Power of Interaction to impact CHOGM

By Brenda Zulu
More than a 100 people selected from 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) have in the past two days experienced the power on Interaction and are expected to impact in the Commonwealth People’s Forum (CPF) and later in their societies.
A Consultant on Human Rights and Governance, Norah Matovu Winyi said that the Interaction Leadership Programme was targeting dynamic leaders from all sectors of the society that are interested in transformation or change. She said that the interaction leadership programme had provided space where the participants would explore their expectations and also have an opportunity to stop and think about their leadership.
Winyi said the Interaction Leadership Programme currently operates in 19 countries across Africa and in the UK and that it has proved to be a valuable tool in equipping and encouraging community leaders. She added that it also helps the participants to understand what assumptions and introduces the concept of Ubuntu (people living together in harmony) and how its application supports social transformations.
She said that the programme was inspiring as participant’s new ideals and new approach shows how they realize their own dreams as they created a visual image for the future. She added that the purpose of the programme about understood the leaders, get participants curious about thinking and looking at systems and also enable them to understand their leadership journey and transformation in the context of systems thinking.
The interaction leadership programme also looked at the chaos of communication and listening model whose purpose was to enable participants to understand that communication was not a straightforward as they increased the capacity of the participants to be curious, hear to be heard and unhear rather than angry when communicating.
The programme also looked at the art of questioning whose purpose was to encourage participants to become curious and passionate about developing the art of questioning and also prepare sufficiently to engage with the CPF and with the government delegations in CHOGM.


The programme has a unique approach that enables participants to engage with the challenges that their countries face by learning from what has worked and is not working in Africa and other parts of the world.
On the gender dimension of the programme, Winyi said the guidelines in the selection take into account urban and rural based and then government and other sectors because all systems need to move together so as to bring about change.
Meanwhile, British Council Deputy Director, Sarah Barton said that Interaction leadership workshop was a way of the people to give their voice and contribute to the CPF after learning some new ideas and new perspectives on how they can contribute.
This workshop was designed to enable civil society leaders to expand and effectively utilise the ‘Space’ for dialogue between themselves, their governments and the people.
Secretary for Women affairs in Mukono District in Uganda, Robinah Muwonge says she has realised that there is people’s potential in what ever is happening and that it is now important for her after the leadership programme to effect change at herself because of the way she has been looking at things in the past before she could change other people’s thinking in contribution to development.
“At national level I will not point fingers at the Government to say what have they done but I will say what we can do together in order to achieve a better society. In the past I could look at people’s contribution as minor but now any contribution is very important as I thought that I should be telling people what to do and did not listern which is very important,” said Muwonge.
She said that the training has helped her listern to other people’s ideas.