2008 Japan Foundation for AIDs Prevention NGO training

On Sat Feb 23, I took part in the JFAP national meeting of NGOs, social workers, and those who provides support services for people with HIV/AIDS.


On Friday afternoon, I met the nonprofit NGO staff taking part in the training. It was good to have some time to just meet each other since people came from all over the country.





Friday night, I joined the welcome reception long enough to meet a few people. It made me feel a bit better about doing the Sat workshop and I think it helped them feel more comfortable for discussion on Sat.






On Saturday - for the second time - I did a workshop overviewing NGO mgt.

I learned a lot as always and I am glad i did it despite the stress I have before doing the workshop. It was not the theme - it was the fact that it was 3 hours in Japanese.

I can talk to anyone on a one-to-one basis but the workshop in Japanese was very scary.


How to set up the group work - how to introduce. How to just get people motivated to consider new ideas and skills.

Still the most interesting thing is even though i asked what i thought would be skills or contents focused questions - answers were very human relationship based.

one example - except for relationships, why do volunteers stay? why do they leave?
most of the answers were about making friends and meeting new people => not even about doing good work or the impact on the beneficiaries. says a lot about why people volunteer.

when i asked about volunteer work contents, one person asked specifically why that was important.
always learning!