Berlin (Dec 08)

So during November and December I somehow had a two day training or conference everyweek. Timing wise it was terrible for work (I only had 1 full week in the office in December before we headed to Aus for Christmas) but because Brush had been away ever week for that period at least it gave me somehting to do

One of these trainings was Berlin for two days for a conference on Disabilty Inclusion in development. I may have already said (or perhaps its in the post on my trip to Armenia that is still half written) that disability inlcusion is my special area of focus along with my country responsibilites (Vietnam and the Philippines).The conference started at 1030 on the first day to give everyone time to arrive, but I had arrived the night before as I didn't want to have to get up at 4 am to arrive in time (I was taking the train). I had planned on getting a nice sleep-in before the confernce but as I got from teh train station to my Hotel and passed the Reichstag and Brandenburg gate I remembered how much I love Berlin so changed my plan to get up early and go exploring. Although it was FREEZING I wandered around for an hour and a half. Just after leaving the hotel I cam across the Holocaust momument (which I think we posted about after our first visit to Berlin) which I love. And this time I was the only person there which was a new and differnt expereince to normal. One nice thing about the momument is that people do just sit around there which gives it more life, but visiting it when it was totally empty and freezing was also great.

Here are some photos I took with my mobile...





One of the trainings I did was in the Netherlands where I did a very expensive but VERY good training course on Appreciate Inquiry. An organisation change, or project plannign tool that unlike normal planning tools doesn't start from a problem analysis but looks at strengths and how to build on them. I think in any work with human beings(which is in any organisation change process) but especially in working on development projects looing at what communiites/organisations already do well and building on that is far more sensible than only talking to people about their problems and what they don't do right... Since I am finished with my masters I am trying to do 1 good course per year to keep learning (thankfully I can tax deduct them :))
(In case anyone has any trainng needs check out www. mdf.nl - they have offices all over the world and if this trianing course is any indication are excellent - very practicle, not just theory blah blah)