The training is divided in five days with each an own topic. From organizational structure, planning, accounting records and control are all discussed. The training is very interactive and participants are invited to share their experiences, problems and solutions with the group. Although this is for most of them a new way of being trained, they love it.
After short explanation of the theory through examples, participants have to do exercises. ‘Learning by doing’. For some of the board members it is the first time they are filling out a balance sheet and drafting a budget. Although this is not a ‘hard core’ financial training, it is good for all to have experienced what it is like to fill out financial overviews. Not only is this training creating more knowledge of financial management, It also creates more understanding of the role of the different positions within the cooperative.
As I have done the financial training already twice before, it was quite exciting to see what this training would be like in Indonesia. Even though sometimes cooperatives are very closed about the way they are doing, being out of the office and having to present together with others the outcomes of their exercises and findings, created a very open sphere in which many issues the cooperatives were facing were discussed.
The ‘heavy’ warm lunches caused some sleepiness after lunch, but with energizers and a lot of laughing the participants followed the training with a lot of interest. We can look back at a very successful training and are looking forward to the next training taking place in January with a new group of cooperatives.
