Planning and Training

looking back to November 2016:

I wrote about the Ûiba Ôas Crystals Market about a year ago, which was about a year after I first visited and started working with the miners and sellers of that group.  They have always impressed me, and my respect and affection for them continues to grow.  Their lovely market has great potential to evolve and strengthen, to enrich their lives, their families' opportunities and Namibia's global reputation.

Also, they're fun.  So having four members of their leadership team visit me at the office for a planning session, with two staying over for some training, was great.

Selma brought her daughter, about six months old.  Patricia was about five
months pregnant.  Nelson was training in part to cover her maternity leave.

We had done a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis for their co-op back in the winter of 2015, shortly after I arrived and started work.  We started from that base for this training session, adding in some new ideas and issues that have arisen since.  You can imagine that it's not always easy keeping fifty-some people with different interests and needs working together well in a business setting, but they usually manage quite admirably.  We came up with an action plan, much of it concerning marketing the market more aggressively, and sent Gabriël and Selma back home, while Patricia and Nelson headed for the Town Council's bungalows for the night.  Patricia phoned me from her bungalow later that evening to report the electricity didn't work and neither did the lock, and she was locked in.  I contacted a friend who works for the Council, and she forwarded the message to the maintenance staff, who got everything sorted.  Whew.

Baby, Selma, Gabriël, Patricia, Nelson and my boss, Lysias.

On day two, Patricia and Nelson worked on their Word and Excel skills.  They both have basics, but wanted to learn things like tables in Word and sorting and using formulas in Excel.  They were really excited to see me do those tasks, and then to do them themselves.  Great fun to teach.  We also reviewed the market's Facebook presence and website, and they posted text and a photo to Facebook.  They aren't able to do that regularly as they often don't have money to pay for data plans, so their internet access is limited.  We're working on it.

Extremely rare photo of Patricia sharing her gorgeous smile with the camera.

Namibia's Social Security Commission provided us with the funds for the training, including money for transport, accommodations and meals.  I made the two morning tea breaks:  sandwiches, cookies, tea (donated kindly if unwittingly by K. in Sarasota; thanks!) and coffee.  The first morning, when there were four of them for teatime, I brought about 250 grams (half a pound; one cup) of white sugar to sweeten the tea or coffee.  They used it all and I had to go borrow more from Silas!  It's quick, cheap calories, and people eat a lot of it here.

Nelson has about a million Facebook friends, though he's not often on it.

Please Like the market on Facebook, and if you visit Namibia, or if you live here, make sure to stop.  They've got beautiful wares, and the people are well worth any support you can offer.