Quotes from Participants Attending the Mosaic Workshops

Every year, workshop participants are asked how they would describe the workshop to others. Here are some of their quotes:

For the RBM, Appreciative Inquiry and Open Space Workshop:

• "Fantastic, a must needed when working with RBM.  Completely experiential and diffuses the mystery."
• "Intensive and comprehensive.Turned a subject which could have been deadly into a stimulating and enriching learning experience."
• "A wonderful learning experience with skilled facilitators, presenters and diverse participants."
• "It is a very good workshop that will introduce you to different methodologies that combined can help you make a difference in your organization."
• "Extremely educational, fun, invigorating."
• "An excellent way of solidifying your knowledge of RBM and really shifting your thinking to results and positive outcomes."
• "It is an opportunity for learning three different methodological tools in one experience that will contribute to change your way of thinking and approaching situations in life."
• One of the best training options available in this field."
• "A must do & see. Applicable to all aspects of your work.  Come with an open mind and dive right in!
• "I liked the richness and depth of interaction with the other workshop participants."
• "This workshop is quite stimulating, educational and important for development work."
• "An engaging training opportunity for learning 3 useful O.D. and project/programme management tools. Experienced practitioners providing training."
• "Very inspiring. An excellent opportunity to reflect on our work and make it more rewarding."
• "Thought provoking, intensive in a positive way, an amazing learning environment. Fund, learning and laughter, energizing."
• "An excellent collective learning opportunity."
• "Its very hands-on, practical. It gives opportunity for immediate application of the skills covered as well as the opportunity for analytical discussion for actual projects in the participants’ work environment."
• "Money well spent."
• "Very effective, informative and energizing workshop. Recommend it highly to colleagues."
• "Like an interesting learning experience where you can meet committed and interesting people in a welcoming environment. I will say the facilitators are very good and use a wide variety of tools and manage to keep everyone interested and focused and you do get good results. Some issues could have been more deeply explored, but….it’s always like that. How deep can we go?"
• "Learning about facilitation methods of RBM, AI, and Open Space with the opportunity of directly experiencing them."
• "An interesting space for learning key concepts and methodologies."
• "Excellent, Go for it!"
• "Provide important learning for results-based planning; useful in work environment."
• "Very participatory. Exploring new areas of development. Excellent networking with participants and facilitators."
• "Unique."
• "It is a fun workshop where you get to explore your creative and artistic sides in the learning process. The mix of people is important for the outcome of the workshop as a lot of interesting people with different experiences and high energy level meet."
• "This workshop will enable you to use RBM in a positive, flexible manner."
• "Excellent opportunity to learn and practice management concepts."
• "An effective medium for learning and sharing."
• "Practical exploration of three distinct but complimentary techniques for helping groups and organizations identify and build their strengths while harnessing individual passion to improve overall impact."

For the Stakeholder Participation and PME Workshop:

