Title of paper

4. Learning process

Whilst advocacy as a practice can be appreciated for the pursuance of change, the following is a very practical step-by-step guide on how to train advocates.
Quintessentially here is that it can be assumed that everybody has been exposed in the one or the other manner to advocacy, hence the self learning process starts with conscientiousness around the aspect of being a voice for many. The training zooms in specifically on public, participatory advocacy and policy advocacy and whilst some theoretical cornerstones are provided, emphasis is put on self-realisation and experimental learning. This is particularly in the Namibian context of importance as both the subject of advocacy as well as energy related matters are still widely regarded as issues to be handled by a selected few.
The following table outlines the course layout, thereafter explanatory remarks are added:

Time required	Topic	Material needed	Expected outcome, by the end of this session participants will
20 min	Advocacy – not a threat	Cards or Board	Understand why we need advocacy, how does one go about it
45 min	Reaching out – but where?! Targeted advocacy	Flipchart, PowerPoint	Appreciating different roles and interests in advocacy
60 min	Different media require different approaches – Social Media	Flip Chart, Internet, Projector	Sharing understanding of impact of social media and importance to work with social media
60 min	Participants as advocates	Flipchart,	Realising that advocacy does not happen far away, but is something we can all form part of
120 min	Creating awareness in Namibia	Flipchart, Telephone Directory, Laptops	The peculiarities related to a specific context, both geographically as well as in terms of content
60 min	Advocacy is not a once off event	Exhibits, T-shirts, displays, posters, radio announcements and newspapers	Preparing for the energy festival, and seeing beyond it; Understand how campaigns are designed and how they work

4.1 Advocacy is not a threat – activity

Give participants five minutes to come to the board and write words that come to their mind when they hear the term ‘policy advocacy’.

Synthesising responses, present a definition of policy advocacy, e.g.: Policy advocacy is the deliberate process of influencing those who make policy.

This exercise also helps establishing how many participants have been involved and engaged in advocacy.

4.2 Reaching out but where, targeted advocacy – activity

Participants are invited to reflect in small groups on what advocacy initiatives they have been involved in, irrespective the topic. The list can be endless from free education, clean Namibia, my life my choice, to road safety campaigns.
In a second brainstorming the participants are then encouraged to identify reasons why some of the advocacy processes they have been involved in failed and others succeeded. It is important in this exercise to determine what is success and what is failure. Equally important is that the learning is not only regarding recipes for success, but also obtaining the understanding that advocacy is a very slow process. In the case of advocating for free education it took more than 20 years in Namibia, despite the legal framework being supportive of the advocacy campaign. Hence the policy environment did not need changing. What rather needed to change was the implementation mode.
The brainstorming activity has to focus on examples of effective advocacy campaigns and the possible reasons that made the campaign successful.

Note the results on flip charts, which are displayed for later reference by the participants. This exercise should not exceed 20 minutes. Close the session with a brief presentation on the current available platforms for the energy sector, e.g. the Millenium Development Goals or clean power to the people.

What will come out in this discussion is that, especially in the energy sector, the confusion of roles and division of power is intensely complex. In many instances energy sector related advocacy campaigns are either funded or even spearheaded by the private sector.

4.3 Different media require different approaches: social media – activity

What is social media and how does it differ from conventional media? This brainstorming will allow participants to discover that they are all part of the social media, yet not all are accessing conventional media any longer. Hence that is where the power of social media lies. Social media opens up avenues inaccessible to conventional media, and whilst discussions around the reliability of the information shared on social media can be accepted, it is an important opportunity to remind participants that conventional media also fabricate realities and follow editorial instructions and commands, rather than truthfulness.
As observed in many restrictive systems, those in power are obviously worried about social media, as the power of the voices becomes unmanageable to them. This discussion is often very lively as especially young participants relate well to facebook, twitter and others and can relate personally to this avenue as an advocacy channel.
The challenge with social network based advocacy is that not only authorities find the controlling difficult, but also the initiators of the cyberspace advocacy can easily loose control. The liberation movement in Egypt was largely cyberspace based and whilst the revolution in Egypt can probably be considered a successful example of how powerful social media can be, some argue that the political nature of the opposition got diluted by the vast number and diversity of contributors to the campaign.