Monrovia – A Bong County-based civil society organization (CSO), Community Development and Research Agency (CODRA) has become the first-place winner of a new awards program.
Report by Alline Dunbar, [email protected]
The award, which is dubbed “Liberia’s First Learning Awards”, is an initiative of ICampus Liberia in partnership with Accountability and Voice Initiative, two component programs of USAID, which is funding the initiative, in order to help civil society organizations transmit information in a more better way.
The first-place winner, CODRA, a CSO based in Gbarnga, Bong County, works around development issues especially research. One of its recent researches was done among civil society groups across the country on teaching them how to collaborate with each other effectively.
Lasana Dukuly, CODRA head, expressed his joy for his organization being selected the first-place winner of this new award. He avowed that his organization will continue to engage and collaborate more with development partners to enhance the learning culture of Liberia.
In the Dry Season of 2017, ICampus conducted a learning mapping exercise to understand why and how Liberian organizations learn.
Giving an overview of the program, ICampus Manager Luther Jeke stated that the entire process of Liberia’s Learning Awards started back in January.
According to Jeke, the activity programs include the culture of learning comprising mistake making; adding: “Your mistakes and lessons learn should be used to do better in the future.”
However, he stated that the award is also geared toward naming and faming organizations, which have done well despite them making some mistakes in their operations.
He admonished other organizations, which are not development partners of ICampus and USAID to apply in the next rounds.
During the first round, seven organizations expressed interest, five completed their application process and only three were shortlisted.
The three shortlisted emerged as the winners with CODRA taking the first place; Youth Coalition for Education in Liberia (YOCEL) won second place and the Liberia Media Center (LMC) won third place.
Also speaking, Accountability Lab Country Representative Lawrence Yealue stated that it has been the wish of his organization to create an enabling environment in making Liberia a better place. The package for being first-place winner is usage of the ICAMPUS main hall twice a year, two productions with access to the studio and works would be presented to USAID. For second-place winner, one-time usage of the hall and one production in studio, while the third winner is only going to have a one-time access to the main hall.