KH-SIDC – Fourth Regional Training Workshop:
“Designing, Writing and Marketing Proposals on Harm Reduction”

The SIDC Sub-Regional Knowledge Hub (KH-SIDC) in Lebanon, with the support of the WHO and IHRA, and funded by Drosos Foundation, organized its fourth regional training workshop, this time addressing the topic of “Designing, Writing and Marketing Proposals on Harm Reduction”. The workshop was held at Padova Hotel in Sin-El-Fil, Lebanon, from Tuesday the 13th to Saturday the 17th of January, 2009. Participants attending the workshop included 25 health professionals, medical doctors, police and NGO managers from Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Sultanate of Oman, United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Iraq.

Mr. Elie Aaraj, SIDC Director and KH-SIDC Manager, described the strategy of Harm Reduction and gave a brief presentation of its various programs. Aaraj also stressed the importance of designing, writing and marketing proposals in this field in order to secure funding. Sessions that were given during the workshop tackled basic topics in designing and writing a proposal, such as the analysis of problems and objectives, the log frame of the proposal, the foundations of designing a proposal and the action plan of the proposal. Other topics included the budgeting, marketing of proposals, identifying and building relationships with potential funding agencies and presentation of sample forms and formats used in applying to the Global Fund.

The main facilitator in the workshop was Mr. Jean Dib Al-Hajj, who was joined with Mr. Elie Aaraj, Mrs. Micheline Abou Chrouch, Ms. Nadia Badran and Mr. Roger Lahhoud as trainers. All trainers adopted an interactive approach during the sessions and incorporated the methods of role-play, group work and exercises. Every session was followed by a practical session during which workgroups applied what they had learned into created a sample project proposal over the course of five days. At the end of the workshop, the groups presented four draft proposals on programs in Harm Reduction, to be followed up by the participants in their respective countries.