Raising Awareness about NRC, the Importance of Education, and What Communities Can do About it

In 2002 the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in DR Congo developed an awareness raising workshop (=sensitisation) for stakeholders in order to inform the communities about NRC’s mandate and emphasise the importance of education. This was meant to support the TEP programme and built on the experience NRC made in the beginning. Many of the messages we thought were well received, were instead misunderstood. In spite of many information meetings and discussions with local stakeholders and authorities the perception of what NRC was doing and could do, was still unclear. Different local perceptions and motivations hampered the practical cooperation NRC built its program on. By improving understanding we hoped to built ownership and thereby strengthen the communities’ commitment to contribute to successfully run the programme (from the first stone laid for a classroom’s foundation to the enrollment of the children after TEP).