The World Federation of the Deaf’s West and Central Africa Regional Secretariat (WCARS) is implementing a new short-term project called “Reflecting and maintaining momentum during the pandemic”. It is the extension of the activities of the previous project namely “Transnational Capacity Building Project for the Associations of the Deaf”.
Running within the period from May 2021 to April 2022, the project usually involves 4 National Associations of the Deaf from Togo, Ivory Coast, Niger, Mali and Ghana National Association of the Deaf (GNAD) as a host and implementation organization.
The goal is to enable the performance of the national associations of the Deaf so that they can promote, highlight and champion the human rights and fundamental freedoms of deaf people at the country level.
The project activities are distributed into the following 3 phases:
The initial phase focuses on main four activities such as: Training of Project staff; Joint training in Ghana for the leaders from the project countries. Focus will be on professional skills as e.g., reporting and allow for barrier free communication; Establishment and feeding of a WhatsApp group for further discussion and barrier-free exchange among the project countries; and Pilot-training on SL translated Board Manual in Ivory Coast.
The middle phase includes a follow up and support to wider spread of skills in the four countries. Reference point will be the skills taught at the Joint training and immediate national issues of relevance and importance calling for support from project staff. National trainers will take part.
There is tailored hands-on support to planning, implementation, and reporting of IWD 2021, making the International Week of Deaf both a celebration, an awareness raising activity and most of all a practical training case. It is expected that the approach will enforce impact.
An evaluation and Project Forum will take place with input from end of project evaluation of the previous project. The Project Forum will discuss possible adjustment of the TOT model, the project structure, management structure, communication, and priorities for the next project. This is a part of the previous project. Discussions will also be fed by the input from GNAD/DDL 6-months status on learning and possible adjustments, which may increase effectiveness and impact.
The final phase is concerned by the planning of future project more in details the reporting of activities from the four national organisations to PC and from GNAD to DDL.
The short-term project is funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) through the Disabled People’s Organizations of Denmark (DPOD).