Effective education goes beyond sharing information.  It builds on participants’ own life experiences.  It helps them see new ideas within the context of what they already know. Ideally, it helps to facilitate the acquisition of new knowledge, skills and attitudes and leads to behavior change. 

It is this approach to education that inspires our emphasis on Lifeskills Training for the poor. Lifeskills Training engages clients of implementing organizations, particularly poor women, in dialogue and decision-making with the objective of identifying poverty- and hunger-related problems in their daily lives and becoming motivated to overcome them.  Freedom from Hunger pioneered the integration of Lifeskills Training with microfinance in 1989.  We are recognized for a range of effective Lifeskills curricula and supportive services that help implementing organizations serve the poor in new and better ways.

Curricula

Our Lifeskills Training Series is a collection of education modules and Learning Conversations that cover topics in health, self-esteem, business and financial education.  Each contains the information, tools and training design necessary for implementation. While all the curricula are designed to be short, practical and relevant for poor clients, education modules and Learning Conversations each offer distinct features.

Education modules address topic areas through a series of learning sessions that build on each other and provide appropriate technical content.  While the field staff members who facilitate learning sessions need not be technical experts, they must have at least some secondary education.  Learning Conversations, on the other hand, need not be conducted in any particular order and emphasize the sharing of latent knowledge within the group rather than external technical content.  As a result, Learning Conversations can be facilitated by individuals with less education—either field staff or group members themselves. 

While our Lifeskills Training Series addresses many topics important to poor clients, implementing organizations are encouraged to deliver and/or design other education and training that meet specific needs of their clients or address local issues.  For instance, a number of our partners have developed education modules that deal with critical issues such as alcoholism and citizens rights and created linkages to livelihood and professional training for their clients.

Supportive services

Freedom from Hunger supports implementing organizations to offer, adapt and manage delivery of Lifeskills curricula through a number of services.  Specifically, our staff provide training and training of trainers (TOT) in the following:

• Adaptation of Freedom from Hunger Lifeskills curricula to be consistent with national policies and priorities, cultural norms, regional dialects and local needs

• Facilitation of Freedom from Hunger Lifeskills curricula

• Monitoring and reporting to track quantity and quality of curricula delivery

• Impact assessment to measure clients’ change in knowledge, skills, attitudes and practices

• Market research to identify topics critical for or in demand by clients

• New curriculum design to meet local needs or demand

Follow the links to learn more.