The 3rd Learning Session of Knowledge Collaborative
Share-Net Bangladesh hosted the third learning session on the issue of Child Marriage as part of its Collaborative Approach yesterday, November 4, 2018 at the capital’s Innotel Hotel in Banani. The day-long event is the successor of two previous sessions which brought in representatives from several pioneer organisations working on Child Marriage issues.
The aim of the learning sessions are to generate ideas and experiment new strategies on child marriage issues in Bangladesh for moving newly acquired knowledge towards policy influencing and improving practice. By the end of the third learning session, three groups of participants came up with three different ‘change packages’. Upon thorough discussion, the most effective one out of the three was selected for implementation.
Anika Binte Habib, coordinator of Share-Net Bangladesh, opened the event with a recap of learnings from the past sessions, followed by presentations, group exercises and a plenary session. She moderated the event and also helped in carrying out a Behaviour Style Assessment which done by the participants themselves as part of a self-analysis exercise.
Arnob Chakrabarty, Managing Director, RedOrange, formally welcomed everyone with an opening speech and highlighted some of the key factors driving Share-Net Bangladesh. He focused on the need for collaboration among organisations. He said,
“The Share-Net knowledge collaboration started at the beginning of this year. The main aim was derived from the issues of child marriage. There is a huge amount of existing knowledge on the topic, but there has been a lack of knowledge collaboration to collate and document the learning from the key organisations that have been working on the issue for long. Which is why the Share-Net collaborative approach was initiated‒ and it’s not just for ourselves ‒ but for everyone working on SRHR. On this platform, people can identify various SRHR issues and find out the knowledge gaps through sharing their own knowledge and experiences as well as build a structured and organised space to address these topics.”
Dr. Gazi Sakir Mohammad Pritom, Senior Research Associate, BRAC JPG School of Public Health, facilitated session on Implementation Research (IR). His presentation involved an exercise that helped participants to identify the challenges and opportunities which they face while working on their respective projects. This is one of the primary objectives of the collaborative approach.
Kishore Kumar Basak, Senior Specialist (Research and M&E), RedOrange, presented his slides on the importance of Stakeholder Analysis. He talked about the advantages of stakeholder partnership which can help in terms of formulating and implementing projects and also to improve policy. He asserted that
“Stakeholders must be mapped out, and therefore informed in order to make them more involved.”
Nakib Rajib Ahmed, Head of Programmes, RedOrange added to the previous presentation by talking about Key Behavioural Styles for collaboration and networking, Multi-Stakeholder Partnership (MSP) and conducted a group activity and a plenary session involving all participants, the result of which was three innovative ‘change packages’ intended to address the issues that cause child marriage. Out of the three, one is set to be implemented by the mid-January, 2019. Furthermore, it was decided that a Roundtable Discussion on Child Marriage Issues will take place within 25 Nov to 10 Dec (16 Days of Activism on Violence Against Women) which will be organised by participating organisations and hosted by RedOrange under the banner of Share-Net Bangladesh.
Outcomes from the first two sessions resulted in making a list of 10 organisations who run projects related to child or early marriage prevention, out of which 4 organisations were interviewed by Share-Net Bangladesh in order to further understand and promote their programmes.
The event ended with Arnob Chakrabarty taking feedback from the participants who expressed their views and prospects of the Knowledge Collaborative by Share-net Bangladesh.
“The session has been productive and especially people who are involved with research are surely to benefit the most.”
- Salwa Jahan, Research & Grants Development Officer, BLAST
“As a researcher myself, this session was useful because I got to know about various perspectives of different people working to prevent child marriage.”
- Sairana Ahsan, Research Fellow, JPG School of Public Health, BRAC University
“This event was very good for me, very educational. I also got to network with various members working in similar disciplines.”
- Shakil Ahmad, Communication Officer, SERAC Bangladesh
“This was the first time I attended this collaborative approach and it has been a great experience for me.”
- Syed Wadud, Researcher and Content Developer, RedOrange
“The change package we created is fascinating. We appreciate efforts as such, and this should be happening everywhere.”
- Kamrunnahar Kona, Program Associate, PSTC
“I’m sure everyone here who attended is happy with the collaboration. I hope this will continue and go far in the future.”
- Dr. Ikhtiar Uddin Khandokar, Head of Health Program, PLAN Intl. Bangladesh
