Benitha Dehfer was one of four participants from Defence for Children (DCI) Liberia who took part in a five-day training for five child rights organisations in Liberia. Like the other 15 participants, she took the training seriously. She believes it is very useful training for her organisation.

“This training is very useful to Defence for Children International Liberia because it has helped us to build our capacities in so many ways. For instance, in the training, we learned about leadership. We learned that as a leader, you are there to mentor your staff,” she said.

She added that from the training, she’s got to know that leaders need to support their staff to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and, most importantly, support the staff to address their weaknesses at work.

Dehfer admitted that this was her first time to attend a training on proposal writing, and she does not regret being a part of the training.

“Actually, this is my first time attending training on proposal writing. I learned that in [writing a proposal] you must keenly read [donor’s guidelines], conduct research before you even go about writing the proposal. Know the context, know what you want, know the needs of the people. You need to make your objectives visible to donors so that they can buy into your idea,” she said.

Like Dehfer from DCI, participants from Youth Coalition for Education in Liberia (YOCEL), National Institute for Public Opinion, National Children and Youth Advisory Board (NCYAB) and Action for Justice and Human Rights (AJHR) were happy to have participated in this training.

Participants described the training to be an eye-opener, very good, very relevant to their organisational needs.

This training was designed by the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) in response to an internal capacity needs assessment conducted by WACSI for 12 partners of the Fund for Global Human Rights working in Guinea (3), Liberia (5) and Sierra Leone (4).

During the assessments, the organisations requested for capacity development support to enhance board governance, leadership practice, resource mobilisation, talent management in order to reduce high staff attrition and to be equipped to effectively tell their stories.

WACSI’s team will provide similar trainings to organisations in Sierra Leone from 21 to 25 October and in Guinea from 28 October to 1 November 2019.