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Learning with Kaya: Meet Shariful

Shariful is from Bangladesh, he works with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) as a Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA) Officer.

Hello Shariful! How did you hear about the e-learning platform Kaya, and which courses did you take?

I have heard about Kaya from my colleagues and I have been using it for a year. I have completed courses such as Communication is Aid, Accountability to the Affected People, and the Introduction to the Core Humanitarian Standard. I found all the courses very useful and relevant to my work. Kaya helps me to keep tracking my work quality in the field and improve it gradually. In my work, communication with the community is a major pillar, so I have learned how to communicate with the community in a very effective and efficient way. I have enjoyed all the courses a lot and found them resourceful.

What does being a humanitarian mean to you?

Humanitarian to me is a sense and conscience of myself which drives me and my instinct to stand for the most affected, marginalised, vulnerable and deprived people, those who are in need of support.

Kaya encourages us to learn more, without any financial charges. We need to grow our interest in humanitarian learning (…) we need to encourage everyone to do more learning besides working.
Shariful

Did the COVID-19 pandemic affect the way you work and/or learn?

Yes, during this pandemic we’ve had to change our working strategy since most of our work is associated with being out in the field and community. Now we mainly focus on COVID-19 related operations and when we are doing our regular sectoral activities and working with the community, we must remain cautious.

What would you say are the greatest challenges surrounding humanitarian learning today, and what can organisations like the Academy do to support the sector to overcome these challenges?

I must say that Kaya encourages us to learn more, without any financial charges. We need to grow our interest in humanitarian learning. We are nowadays working a lot but learning less. For our own and community capacity building, there is no alternative to learning and we need to encourage everyone to do more learning besides working.

To help with the learning, I would suggest to categorise the courses by levels: beginner, medium or advanced level; and also introduce new courses such as Psychosocial Support, Gender Approach, IEC Materials Development, Community Engagement.

Any final comment or suggestion?

I’m very happy to have found Kaya which is a great platform for learning opportunities. Thanks a lot.

Themes:

Strengthening Technical Expertise Asia

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