The High Impact Training (HIT) program provides informal sector farmers with market-oriented, vocational training. Enhanced skill levels enable Oil Palm farmers to gain higher yield and greater income security and in long run prevent degradation of forests. At the same time, they develop the know-how and contacts to capitalize on opportunities and help grow the sector, in a sustainable and pro-poor way.
The HIT for Jobs and Income program was implemented in Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, and aimed to provide practical market driven training opportunities to informal workers in the Palm Oil farming sector, resulting in a virtuous circle of better qualifications and skills, a higher yield and increase in income received by these informal workers.
The main purpose of this training was to provide training or facilitation guidelines for individuals, organizations or institutions that have an interest in building knowledge, skills and experiences on livelihood. The training activities contained in the manual were designed to help participants develop the understanding and basic skills necessary in order to apply the concepts of farming effectively and efficiently.
It was equally important for these training modules to be translated into suitable media and easily comprehensible ways that effectively bring about the changes in behaviors and practices. Sanjay was commissioned to research the local culture, people and their practices, their ability (and sometimes lack thereof) to understand complicated technologies and techniques, the possibility of locally producing these media economically, and on large scales. Following the on-the-field research and several workshops with SNV’s local staff, Sanjay took on the task to find ways for the practical sessions and information to be delivered effectively, to illustrate the techniques, create Flip-Files, flashcards, handouts, and other training tools.
What posed an additional challenge in the context of DRC is that almost 100% of the farmers couldn’t read or write. Thus, merely translating the Indonesian training modules wouldn’t have helped. The existing content was taken apart, redesigned into blocks of more comprehensible ‘bite-size’ information, and a FULLY visual language was developed to deliver complex concepts and techniques.
Upon testing of these tools, first in small and then larger groups, several sessions of altering the training mechanisms and tools were conducted.
