Zambia Diary | Day 4, Visit 2 | Workshop Preparation

Tomorrow’s workshop materials! Note that this crate contains three Coca-Cola products: Coca-Cola; Fanta and Sprite. In rural areas a retailer will often collect a single crate with a mixture of drinks inside it. Ideally the AidPod should work with all the bottle shapes

Most of today was spent preparing for tomorrow’s workshop which is being convened by UNICEF here in Zambia. The confirmed attendees list has representatives from all the key players: Ministry of Health; UNICEF themselves; SABMiller; JSI; Medical Stores Limited (MSL); World Vision; Keepers Foundation Zambia (the local SODIS experts) and Transaid.

The workshop will kick-off with Dr Nilda Lambo from UNICEF setting the scene. Jane will then take over with a statement of the objectives of the day, a brief summary of ColaLife so far and a description of the ColaLife ethos and principles. I will then jump in and put up an ‘Aunt Sally’ with a suggestion of how we might structure the pilot and the partnership to run it. The rest of the day will be interactive with a participants’ review of the pilot structure and partnership roles. We will finish up the day with a review of the pilot outcomes and an agreement on the next steps. The agenda will run like this:

Agenda – ColaLife Pilot Group Planning Workshop 21st January 2011

Hosted by UNICEF, with ColaLife

Location: Chrismar Hotel.  Times are provisional.

9.00 Arrivals, introductions and refreshments

9:15 Welcome and introduction from UNICEF

9:35 Update from ColaLife with Q & A Session.
To include objectives for the day.

10.15 Overview of proposed pilot structure and partnership structure

Followed by open participatory work and review of comments
Refreshments available during this period

11:15 Group work: Exploring partner skills and possible roles
Review of group work

11:45 Towards consensus and next steps
Review of contributions
Possible pilot locations
Suggestions for high level pilot objectives and outcomes

12:30 Lunch

We did have one meeting today which was pleasant break from the workshop preparation. The meeting was with ‘the gentle giant of the Ministry of Health’. Bonface has been really supportive ever since our first meeting back in October and has provided invaluable insights into how systems work in Zambia and he has guided us in terms of the people we should meet and the protocols we should follow. It was great to see him again today. He was delighted with the link up with UNICEF. UNICEF is very well respected in Zambia due to its impressive track record over many years – people know UNICEF but they don’t know ColaLife (yet!). We will have many barriers to cross in the next couple of years and having UNICEF behind us will significantly reduce the height of these barriers.

If all goes well I should be able to share the workshop outcomes tomorrow.

Onwards and upwards.