learning modules
	handbooks

Baobab's web- and CD-based interactive learning materials and handbooks are offered as part of our consulting and training facility. This is dedicated to nurturing and furthering the skills, experience, contacts, and self-development of people working in the field of socio-economic development.

All development interventions are interventions in the lives of people.
As such we believe they need to be conducted with professionalism, expertise, and sensitivity. They need to leave people with the wherewithal to continue their lives more productively than before. Development interventions need to tackle the problems of the people (the beneficiaries) - not those perceived / suggested by outsiders in connection with pre-conceived solutions. Our approach marries the best of people-driven and professional approaches, seeking outcomes appropriate to the local situation, its potentials and socio-cultural context. Our interactive learning modules, training materials, and our own work as interveners follow these premises.

BAOBAB work is undertaken by a growing international group of development managers / practitioners and management trainers.

These include

Suki Feliciano (Phillipines)		Suki is a psychologist and political scientist; in development she focuses on small industries and rural development, and is a partner in the successful consultancy company 'Advent'; she specialises in facilitation, team work, planning workshops, organisational development; she works for national and international development agencies all over Asia - with focus the on her home-country - and in Europe and the States.
Monique Lauer (Germany)		Monique started as a secondary school teacher, became a regional planning engineer, worked as manager of a self-help project in Tanzania, was monitoring officer and executive manager in consulting firms in Germany, is a Gestalt pedagogue, a mediator and facilitator, trains management, and teaches Geography at a German secondary school in English and in French languages
Jochen Lohmeier (Germany)		Jochen is a geographer and economist (PhD), worked as a regional planner in Tanzania, is a facilitator and trainer of facilitators, is a Gestalt supervisor and organisational consultant, has been CEO of consulting firms, and has worked as development practitioner and trainer for the last 20 years in English, French, and Kiswahili in over 25 countries worldwide
Nathaniel Mjema (Tanzania)		Nathaniel started as a secondary school teacher, then became a regional planner, and worked in the Tanzanian regional administration, then in a community development programme, and has been a free-lancing consultant/facilitator/trainer all over Eastern and Southern Africa for the past 15 years, working in English and Kiswahili
John Nkum (Ghana)		John is a regional planner who worked in the ministry for environmental affairs in Ghana, and has established his expanding consultancy firm in Accra; he is also a charismatic pastor in his community; recently he has become member of the faculty of the Cleveland Gestalt Institute for Organisational and Systems Development working worldwide not only in development but also with corporate companies.
Theo Rauch (Germany)		Theo is an economist (PhD), a planner and a university professor in geography; he combines practical consultancies with academic work; he has created an own school of (rural) development thinking that is presented in the 'Design' sections of Baobab; he works in Africa and Asia as government advisor and publishes in German and English.
Celeste Venter (South Africa)		Celeste is an industrial psychologist with many years of NGO-experience in rural development in South Africa; she has been a free-lance consultant for almost a decade and works as policy advisor, facilitator, trainer and coach; she teaches at a university and runs comprehensive management courses with international participants in Germany.
Davine Thaw (South Africa)		Davine was a farm manager, became a sociologist, and set up the successful NGO 'Olive-OD&T' that specialises in organisational development work in the NGO-sector; she is a facilitator, an entrepreneur, dedicated to development and related policies; she recently moved on to be a free-lance consultant and works in Eastern and Western Europe and all over Africa.
Chantelle Wyley (South Africa)		Chantelle started off as an historian, librarian and information scientist, moved into the development NGO-sector, managed an NGO that specialised in community capacity building, became a facilitator and a Gestalt OD-practitioner, runs international training courses, works as a free-lance consultant, is also an Iyengar yoga practitioner, and recently has ventured into on-line learning and facilitation.

Baobab training and consulting offers:

• Training[1] in
  
  • project / programme design (situation analysis, analysis of problems and potentials, design of appropriate interventions), regional planning, rural development
    
  • project / programme management (logical framework planning, operational planning, organizing, monitoring, evaluation)
  • facilitation / communication / consulting / self-development.

  For further details about courses, contact us at: admin@baobab-ct.org.
  
  

• Consultancy in
  
  • initial appraisal of interventions
  • participatory planning processes,
    
  • operationalising plans,
    
  • design and establishment of monitoring systems,
    
  • evaluations,
    
  • team development,
    
  • conflict resolution

  For specifics about cost-effective computer-based learning combined with coaching, please contact us: admin@baobab-ct.org.

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• Coaching in managing development processes, including
  • people skills
    
  • communication, especially in intercultural contexts
    
  • working with conflict
    
  • working in teams
    
  • self management
    
  • working with systems
    
  • working with complexity.

    .

• In-person on-site support, coaching and training in conjunction with the interactive computer-based learning modules (available via the Web or on CD).

Rates and prices