Development case studies
In field training – taking training to where it is most needed
Download for free – but not necessarily in the field on dial up
In field training
In an emergency, training needs are high with new staff requiring additional skills to meet new challenges.
Donors are willing to support training (if it has been budgeted for) but courses have to be run in the field (to save time) and content needs to be developed or adapted for the context (participants want to find solutions to their immediate problems). This takes time – a rare commodity for any organisation during an emergency – and the reality is that at least until recently little training was actually done when it was most needed.
A number of training and support organisations are trying to change this. In Pakistan following the earthquake in 2005, RedR, Sphere and HAP-International all ran highly acclaimed courses and events in the first few months.
Organisations who said they were too busy to even think about training just weeks before, were very happy to pay for staff to go on courses organised by others.
Download for free
Individuals, organisations and publishers are exploring the possibilities of the world wide web and the internet for distributing information, training resources, guides and manuals.
More and more publications are available for download, and often for free. Formats vary; many are in pdf format which requires a suitable reader (e.g. Adobe reader), others are in html which can be read with any browser (e.g. Firefox). It is best to download the latest versions of the publications and any necessary software onto your hard disk where you have a fast connection as file sizes can be large. Beware – field connections are often very slow and expensive.