BftW-CPS Introduces Open Space Technology to Partners in Sierra Leone

By Abdul Kaprr Dumbuya

“One of the prerequisites for the success of an Open Space Technology (OST) conference is that, people are really interested in discussing and solving a certain burning issue affecting them using local-based solutions”, Juliane Westphal, BftW-CPS Support Team member.   

Having been tried in Liberia by Bread for the World (BftW), stories about successes of the OST were shared during the 2023 Mano River Civil Peace Service (CPS) Annual Conference in Sierra Leone. The stories captured the interests of network partners in the host country and therefore requested through the National Coordinators for a training for particularly project staff.

The Open Space Technology (OST) conference is a participatory approach activating existing knowledge and capacities while leaving out external input and teaching. An Open Space is a simple but effective people-driven process which identifies critical issues, voice passions and concerns, learning from each other, and taking collective responsibility for finding solutions. Everybody who is needed to answer the question or solve the problem at hand will be invited to the OS.

The OST is in complete contrast with the usual pre-planned meetings and conferences where schedules are done weeks or months in advance for speakers and their allotted time, and therefore subject to many changes. In this approach, the agenda, topics, speakers and locations are created by people attending, once they arrive at the venue.

The ultimate goal of this approach is to create time and space for people to engage deeply and creatively around issues of concern to them. It allows even a high number of participants to enter into an interactive and goal-oriented dialogue, to plan their future, develop new ideas and projects, find concrete solutions to burning issues, or to restructure their organization or community.

Open Space consists of three consecutive stages: experience, reflection and practice respectively. The format follows the fact that “Open Space can neither be taught nor learned, but remembered” (H. Owen). It therefore opens the space for experiential as well as self-organized learning. The adaption of the OST to communities with a low literacy rate and to further realities on the ground places this approach at centre stage in contemporary community development-based interventions.

In a bid to introduce the OST to the CPS partners in Sierra Leone, one of the BftW-CPS Support Team members, Juliane Westphal, led a three-day training workshop that was co-facilitated by Larry Melling from Liberia from 5^th – 7^th March, 2024 at the J&E Resort in Bo city, south of Sierra Leone. Participants were drawn from 13 network partners across the country.

The end of the very engaging and interactive training witnessed participants deliver statements of appreciation for what many described as a novelty within the framework of peace work and community development in the country. It is expected that, wherever this methodology is applied, communities will be able to plan, design and implement their own development interventions using local-based solutions.      

“On behalf of SLOIC, I extend thanks and appreciation to BftW, the facilitators and the National Coordinators for such a rewarding training. I now know that Open Space Technology can support individual talents to make a difference in achieving a common goal without necessarily involving government. This is a methodology I’ll encourage my organisation to adopt”, Shaka Kawa, SLOIC. “I’ve learned a lot; and I’m surely going to integrate the Open Space Technology into my radio programing. The usual practice is that, before presenting on radio, we already have our topics formulated, and the audience is not allowed to deviate from such topics. But I’m going to change that, and have a novelty in the media landscape in Sierra Leone”, Theophilus Sahr Gbenda, Community Media Network.