Course Pictures

North Africa and West Asia Regional Course 2006

One of our most recent large courses trained 20 project leaders and senior scientists from West Asia and
North Africa.

The course was run for the Mashreq and Maghreb project, which is now entering its third phase, and the Water Benchmark project.

The projects' coordinators wanted us to ensure that as many people as possible know about the great results and outputs being produced by these important projects.


Course participants and trainers.

Course Feedback from Participants

Below are samples of feedback provided anonymously by participants.

Special thanks to our trainers. They were professional and efficient. Also, their sense of humor motivated us well.

Good course, especially for people with no previous experience.

A useful course. Most scientists need a course like this to improve their writing skills.

The course impressed me with regard to various writing and communication techniques and the use of software. The presentations were impressive.

The trainers were very good and understood the subject thoroughly. They tried their best to help the trainees to understand the subject. Their style was impressive and very useful.

Gave new techniques that you can use in your job. Easy to understand, exciting and direct.

Good style of teaching.

Appropriate style and very funny. The course was useful and interesting.

The way of teaching was very useful because it was attractive and helped us to catch as much information as possible.

We taught the participants a range of skills, including how to write clear concise reports and how to express their findings in a way that will interest non-specialists, donors, the general public and stakeholders.


Participants worked in small groups to apply new techniques to their own work.

Concrete outputs from the course included:

4 PowerPoint presentations to explain different parts of the projects to donors and non-specialists
2 Newsletters - one for the M&M project and one for the Water Benchmark project
4 press releases - which participants will now send to newspapers to promote their work
2 Abstracts for reports which the project is about to release
A report framework - which participants will use to standardize their reports in the future -
ensuring that they aren't too long and contain all the information donors need.


Using two trainers means that we can teach people in small groups. This makes learning more fun and more efficient.


Quizzes and games test participants on what they have learned so far. Small prizes (like sweets) encourage healthy competition and ensure that everyone participates.


The Water Benchmark project group plans its next report while applying the writing techniques they've just learned.


Participants also work individually, learning how to apply new techniques they can use once they are back at work.