Practice to Shine!
Interview collected as part of the Most Significant Change Evaluation Technique applied by the SUN alliance to evaluate changes occurred as a result of the implementation of the LR. This story was collected after the preparatory phase, before the arrival of the international guests.
Interviewed: Venuste Muhamyankaka, Secretary General and coordinating the SUN Alliance activities
Interview Date: 30 October 2016 – Link to the audio interview
Involvement in the LR and Role: I am the Learning Route focal person. I proposed the motivation statement to host the Learning Route. My role has been to work with the Learning Route CSN coordinator to mobilise all the people to collect the best practices, to document the best practices.
In your opinion, which changes occurred as a result of the Learning Route preparation?
Starting for myself, the Learning Route motivated me to commit more: we had tight schedule and I had to go through all member organizations to collect best practices. I worked more than before. The best practices collection was a new activity for us, we never collected stories in such a way, with that purpose.
I learned how to define and look for specific characteristics, criteria of a best practice, how to collect them, how to document them.
Members of the Alliance are more active in this period because aware of the fact that they would have received gusts. They are more engaged and proactive than before.
CSOs were surprised the SUN Alliance was selected to host many other international CSAs. It has been motivating for them.
For external stakeholders: they become more attentive than before.
The SUN Alliance attracted more interest and some stakeholders started investing in the Alliance. For example Catholic Relief Services donated some amount to operational costs. SNV included the alliance in an Advocacy project because heard about our best practice on advocacy in Gisagara.
Our staff members were more appreciative because of some operational finance thanks to the LR grant.
More partners, ex. more engagement with the Ministry of Local Government (now with the mandate of the Nutrition).
On the internal management: the LR increased our staff and capacitated the existing staff. It increased our human resources and capacity of the existing ones
In your opinion, among the changes mentioned, which could be considered the “most significant” and why is so important?
In my opinion, the increased visibility of the Alliance is the most important change. After hearing that we were selected we communicated it to the board members, they have been very appreciative and started to be more proactive in our meetings. Normally in our regular meetings they were not much participating, but when they find out we were hosting they become more active. The same thing for the members’ organizations: they engaged more and were more interested. Their interest was reflected in their manifestation if interest in participating to the LR. Another effect of the visibility is the increased interaction and collaboration with external stakeholders, some have already contracted us in partnership. To be more effective before receiving the LR sub-grant installment, we complemented the LR with the New Venture fund. We implemented the two projects in synergy; we have been using the New Venutre Fund as a springboard to inform everybody about the LR. Another way to raise interest and visibility has been through the recruitment. We advertised the jobs for the LR services through the media, in this way many people became more aware of SUN Alliance, this approach increased our credibility in front to the public.
