Digital following-up sessions Enhancing previous skills and building new ones
Wasla’s staff has completed its efforts to train 5 NGOs, based on the importance of digital tools and the need to use them optimally, as we started working with them last year, and the team focused its efforts on increasing their digital efficiency, through the implementation of 40 digital following-up sessions, centered on developing digital performance through using new digital tools and technologies and focusing on weaknesses that organizations have been experiencing.
Organizations have started receiving these sessions, starting from last November and ending in May, in a face-to-face and remote manner, given the conditions of the epidemiological situation we are living in due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, part of these sessions was implemented collectively and individually due to the nature of the needs of each organization and the nature of the content of the sessions itself, which revolved around the general settings of accounts on social networking sites, tweeting sessions, visual content, digital techniques, interviews, and the basics of publishing on social networks.
The sessions also featured a number of practical applications and assignments that helped the staff to measure the development of each organization by specifying some criteria through which the rate of progress in the performance of the organizations was determined. Some analyzes of the organizations’ pages were conducted using digital analysis tools, through which it was found that there has been significant progress in the organizations’ performance in terms of content and the structure of the accounts itself.
The organizations commended the role of these sessions in improving their digital performance and developing their capabilities to produce content in a highly efficient manner. Feryal Al Daya, representative of Al Salam Sports Club for Persons with Disabilities, expressed her experience, saying, “The following-up sessions developed from our knowledge that we took in the counseling sessions, and through which I was able to use logo-setting applications and adjust the quality of the visual content in a good way, which in turn was reflected in my personal performance in managing the Peace Club page and developing its digital content.”
As for Omar Al-Gharabawi, a representative of the General Union of Persons with Disabilities, had a different experience, as he is one of the persons with a mobility disability, describing his experience, “My participation with Wasla’s staff in mentoring and following-up sessions is a turning point in my performance. This is the first time that I participate in such exercises, which in turn has contributed to increasing my knowledge about digital content, exchanging relationships and experiences, and through which I was able to develop the performance of the Union page.”
These sessions represent an extension of the work team’s previous efforts in building the digital capabilities of these organizations, which were in the form of guidance sessions, which this year became following-up sessions, and as a result, the performance of pages improved better than before.
In this regard, Aroob Al-Saqqa, the coordinator of the following-up sessions and the social network specialist, expressed the role of these sessions, saying, “Through the following-up sessions, we seek to enhance the organizations’ strengths and improve their weaknesses with regard to managing social networks and producing digital content, and we have also noticed the impact of these sessions through the development of the performance of organizations pages better, which confirms that we continue to promote the optimal use of digital tools and raise awareness of the importance of investing in the digital world in documenting and promoting the work of organizations better.”
It is noteworthy that the following-up sessions come within the activities of the project to improve the local response to the rights of persons with disabilities “Wasla 2”, which is implemented by the Social Development Forum in partnership with the Medical Aid Society for Palestinians.