• "Very useful tools for organizational and community development."
• "It was excellent for those of us who sit in offices to see how things work in the field."
• "The community assignment was daunting, but absolutely the most effective learning tool."
• "Very participatory, hands-on. More grounded in practice than theory unlike other trainings-with real-life assignments."
• "The very best way to learn how to evaluate in a participatory way is to attend the Mosaic workshop. It is just learning by doing.” Worthwhile and cost-effective."
• "Very participatory, dynamic and enthusiastic facilitators, a lot of creativity. Great to have community practicum."
• "A right combination of theory and practice."
• "Great and a must do!"
• "A very applied hands-on approach to learning about a variety of visual tools that could be applied to different planning, research or evaluation contexts."
• "An engaging workshop that enables you to have practical experience in the application of PRA/PLA tools."
• "It was very useful. I would recommend it to others."
• "The facilitators really know and love their tools. Please be prepared for surprises and some chaos. In other words, a participatory learning experience."
• "If you are trying to the see world not only through numbers and data, that's the right place to go."
• "I like the fact that you can apply the tools you have learned during the community assignment."
• "My experience was very rich and I felt like the organizers made every detail-from residential setting, group dynamics to activities in the workshop setting--have a purpose in helping me learn and grow in doing development work. I would strongly suggest this PM&E workshop to others because of: 1) community assignment; 2) experienced facilitators; 3) clear expertise of facilitators in participatory approaches and realities of field work; 4) attracts dedicated participants who also make the experience worthwhile; and 5) Ottawa is a cool place."
• "I learned effective tools to enhance participation in a variety of settings. I learned a lot about team process--this was one of my better team experiences. The course modeled participatory evaluation, so keeping track of "what" was done and "how" it was done, provided useful information."
• "If you are looking for a life changing six day experience that you will use in development work where ever you go, this is it!"
• "This workshop is an excellent way to learn new tools and try them out. Anyone who is interested in learning new ways to understand the lived experience of people, but also use them for practical and social change purposes will love this workshop. The hands-on experience really makes it clear how these tools can draw people out to talk about their perspectives and strategize solutions to their individual concerns and organizational problems. It is a proactive approach that empowers not only those who are the target of the process but also the researchers/facilitators who are implementing the process."
• "Excellent and educative."
• "The PM&E workshop provides lots of hands-on experience in using participatory tools… The workshop is certainly very good value and it is hard to imagine how you could ever cover more ground in just six days for under $1000.00."
• "A platform for meeting participants from diverse areas and backgrounds. Practical experiences brought insight about Ottawa (physically) and its life challenges and positive aspects (strengths)."
• "I liked "the organization of it: the setting, the sequence of the different exercises, the energy circulating among the group."
• "I had read a lot about PD, but I had never the chance to apply the tools. So I got my chance."
• "Challenging (pushes you to think and act in new ways)"
• "Learning opportunity (if you're open to it)"
• "The workshops shows different ways to open the dialogue between target groups and decision-makers."
• "You get a good background on PM&E tools."
• "Necessary for modern day evaluations."
• "New approach that can be used successfully."
• "It’s a very enlightening experience that I feel privileged to have had."
• "Excellent tools. Me pareció excelente. Muy bien organizado. Todo tiene una lógica, un sentido."
• "Very interactive. Learn by doing. Interactive."
• "Practical, full of knowledge and enables skills acquisition."
• "An excellent way to refresh skills in PRA, diversity and multicultural aspect a real plus, Ottawa a great spot--outside USA context, new opportunities to increase self-growth. Mentally extremely challenging. Teamwork can be like "walking up Mt. Everest with sandals on."
• "Intensive, energy driven, mentally and socially challenging."
• "Very hands on."
• "A great chance to get out of the office, learn from colleagues and build new skills."
• "A good forum for PRA practitioners to learn new tools and practice already familiar tools."
• "Hands on very useful for persons with limited participatory knowledge and good refresher for those with more experience."
• "Very intense. But, from intensity one learns much more… But, viz PM&E, the lesson is don't dwell too much on getting perfect. Just do it."
• "Philosophically very strong."
• "The workshop is good if you want to learn tools and practice tools to empower people by helping them build knowledge to understand and act on their problems."
• "I would highly recommend it to people who have anything to do with evaluation or are experienced in traditional evaluation as a workshop which gives you the space to learn and practice participatory M&E to a great extent with immediate application possibility."
• "Very participatory, hands-on."
• "I would highly recommend to other participants to get in the workshop."
• "Very involving, persuasive and productive. In 6 days to learn new tools and apply them is a very impressive result! To participate at the workshop to feel themselves!…In the given timeframe, the learning part, was very effective."
• "Intensive."
• "Very dynamic and useful."
• "It's an interactive hands-on experience based workshop on the application of participatory methods for evaluation. Creative way to involve individuals and communities and agencies/organizations in defining their objectives and gathering information and finding recommendations and solutions."
• "Very intensive, participatory and worthwhile experience both personally and professionally."
• "A great opportunity to learn a different approach. I loved the hands-on practice opportunities. It takes you out of your comfort zone at times, but is needed to grow."
• "Good way to learn about concepts and application of PD."
• "Very engaging and participatory sessions."
• "Excellent opportunity for a hands-on learning experience. Had an engaging and thought provoking international audience."
• "It's an experience."
• "Excellent for personal development."
• "It is a good opportunity to share knowledge and experiences at international level. It also gives a lesson that PLA/PM&E is equally important for different regions of the world."
• "Extremely experiential. Will require major introspection and self-examination. Mega-interpersonal workout!"

For the Facilitator's Retreat:

• "Adult learning experience at its best. The theories of adult learning are practised well. The learning will happen without pressure."
• "Best approach to share experience and knowledge."
• "An excellent workshop where people learn and share. A must for people who do facilitation."
• "It's an interesting experience."
• "A chance to learn and share in a great physical environment."
• "An exciting event. Learned and shared different tools and techniques."
• "Excellent hands-on application of facilitation techniques, tools and technology."
• "Good forum to share experiences and learn from each other."
• "A first exploratory alpha-version of a facilitator's retreat. Well managed and beautiful setting."

Workshop Participants Comments in Newsletter and Press Clipping

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Participatory Development

Volume 3 - Number 1, 1997 NEWS FROM THE NGO PROJECT FACILITY TEAM [CIDA]

CIDA was here

JULY 10, 1997 - THE LOW DOWN TO HULL AND BACK NEWS PAGE 9