A new year presents a sea of new possibilities, especially for our works, lives and careers. It’s a time for making resolutions and setting goals. To kick-start our work for the year at Connected Development (CODE), an internal mentorship class was organized between January 16 – 20, 2017. The training was conducted to ensure that the team is guided at the work to be done and learn more about the inner workings of the organization that aren’t often spelled out in the organization chart and policies and also provide us a chance to attack our work with new vigor and passion.

The first day began with Oludotun Babayemi who was our mentor taking the first session on the concept of creativity, he highlighted the things that influence creativity. The session established that a project must challenge the statuesque as the most successful ones do not live on default and that there is also need for having the right attitude, gaining actual knowledge and connecting and combining with people or network for a project to run successful.
After the break, he took us on what Problem statement, mandate, scope and stakeholders analysis were, after which he asked that the team be divided into groups, with each person identifying a project he/she would want to carry out and state their goals, objectives, problem statement and scope of it.
Following the presentations and debrief, the training class was closed for the day.
Day 2 began with a presentation on Action plan which is an activity carried out throughout the project lapse. He also stated that it is measured by number of people carrying out the project, timeline and roles of people executing the project. He also did not fail to let us know what strategies, activities and execution of a project entails.

The focus on the morning of Day 3 was analyzing the funding ecosystem and coming up with budgets for projects. The team was then identified to present short summaries of what had gone on in the first two days of the training-workshop where we were all asked to work and pitch and pitch a project at the end of the training.

The fourth day which happened to be the last day of the training class happened to be the best day for me. We were asked to write what we would like to see on our tombstones. Tunde a colleague went overboard and said he wants to be” remembered as that who was able to solve world challenges” this got everyone interested to know how he intend to do that when identifying activities, input, output and outcome towards achieving that. Another outstanding experience was Chambers, who I believed was going to awesomely do well owing to the fact that he is our amiable office professor, unfortunately he was given the lower belt when it was clear that he didn’t understand the task given.

The day came to an end with Dotun reminding us of our presentations the next day. The presentation day offered us all an opportunity to review what we learnt the past days and where the strength of each member lies.
I am most grateful to the organization for giving us such a wonderful start for the year, through the training, I was able to get a clear understanding of a grant proposal and what each activity entails. Now is the time for me to define not just long-term goals but also short-term milestones that are both aspirational and achievable within the organization.

Ijeoma Oforka is a Program Officer at Connected Development, with a background in Public Health. She is passionate about advocating for the plights and issues surrounding women and girls health and education. She tweets via @ijoforka