Why you should join the INEE Community of Practice

Published
Topic(s):
Community Participation
Professional Development

In June 2021, INEE launched a new Community of Practice on Slack. And I think you should join it.

INEE logo with with community image

Like many of you, I’ve been an INEE member for many years, and I do my best to stay up-to-date with everything going on in the education in emergencies sector. This means that, probably like you, I am subscribed to many of INEE’s communications channels. 

info overload image3Every week, I receive emails from the network according to my interests and selected languages; new publications, webinars, calls to action, surveys, and more find their way into my inbox with surprising frequency. The Bi-Weekly Bulletin is particularly rich with content, and I usually keep a watchful eye on the jobs newsletter every Friday. 

I consider myself connected and well informed, despite not following INEE on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn since I’m not a big fan of social media. I’m also quite shy about giving out my phone number to be added to Whatsapp groups and the like.

As many of you are just as well connected as I am to INEE’s many sources of information, I imagine that when the new Community of Practice launched in June, you wondered why you should join this new space. Don’t you already have more than enough ways to bolster your knowledge and commitment to our field of work? Isn’t this just more of the same? 

In short, no. The INEE Community of Practice (CoP) is so much more, and here’s why you should join.

The CoP is not “yet another channel of information” that INEE is offering. The community, as its name indicates, is a space where INEE members from everywhere, in any language, can meet and learn from each other. The CoP’s hallmark is member-to-member interaction, which is decidedly different from most of INEE’s one-way communications channels. It is a space where you can directly and simply reach out to the INEE Secretariat team and other practitioners in your field of work, or in your country and region, and in your language.

You can share with your peers information about your own work and on resources that you find useful. You can also ask others for advice, effectively reaching EiE colleagues you might otherwise never be in contact with. For instance, I recently posted a request for videos that I needed for a project I am working on, and I received valuable information from an INEE member who is on the other side of the globe. I was as excited about the new connection as I was about the content they shared with me!

slack logo mobile and laptop image

The CoP is hosted on Slack, a super user-friendly platform available on all computers and mobile devices. It works a lot like Whatsapp, but with much better functionalities and organization capabilities. It is very easy to post in “channels”, which are dedicated spaces for topical conversations, and also to direct message with individuals, including text, video, and audio calls. 

The Slack platform allows you to have all your conversations in one place without the risk of distraction that we encounter on social media. With a bit of time, you can effectively move all of your EiE conversations to the CoP, which will free up your personal Whatsapp and relieve your overflowing inboxes.

INEE will keep using its traditional email and social media channels to inform the membership, but with time and with increasing engagement of members, the CoP will bring a more global and collaborative dimension to our exchanges. Communication, knowledge sharing, and capacity building are now democratized like never before, as any member can directly connect, request, and share information with the rest of the network. I think this is incredible, and it’s why I think you should join the CoP.

Already with around 900 members, the CoP is set to grow even more, and it will soon be THE place to go for every INEE member interested in networking and keeping up with our sector.

Join us today by completing the short application form!