: Development work; academic research; programme design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation; team building; community development; strategic planning; gender mainstreaming; mediation and conflict resolution; organisational development; intercultural mediation; institutional and sectoral framework development; local, regional and national development planning etc.
