Simon Koolwijk

On the 29th August, 2014 the Ethiopian Social Accountability Program Phase 2 (ESAP2) organized the Participatory Video Oscar Reward ceremony in Addis Ababa. Fifteen organisations had submitted each 5 videos for participatory video interventions, they had conducted between March and July, 2014. Five organizations, who were nominated, had to compete prior to the PV Oscar Reward ceremony. Finally the winner was selected and rewarded in the Washington Hotel, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In this video some of the participatory video facilitators and a community member comment on how PV impacted and influenced their work. The PV Oscar competition brought some surprising result for them.Watch:

The training participatory video, applied in the Ethiopian Social Accountability Program , consists of 7 steps on how participants from social accountability partners learn to apply participatory video for dialogue with the community. The third training took place from 1 - 5 September, 2014 in Hawassa, Ethiopia. The participants inteviewed and involved 7 stakeholder groups in the discussion on the improvement of health care in Meki, Ethiopia. Both user groups and service providers were involved in this participatory process. The training was implemented by a team of participatory video trainers coming from Ethiopia and The Netherlands. Between October and December, 2014 the participants will apply the participatory video in their own workplace and social accountability projects involving their communties. The participatory video training and program is part of the Ethiopian Social Accountability Program Phase 2 .  Watch the video:  

Good stories sustain. From scientific research it has been proven, that people remember powerful stories best. Especially if stories are true-ish and told with emotion, people do not tend to forget them. In the course ‘Facilitating Storytelling’ held on the 15 th April, 2014 participants got acquainted with some major principles on how to tell and share powerful stories. Powerful stories are used for: Branding/ marketing; Organizational change; Knowledge transfer; Lobby, campaigning and awareness raising; Games   An example of a powerful story, you can watch at Specsavers Emergency Drone Delivery: Through the application of some useful tools, such as the symbol, the river, the Little Red Ridinghood and the Bad Wolf practice was gained on how to develop a powerful story. By the end a stripcartoon was designed visualizing a story abou t the added value of education.   Read strip cartoon about Education . The next training on ‘Facilitating St...

From 9 th to 14 th February, 2014 Simon Koolwijk conducted a participatory video training for 20 representatives from 10 social accountability implementing partners in the Ethiopian Social Accountability Programme Phase 2 (ESAP2 ). This program aims to improve the communication and relations between local stakeholders such as local government (Woredas and Kebeles), civil society organisations, local citizens groups and service providers in the areas of health care, agriculture, water & sanitation, education and rural road construction. The process of better communication aims to help to improve the services of service providers (the suppliers) so that citizens needs (the users) are being met. The participatory video was initiated to help to stimulate and support the dialogue on social accountability and the improvement of social services. In the one week training, participants got the opportunity to apply participatory video in Metehare and Adama City.   In Metehare Cit...

Last week I facilitated a workshop with the aim to harvest funny fictional stories. I applied the facilitation method of the ‘Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf’ .   After sharing the story of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf , I explained the main characteristics of a good story. Definition of a story : A story is a representation of events that are associated with each other. A story has the following characteristics: ·          Is self-explanatory and has a beginning, middle and end; ·          Contains narrative elements; ·          Is authentic: true or true-ish; ·          Is personal; ·          Calls on emotions and / or is told with emotion. Narrative elements are: 1.        A main character (protagonis...

From 16 th to 20 th December, 2013 Simon Koolwijk conducted a participatory video training for 10 representatives from 5 social accountability implementing partners in the Ethiopian Social Accountability Programme (ESAP2). This program aims to improve the communication and relations between local stakeholders such as local government (Woredas and Kebeles), civil society organisations, local citizens groups and service providers in the areas of health care, agriculture, water and sanitation, education and rural road construction. The process of better communication aims to help to improve the services of service providers (the suppliers) so that citizens needs (the users) are being met. The participatory video was initiated to help to stimulate and support the dialogue on social accountability and the improvement of social services. In the one week training, participants got the opportunity to apply participatory video in Gulele Sub City, where they interviewed key stakeholders ...