By Amin Kef Sesay
From Tuesday 21st to Saturday 26th July 2020, the Commit and Act Foundation Sierra Leone (CAF-SL) organized a five days meeting targeting forty staff, Board members and partners at Dohas hotel in Bo City, bordering on organizational development and change.
Commit and Act Foundation (CAF) was established in 2010 in Germany to bring psychosocial support to people in conflict areas. The psychotherapeutic approach is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), an evidence based behavioural method that has shown to be efficacious in dealing with mental problems (such as depression, anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, addiction, chronic pain, obesity and many others)
The Foundation is also a child centered organization that deals with sexual abuse cases and girls who have suffered rape or abuse are referred to the Centre where they are addressed under the Girl Shelter Project.
The meeting was held to strengthen CAF-SL’s organizational development policy system and to assess progress towards the strategic plans that will move the organization to a higher level within five years, also to review and develop key organizational policies, strategies and systems, to identify progress in relation to CAF’s Strategic Plan, develop an organizational capacity building and succession plan to build the capacity of staff to be able to effectively adhere to the policies and utilize the systems at the end.
In her opening statement, the Country Director of Commit and Act Foundation Sierra Leone, Mrs. Hannah Bockarie, said the meeting was held as a result of their inclusiveness to support new strategic direction that will serve as a wheel that will drive the organization forward. She said an organizational assessment (OA) was carried out in 2019 and those findings were used to design an ‘organizational development and change’ (ODC) strategy, including the five year strategic plan that was done by researchers and staff. The exercise will therefore strengthen the ODC strategy as outlined in its terms of reference.
She furthered that the process will be participatory, involving all CAF staff, board members, overseas partners and donors, at various stages. It will also serve as a means of gathering information, evidence of change, suggestions for improvement, training, review and development of organizational policies, strategies and systems, exploring new opportunities and assessing risks/threats in the work place for their staff.
The meeting attracted high profile personalities as consultants to discuss on different policies, were in policies were discussed like Human Resource and administrative policy, Gender policy , internal financial control policy, bully policy, volunteer policy etc.
Mr Joseph J. Brima ,who was one of the consultants and also a facilitator commended Commit and Act Foundation for such comprehensive and international standard policies they have put together saying he was impressed and encouraged them to work by the document and implement it to the fullest.
On her part Army Kposowa, a Social worker thanked Commit and Act for organizing such a forum by including them as staff to make inputs in the policy saying such is going to serve like their bible which will guide them on the dos and don’ts in executing their job.
In her closing remarks the Country Director, Mrs. Hannah Bockarie expressed her profound thanks and appreciation to their donors and all present for sparing their time and resources in five days to contribute to the development of the organizational policy of the Foundation.
The organizational development meeting ended with clear understanding on all the policies by every staff.
