[July 27, 2010]

Two weeks ago, we had finished with the first round of our microenterprise training – teaching six different concepts selected by Angela from the Barefoot MBA repertoire. With this foundation of business principles, we felt that the program could move forward to teach the implementation of those concepts.

As such, today marked the completion of our second round of training. Again, we followed a similar format, with the HIV Support Groups and Village AIDS Committees separated into four different morning or afternoon sessions. This time, the program consisted of:

• Oral review of Session 1
• Lesson: Developing an Action Plan
• Lesson: Using 6 Steps to Create a Budget
• Lesson: Learning How to Keep a Cash Flow Ledger

For the new lessons, we taught the group leaders the steps to making an action plan and budget. We concluded those lessons by asking each group to use the process (as well as provided examples on a take-home review sheet) to draft both an action plan and budget for themselves. We also distributed accounting books that they could use to keep track of their finances. For this lesson on using a cash flow ledger, we showed them an example ledger, and had them set up their books according to our organization, with separate columns for Date, Description, Money In, Money Out, and Balance.

Although I felt a similar sense of detachment from the group training (due to my continued deficiency in Chichewa), I was actually able to offer some help this time! When the time came to distribute the Accounting Books and walk through the organization of the cash flow ledger, I walked around the room checking to see if the participants were writing down the correct headings. When I noticed confused faces and blank stares from individuals, I did my best to verbalize the process. Sometimes, (I think) I was successful in communicating my message. Other times, I was able to call on the help of participants with greater English proficiency and explain the process to them. It must have been an entertaining site to see… *Ask me for a video to see my teaching in action! (Thanks to videographer Casey Nesbit!)

On her next visits to each of the groups, Angela will follow-up on the drafting of the action plans, budgets, and ensure that they are updating their accounting books. Since application of these business skills will take time to monitor, we plan to keep in touch with Angela for reports on the HIV Support Groups’ and VACs’ progress.

Even so, the question certainly arises: What next?

We have planned to leave all of the materials in a handy binder for Angela to keep. These materials include: all of the individualized lesson plans from Barefoot MBA (such that Angela can pick and choose which concepts she would like to review and teach in subsequent meetings/trainings), the lesson plans for creating an Action Plan, Budget, and Cash Flow Ledger along with a print-out of the PowerPoint slides that highlighted main points and was displayed on a projector during the training sessions, a copy of the review sheet that covered all concepts taught in the first and second parts of training and was sent home with each group, and extra accounting books.

We have discussed with Angela the immediate future of the program, and we agreed for her to conduct follow-up with each group, reporting back to us via e-mail about business progress. We’re certainly eager to see how the Support Groups and VACs will apply their acquisition of new business knowledge, and hope that we have broken ground for this new program for microenterprise training at St. Gabriel’s Hospital.