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Herein lies information about the program. A little history, a little bit of monica, a little bit of erica, a little bit of me-an, a little bit of cesar, a little bit of eugene, a little bit of eugene, a little bit of dinky, a little bit of baguio.  Sa Baguio talaga madalas nakakabuo ng anak... malamig kase.

Background

One of the challenges that face NGO leaders today is the problem of successor generation. During the PHILSSA-sponsored focus group discussion (FGD) on personnel management, one of the participants lamented that some of the present crop of second liners lacked the fiery idealism and commitment of the pioneers in social development work. To which another replied that the second liners could not be clones of the first, that they must and will chart their own paths.

Briefly, the problem with successor generation is the task of wooing, keeping and mentoring the next generation of development workers to have the necessary commitment and vision to, not only continue the work, but also bring to it the originality and creativity the present situation requires.

Preparing the next generation is an important task because the pioneers of development work are overworked and overextended. The NGO pioneers were trailblazers, armed with the writings and thinking of the 1950s – 1970s on organizing and poverty alleviation, tried and tested by their grassroots experience and their ranks swelled by the young conscientized by the Marcos era of repression. The pioneers of development work built one of the most developed NGO communities in the world.

But the problems that they faced are still present. Fresh faces and new approaches are necessary to find solutions to some of the more intractable problems of development.

However, continuing recruitment of new blood into development work is becoming difficult. A Jesuit academic says that NGOs have failed to make social development work appealing. It has been observed that links between NGOs and the academe (one of its most fertile areas for finding volunteers) have weakened since EDSA. There are fewer volunteer formation programs.

The NGO second-liner is besieged on two fronts – in his/her external and internal environments. Externally, the second-liner now operates in an uncertain ideological environment, unlike the pioneers who found comfort in the dogmas of the past because of their prescription of a clear set of convictions and options. With this comes the precariousness of doing development work without a clear framework or a distinct set of "enemies". As a result, social development work has gradually focused plainly on "what works" rather than on any ideological agenda.

Internally, second-line social development workers face the problem of dwindling resources of foreign funding which has natural implications on NGOs’ financial sustainability. Without a steady income, NGOs cannot make long-term plans for their staff. This forces NGO workers to hop from NGO to NGO to gain a wider breadth of experience.

In order to keep a good staff, NGO leaders are trying to strike a balance between defining NGO work as a career which provides a traditional career path and benefits, and trying to define NGO work as a career that preserves its reputation as a vocation for volunteers.

The dilemma of NGOs is how to preserve the voluntary spirit that is necessary for NGO work while providing the right working conditions for NGO workers to make a long-term commitment. Nurturing senior people is a particular difficulty in NGOs, hence the propensity of NGO workers to leave their original NGOs to become first-liners in new NGOs, or worse, to leave the development field all together for work that is more secure, challenging, or lucrative.

While there is a need to look for the same commitment and idealism in the second liners as there was in the pioneers, the second liners will need to be different since they will face a different development task.

NGO second liners face the challenge of organizational maintenance rather than organization building. Secondly, they must maintain the vision and momentum while confronting practical issues like dealing with national and local government. Moreover, second-liners must find creative strategies for advocating reformist policies. In addition, they will have to develop new forms of partnerships with more independent POs requiring them to withdraw in certain areas and carve new niches in others. Finally, second-liners must be pioneers and fiery idealists.

The Manifesto of the Second National Congress of the Caucus of Development NGO Networks (CODE-NGO) outlines the changing strategies amidst the changing context of development work. These proposed reform measures include ways of relating with government, approaches to harnessing the dynamics between micro and macro level initiatives, strategies for increasing the impact of social development work, organizational development, human resource development, steps for increasing transparency and accountability, and retooling of new and key skills for social development work. To enable social development workers to undertake these new strategies, a rigorous and suitable training program is clearly in order.

This project intends to come out with a learning program for social development leaders that will sustain their commitment to social development work. It shall convene social development leaders from the different generations to decide on the form(s) of interventions identified.

The project shall be implemented in three phases: planning/consultation phase; implementation/piloting phase; and the evaluation phase.

 

Goals and objectives

Goal: to develop a learning program for social development leaders of different generations that would insure their commitment to social development work.

Objectives: