Consultancy services & training programmes  

CONSULTANCY:

DHRUVA offers a wide range of consultancy services to Governments, Corporate Bodies, NGOs and children. Dhruva provides consultancy to a variety of organisations all over the world.

·         Design and development of policies and legislation

·         Strategy development

·         Organisational Analysis and Development

·         Strengthening Organisational Capacity

·         Strengthening Management skills and systems

·         Designing and conducting (National) surveys and environmental scans

·         Strengthening Child Governed Children Organisations

·         Designing Structures and processes for children’s and people's participation

·         Designing of Structures and processes for Children’s Ombudspersons

·         Designing manuals, handbooks and tool kits

TRAINING:

DHRUVA’s training courses cater to diverse participants, from government officials, top management to front line workers and children. Courses can also be designed on request to cater to the specific needs of a given agency, institution or organisation.

Fundamental to DHRUVA’s approach is the belief that children/people have the ability, given the opportunity and appropriate support, to play their role as partners in the development of approaches to participation. For this reason we are committed to involving children in the process alongside adults. The process is designed to transform the relationship between adults and children from one of dependence to one of inter-dependence using a mixture of parallel and joint sessions.

Dhruva is committed to the idea of learning about participation through participation, experience and action. We believe that training should build on participants’ existing knowledge and experience. We aim to enable a deeper understanding of theory by creating opportunities for exploring practice in the real world. This, in turn, is used to illuminate the theory and to help participants evolve frameworks, tools, codes of conduct and methods of working that are appropriate to their organisations and cultural context.

We also believe that it is important to introduce participants to a range of real-world examples of children participation, which we hope, will provide a source of inspiration and reflection. Dhruva uses a wide range of resources that include films, case studies and if possible, children who are or have been actively involved in children’s organisations. This enables participants to experience a variety of working models of participation that illustrate the possibilities as well as the challenges involved in making a reality of children’s participation.

Finally, based on extensive experience of working with children and adults on these issues, Dhruva uses a range of exciting participatory learning methodologies designed to examine (and challenge) attitudes as well as build skills and knowledge.

The workshops are designed to be participatory brainstorming exercises conducted in an atmosphere of openness based on mutual trust and respect. They encourage honest sharing and encourage learning from successes and mistakes. Obstacles to children’s participation with regard to organisational structures, systems and procedures are reviewed in depth and redesigned to facilitate children’s participation. 

BUILDING CAPACITY TO WORK WITH CHILDREN - CHILDREN’S RIGHTS AND PARTICIPATION:

These workshops are designed to increase awareness and understanding of children’s participation and the organisational implications of working on this issue with children leading to a re-alignment of systems and structures within children’s organisations and organisations working with children. They increase organisational capacity to make children’s rights a reality through their participation and protagonism and also bring about a greater clarity regarding roles and responsibilities and better balanced accountability between partners on the issue of children’s participation.

This process helps to break new ground in this largely unexplored field of translating children’s participation into a social and structural reality and the role of adult organisations to facilitate this.

Organisational Analysis and Development within the context of Children’s Participation in particular and Children’s Rights in general form the basis of these seminars and are intended to facilitate a process of reflection and reconstruction of organisational systems.

The Workshops cover the attitudes and perceptions of adult’s and children towards children’s rights, their participation and development. It also deals with an understanding of socio-political and economic structures and institutions in order to design/use these to further children’s participation. They include skills, tools and methodology for furthering children’s empowerment toward their participation and protagonism; and deal with issues related to the partnership between adults and children and children’s participation in governance.

The international scenario in relation to children’s rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child are also addressed. The curriculum includes organisational development with specific reference to children’s organisations, organisations working with children and organisations supporting national and local initiatives with children. Areas related to designing child friendly project cycles, steps to enable and promote child and youth participation, information management, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation and best practices in the area of children’s participation and protagonism are constantly referred to and lessons learnt from them are highlighted.

The content is designed in a way that each module provides to the participants an information base on the subject, the appropriate skills required to work with children and the methodologies and tools to engage with children in order to enable their participation.

Workshops can also be designed as customised models to fulfil the specific needs of an agency or organisation and can be used by the organisation to facilitate similar processes with others in order to engage children on a much wider basis in the process of strengthening civil society and local democracy through increased participation.

TRAINING OF MASTER TRAINERS:

The TOT workshops include training methodology, tools and skills to enable participants to design training programmes and conduct them for a variety of contexts and participants. They enable participants to acquire the qualities of a good trainer and develop the required attitude, skills and knowledge. The workshops provide skills for good facilitation and the inputs required to create an empowering learning environment.

The modules equip the participants with knowledge of how adults and children learn and guidance on the design of content, preparation of tools and training methodology.

BUILDING MANAGEMENT CAPACITY:

A strong and well managed State and NGO sector are essential for the sustainable and equitable development of a nation. They have an increasingly important role in empowering the marginalised and enabling civil society participation.

These workshop aim to provide government officials and NGO staff with an understanding of their potential role and the methods they use; the contribution they can make to the development process and their place in civil society.  The workshop content reflects a desire to support the development of a conducive environment for NGOs and constructive collaboration between NGOs and government in order to maximise sustainable benefits for the poorest and most marginalised in society.

The areas that are covered are:

·    Organisational Analysis

·    Organisational Development

·    Structures and processes

·    Leadership

·    Conflict and Crisis Management

·    Collective Bargaining

·    Information Management (Research, Documentation and Communication)

·    Participatory Management

·    Strategy Development and Planning

·    Monitoring and Evaluation

·    Codes of Conduct, Best Practice and Social Audits

MENTORING:

DHRUVA also provides Mentoring at the management and operational/field level, enabling organisations/agencies to work through a variety of issues such as implementation of action plans, developing monitoring and evaluation methodology and facilitating participatory processes.