Name of GRIC Partner Organization: Patinaai Osim

Name of Interviewee: Semerian Sankori

Position/Role in the organization: Executive Director

Date 11/5/2022

 

  1. In a few sentences tell us about your organization (why it was formed, and what you do) and how you got into a partnership with GRIC.

The Maasai community as a whole is especially disadvantaged in their access to formal education and other opportunities to develop leadership in the world outside of their communities. Patinaai Osim was especially formed to address socio-economic issues facing women and girls. This vision over time has evolved to not only include women and girls, but children, women, and youth.

We are a non-profit organization, seeking to serve the Maasai Pastoral community through the empowering and capacity building of children, women and, youth in Kajiado County; addressing Sexual and reproductive health, education, economic development and, environmental challenges among pastoralists.

 

We got through a partnership with GRIC through a network introduction, we applied for a grant under our education program where we seek to enhance education for rural learners through teachers training on the Teaching at the right level program, remedial classes for learners to help learners improve on their literacy and numeracy skills, BOM training on School Improvement Program and how to use the programs to drive resources and improve school management, Parental engagement training which was a way on how to engage parents to get involved in their children’s education as well as school activities, and youth training to enhance the project.

 

  1. What has the journey of partnering with GRIC been? (Highlighting technical and resource mobilization support offered and overall organizational development attained) Maximum 100 words.

 

The journey with GRIC has been fruitful and very educative, they have provided us with technical support through various trainings that have seen us improve on our organizational systems. The in-person training that we have attended through GRIC has also provided us with networking opportunities. The networking has allowed us to create new partnerships that have proven fruitful and for some of our partners, we have been able to work with them on the ground. We were privileged to attend a resource mobilization training that allowed us to learn about different ways we can be able to use for resource mobilization.

GRIC has provided us with sessions on the financial and narrative reporting process which has seen us improve on our organizational reporting process and monitoring and evaluation of projects. This has also allowed us to improve on our internal monitoring and evaluation, annual work plan process, communication strategy, and financial systems.

Our team through the frequent training has expanded their knowledge through the exposure to new perspectives and expertise that has seen our organizational operations greatly improve.

 

Our partnership with GRIC has also improved our negotiation skills, especially when faced with challenges on the ground. This was experienced when we had to negotiate for the BOM training with the Curriculum Support Officer at the county where they gave us a challenge when negotiating for when to have the BOM training.

 

  1. What are the key highlights of your organization’s partnership journey with GRIC? (In your own words, no word limit, be creative, bold, and real)

 

The training has greatly exposed us to what we need to be doing within our organizations as well as the community we work with. The back and forth when we are reporting the financial and narrative reports has allowed us to see what we are lacking in our organization and this has greatly improved on our reporting as well as our monitoring and evaluation.

The networking opportunities have allowed us to create more networks and we have gotten opportunities to work with different organizations

The different cluster meetings and training we have had through GRIC have allowed us to have a new school of thought when it comes to addressing unexpected challenges that we face during the project. This has trickled down to our other projects and has proven very helpful.

The parental engagement training exposed us how to engage parents with school projects. This has seen many parents gain interest in learning about what their children are learning in school and also having them wanting to get involved in school activities as well as an increase in participation in the running of the schools.

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