Modules

1. Church and civil society

A. Diakonia
Goal
The participant is able to formulate and communicate his/her view on diakonia and development as a part of the mission of the church. The participant will meet key persons working with diaconal and social issues and get inspiration and concrete ideas for diaconal projects, which can be carried out through congregations and church based NGOs.

Topics included

• Views on diakonia
• Biblical background and motivation for diakonia
• Historical perspectives on diakonia
• The Christian view of human nature
• Diakonia in practice
• Exchange of experience
• The Church in a global context
• International Diakonia

B. Civil society
Goal
The participant is able to formulate and communicate the role of the church and church based NGOs in civil society in relation to the UN-goals 2015. The participant will meet key persons from different organizations working in the area of development work and get inspiration and concrete ideas for development projects, which can be carried out through congregations and church based NGOs.

Topics included

• Democracy
• Human rights
• Enlightenment and development
• NGOs and churches as agents of change in civil society (including networking, empowerment and good governance)
• Inclusive education, advocating handicapped children and working in fragile countries
• UN-goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger (focusing on co-operative movement and agricultural development)
• UN-goal 2: Achieve universal primary education (including a “computers to children-project”)
• UN-goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower woman (gender relations, rights of women, trafficking and violence)
• UN-goal 5: Improve maternal health
• UN-goal 4: Reduce child mortality (and changing civil society through school projects)
• UN-goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability (and exploring why Christians should be involved in social and economic structures)
• UN-goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development (including microfinance and local saving projects)

C. Advocacy and Media
Goal
The participant is able to take on responsibilities within the area of advocacy and lobbyism based on a understanding of advocacy as a method to achieve changes in society. Furthermore the participant will derive concrete tools and ideas for raising awareness about development issues and how to speak up on behalf of the poor and marginalized from ‘best practices’ in concrete diaconal/ development work

Topics included

• Advocacy and rights based development
• Planning, implementation and follow up
• Documentation
• Lobbyism
• Popular Mobilization
• Events
• Media
• Presentation Skills
• Practical tools for PR as e.g. how to write an article, make a press release etc.
• Participatory methods
  
  

A Study Trip to Copenhagen, the country’s capital, is part of the Advocacy module. Here the main focus will be on studying NGOs working with advocacy and development. The participants will also visit the Danish parliament, Christiansborg, in order to discuss development and social issues with one of the MPs. The aim of the study tour is to get acquainted with development organizations and their working methods - as well as to get a cultural experience.

D. Inter Faith Dialogue
Goal
Through meeting and exchanging experiences and opinions with people of different faith and cultural background the participant gain insight and understanding of other people´s faith, values and ideas. This enables the participant to network with people of different denominations, thus being more effective in impacting his/her local community.

Topics included

• Interfaith meetings and religious dialogue
• Social work sensitive to sex, ethnicity, religion and culture
• Faith and fellowship

2. Project Work

Goal
The participant will attain the ability to plan, monitor and evaluate development activities on the basis of a comprehensive overview of all aspects of a typical project cycle. This is achieved by presenting and discussing, through lectures and extensive group work. The course focuses on project planning, using an adapted version of the logical framework approach (LFA), employed by DANIDA and a number of Danish NGOs, as well as other objective oriented planning tools.

Topics included

• Project cycle management
• LFA
• Participatory methods in project design
• Project economy
• Fundraising
• Donors and donors' policy
• Monitoring
• Organizational self-evaluation

3. Organizational Management

A. Organization and leadership
Goal
The participant is able to take on responsibilities of management and leadership in organizations working with diaconal/ development work.

Topics included

• Leadership skills
• Organizational assessment
• Capacity building/ development of human resources
• Partnership and networking
• HR
• Working with volunteers
• Teambuilding

B. Valuebased leadership
Goal
The participant is inspired to continue developing leadership qualities and abilities and to go home and facilitate diaconal/ development work on the basis of diaconal values.

Topics included

• Confidence-building Leadership
• Leading with a serving attitude
• Leadership qualities and development
• Handling leadership conflicts
• Innovation
• Coaching

C. Communication and Counseling
Goal
The participant is able to communicate effectively with an audience as well as the people he or she works with and support co-workers, volunteers and beneficiaries within organizations working with diakonia/ development work. The participant will be introduced to general communication skills, and basic counseling will be introduced and trained through theory and role play.

Topics included

• Cross cultural communication
• Giraffe language”/Non-violent Communication
• Communication and counseling
• Communication and conflict 
• Communicating with an audience (devotion/advocating a good cause)
• Presenting your work
• Communicating with young people

D. Danish Study Week in a local community

Goal
Through home stay with a Danish family and a planned program in the local area the participant gets insight into democracy and organizational management in a local Danish community. They will gain an understanding of how the Danish society is organized – in families, churches, schools, public institutions and voluntarily social organizations. The Danish Study Week is, whenever possible, planned by or in co-operation with the participant´s sponsoring organization.

 
4. Other Subjects

A. Bibliodrama
The participant is challenged to reflect on biblical truths in new and creative ways and thereby develops his/her understanding of him/herself, the bible and God.

B. Intro to The Diaconal College and Denmark
The participant get introduced to rules and daily life at the college as well as a short introduction to Denmark and the Danes.

C. Study skills
The participant get acquainted with the "Danish" methods of teaching: teaching with a high degree of student involvement, methods as e.g. group work etc.

D. Class meeting
Every second week the participants have a class meeting in the evening, where they can share life and faith and discuss common issues. The class meeting is a lived praxis of democracy.

E. International Evening
A few weeks before the course ends the participants are responsible for an international evening, where friends, partners, hosts from the Danish study week as well as teachers and students from the Diaconal College are invited.

F. Evaluation
Each module will be evaluated together as a class and through individually written reports. These reports will be sent to our partner organizations and will be used for adjusting the curriculum. A year after completing the course all participants should be expected to be asked by their sponsoring organization to write an evaluating report on their benefit from participating in the course.

H. Re-entry
The participant is prepared to meet possible challenges and difficulties connected with returning to his/her home countries and to his/her sending organizations.

I. End of Term
Finishing the course together and leaving the facilities in the condition we received them.