Project monitoring visit and partner capacity building in Chernivtsi – April, 2024

Project monitoring visit and partner capacity building in Chernivtsi – April, 2024

Between 22-24 April 2024, a part of the Ukraine Response team organised a monitoring visit to the project funded by Swiss Solidarity and ACT Alliance in 2024, implemented in Chernivtsi, in partnership with AREAC. During this visit, the team monitored 10 out of 30 ongoing sclr initiatives and organised some capacity building activities for the local partner in Chernivtsi.

The sclr initiatives monitored during this fields trip are diverse and focused on the needs of internally displaced persons in the region and the local community: rehabilitation of common spaces in a collective centre, construction of a basketball court, creation of a carpentry workshop for vocational training, equipping a room for security courses, sports activities (Nordic Walking marathon) etc.

In order to increase the project implementation capacity of the local partner AREAC, the HEKS/EPER team organized 3 thematic sessions focusing on: experiential learning in the sclr approach and effective monitoring of initiatives undertaken by local groups, the qualitative component of community facilitation and good practices explored by HEKS/EPER in implementing sclr in Romania. Among these, administrative aspects were also discussed: safeguarding measures, interim reporting and optimization of various processes.

Following our discussions, we identified the main needs of the local partner in terms of capacity building, among which are project management and increasing the visibility of the organization locally. The AREAC team expressed a desire for the training to bring in expertise from the European space, stressing the need for it to be conducted in Ukrainian, ensuring a good understanding of all the aspects that would be discussed.

These few days spent in Chernivtsi with the AREAC team were a great opportunity for the teams to get to know each other better and work more effectively together. We also made sure through this visit that we are on the same page with regards to how to facilitate sclr initiatives and how to closely monitor them.