Friday, March 16, 2012

GIS Training 2012

My co-worker (an urban planner who works for the other provincial office) and I organized a GIS training for 2 weeks this month. The national-level training turned out really well and all the participants learned a great deal out of this!

We had been prepared for the event since last October. The things we did for the training included; arranging the venue, making a training guide, requesting guest lecturers from various organizations, making presentations about the GIS in general and some case studies in Japan and the U.S., leading training sessions as instructors, etc. It definitely was a lot of work but was definitely one of the best opportunities that we were given during our stay here in Zambia (though, I do have another year to go until my contract ends...). 

The best part of the training was that the 20 participants really got interested in GIS and now are quite fluent in basic applications of GIS. They can now make maps and do some analysis, including buffering, overlaying, etc. They even mentioned that they were ready to launch GIS programs at their provincial offices and willing to invite us as instructors for the the follow-up training in their provinces.  I cannot wait to see new changes in those offices / provinces!

To be honest, I already miss being an instructor of the training so much... The good news is that we might be able to host the follow-up training sometime in August or September! I cannot wait for the day to come soon :)

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