NDERA, Rwanda – The field officers spent a full day training today to prepare for their pilot sessions at the cooperative tomorrow.

Today we used two trainers. Evas, who helped Sunday translate the Barefoot MBA and has experience running other trainings locally, this morning taught the remaining four lessons that will become part of Gardens for Health’s adaptation. Sunday rejoined the group after lunch to guide the field officers through practice teaching the three lessons they’ll teach to the cooperative tomorrow.

The field officers worked together to make the profit, saving and investing lessons as relevant as possible and then practiced teaching to each other.

We started with the stories. They understood. They engaged.

Then we moved onto the interactive exercise that reinforced the lessons, especially investing. That wasn’t quite as smooth. Instead of encouraging interaction by leading the group through the activity, the field officer re-explained the concept of investing using a table that showed increases in value over time. We used the opportunity to underscore the importance of involving participants: The activity engaged the field officers and reinforced the lesson, and we hope it serves a similar purpose for the cooperative members.