VSO Regional Conference underway in Accra

Accra, Nov. 10, GNA - Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO), an international non-governmental organisation, on Tuesday kicked-start a five-day Regional conference on the theme: "Surface, Reveal and Resolve - Organisational Learning Practices of VSO and Partners," in Accra. About 36 participants from Ghana, Cameroon, The Gambia, Cameroon, and other partners from South Africa, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, are expected to come out with new insights into the practice of action learning and organisational learning and tools. The conference would also brainstorm on the good practices of promoting action learning for capacity development and networking with sister organisations.

Mr Ibrahim Tanko, Country Director of VSO-Ghana, urged the participants to share ideas and experiences and come out with strategies that would enable the organisation to better the lot of the disadvantaged in the society. He stressed the need for members to review their past performances and chart a new way forward in supporting the less advantaged. "We have to share ideas for us to know whether we were doing the right thing or not for us to strategise and add value to our work," he said. Ms Eunice Agbenyadzi, Regional Learning Advisor VSO-Ghana said the organisation views development as a continuous process of empowering people, particularly the poor and under-served for them to take control of their lives. She said in April 2009 the VSO initiated a "Learn-Work-Path" programme to give a wider process towards strengthening internal partnership planning and review processes and capacity building approaches by focusing on the improvement of organisational learning practices.

Ms Agbenyadzi said in order to sustain the enthusiasm, energy and good practices generated from the pilot programme, the conference was aimed at deepening the processes of taping the knowledge and experience of partnering countries.

She said; "This learning space, a is place where we will gather as a community of action-learning practitioners to appreciate one another's good work, share lessons learned and prepare ourselves for the future." VSO has more than 40 years experience in international volunteering and sees development as a continuous process of empowering people, particularly the poor and under-served to fight their drawback and take control of their lives. The VSO learn-work path on organisational leaning was initiated with support from PSO (capacity building in developing countries). The programme aims at strengthening the learning capacities of VSO and partner organisations in Ghana, The Gambia and Cameroon. The pilot phase of the programme comes to an end in December 2010.