Championing Stories of Change: World Vision Zambia Trains Field Staff to Document Impact
By Joseph Kangwa Kaluba, Communications Officer
At the centre of World Vision’s work is that every child gets the opportunity to thrive and live life in all its fullness. Each child-reached and vulnerable community transformed represents a story worth documenting.
Documenting stories of change and transformation is a key element of the work field staff do to continue to inform, influence and rally support from sponsors and stakeholders in the community where we work.
For this reason, World Vision Zambia has continued building capacity among its Development Facilitators by training them to gather and write the Most Significant Stories of Change following interventions the organisation implements in communities each year.
The organization recently held a two-day training to build and champion confidence in identifying stories of transformation, photos, and demonstrating evidence of impact.
"Stories of transformations are a key component of the annual report that we write, because that is a section that goes to the sponsors and sponsors in World Vision are very important as they are the people who help us with child sponsorship, " said Kalimansi Sinyangwe, the Community Engagement & Sponsorship Plan Technical Manager.
Kalimansi narrates that sponsors are key to World Vision as their funding helps children in the program and the communities where they stay.
He said the training was necessitated after an observation that more sponsors were interested in learning how their support is yielding results and helping change the lives of children in Zambia.
"Building my storytelling skills will allow me to paint a more colourful picture of the extensive work that World Vision Zambia is doing in parts of Kasama and Mungwi, " Shared Christine Shiwanwa, a Development Facilitator.
Morris Mushibwe, another Development Facilitator, added: "The training will help me identify, write and improve the gravity of the story by including the child’s voice."
Christine and Morris are part of the 41 champions from all across Area Programs who were trained in Story Content Gathering in Lusaka from the 15th to the 16th of March, 2023.
World Vision Regional Sponsorship Transformation and Child Protection Lead Harriet Zambika and World Vision Zambia Communications manager Tigana Chileshe led the training.
