Highlights of the Intensive IRIS Week at TUDARCo
Warm welcome words of Provost Uswege Minga started the active project week. At this moment the team was not aware of the amount of mutual learning and understanding the week would bring ahead of us. Starting already in the afternoon when TUDARCo teachers and students presented their progress and active pedagogy method in use. Especially enlightening to see and hear how well students had learned to present and speak in the front of public.
On Tuesday the Project IRIS hosted a breakfast event for micro entrepreneurs, as IRIS calls them Micro E’s. Over 40 committed entrepreneurs arrived to the campus of TUDARCo to network, learn experiences from each other, and hear about financial options.
In addition they were offered a key note speech by characteristic and inspirational Eric Schigongo.
Morning visit in the Finnish Embassy was informative and fruitful. Afternoon workshop concentrated on the concept of pedagogy model to be developed for TUDARCo. Workshop was an inspirational experience and the project team focused on verbalizing the objective in smaller groups. Through this the team reached the same vision and is able to better communicate about the project to others.
In the new American corner at the National Library of Tanzania over 40 library professionals, students and government officers attended to the service design workshop for libraries. The session was a half day interactive workshop where objectives were to identify service gaps of micro e’s and plan concrete actions to serve them better.
In the afternoon IRIS board continued at the venues of National Library. Support and feedback from the board was encouraging.
Petri Uusikylä, the external evaluator of the project, facilitated evaluation workshop for the project IRIS members. The workshop applied self-assessment methods which showed up best practices, lessons learned and areas for improvement. Workshop was great and made the elements visible, so it is easier to go forward and develop.
The first week ended to a joint late lunch in the local pub near TUDARCo campus.
Thank you IRIS members for the a very active week!