[Osmf-talk] microgrants - second draft policy document

[Christoph Hormann]

On Tuesday 14 January 2020, Allan Mustard wrote:
> > If you want the aim for the program to be language and culture
> > agnostic and the idea of following up on the project in substance
> > both to be serious having project supervisors who are able to
> > communicate with the grant recipients in their native language
> > would probably be essential. These do not necessarily have to be
> > part of a formal committee of course. But having people who - from
> > the outside and not being part of the projects themselves -
> > accompany the progress of the projects for their duration would be
> > quite significant.
>
> Christoph, that is asking a lot of volunteers...communicating in
> native languages of grant beneficiaries when the native languages are
> Swahili, Zapotec, Uzbek, Bahasa Javanese, Kannada, Zulu, or Haitian
> Creole would be very difficult to implement.

Then i have not expressed myself well - my point is not so much about
all communication needing to happen in the native language of people,
it was more about pointing out the benefit of having supervision and
mentoring of grant recipients from within their cultural context (which
is often - but not always - connected to the native language).  And i
am perfectly aware of the difficulties - i am not calling for you
making sure this is provided, i am trying to point out that this would
be beneficial and suggest to allow for this and support it where
possible.  See also my reply to Joost.

If a potential applicant for example from Japan, Poland or Russia knows
that if they apply and are given a grant it would often be fairly
reassuring if they know that when following up on their progress the
selection committee will take into account and rely on the assessment
of the local community and will not judge their progress through the
potentially very different cultural perspective of the committee.

--
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/