Publication of Academy's Three Guides in Six Languages

The RSPO Smallholder Trainer Academy is excited to announce the publication of the Smallholder Training Guide, the Group Training Guide, and the Programme Design Guide for Academy Partners and Master Trainers in a total of six languages before the end of 2019.

The Smallholder Training Guide

The Smallholder Training Guide is aimed at trainers of smallholders and focuses on helping smallholders obtain a sustainable livelihood. It consists of a total of 30 session plans covering topics from good agricultural practices (GAP) and socially and environmentally sustainable practices to financial literacy and RSPO Certification. Each training session plan is good for 2 hours of training or more and contains a range of optional activities to allow for full adaptation and contextualisation by trainers. It provides extensive instructions on how to carry out interactive and learner-focused training sessions and how to make the sessions more context-relevant. 

Attached to this article is a sample session plan (2.2 Harvesting) which features elements that all the session plans share, such as suggested background reading and preparatory activities for the trainer, session objectives, interactive step-by-step activities to help trainers get the relevant experiences and input from the smallholders, and optional activities to shape the training session plan in the way that makes most sense to the trainer and his or her smallholder group. 

The Group Training Guide

The Group Training Guide is aimed at trainers of group organisers and managers and focuses on helping them form and strengthen sustainable smallholder groups. It consists of 7 sections, each good for approximately 1 day of group training or more, and is complemented by 17 additional Powerpoint slide decks and 10 handouts which can all be adapted and contextualised by the trainer. 

The Guide covers group formation and strengthening, the basics of group finance, Group Manager’s essentials for RSPO Certification, GAP, and sustainability. The Guide also provides instructions on how to carry out interactive and learner-focused training sessions for group organisers/managers and can be adjusted by trainers for local relevance.

The Programme Design Guide

The Programme Design Guide is aimed directly at programme managers and programme designers tasked with rolling out an oil palm smallholder programme for their organistion focusing on, or including, smallholders sustainable livelihoods. The Guide offers 150+ pages of practical tools and examples for effective programme design and covers every step in the process of designing your own oil palm smallholder programme:

• goal setting and strategic planning;
• field assessment including risk and needs assessment, and stakeholder mapping; 
• key agronomic, business, social and environmental sustainability issues;
• setting up your training programme;
• designing activities around group building; 
• traceability, inputs and technical support; 
• access to finance and market;
• scaling strategies, and 
• Monitoring & Evaluation.

Published in Six Languages

The Smallholder and Group Training Guides are currently already available in English, French and Spanish, and will be available in Indonesian, Malay, and Thai before the end of 2019. The Programme Design Guide is currently available in English, and will be available in French, Indonesian, Malay, Spanish and Thai before the end of 2019.

Adaptation and Contextualisation

We encourage Academy Partners and Master Trainers to work on adapting and contextualising the Training Guides to ensure they use examples and and activities that are relevant to their specific context and audience. The Academy can work with Partners during this process of contextualisation. We also encourage our Partners to share their adapted versions of the Guides with us - so we can share Partners' innovations with other Partners throughout the Network.

How to get access to the Guides

Interested? Become a Partner or Master Trainer and get access to the Guides in all languages, as well as the periodic updates and adapted partner versions. Reach out to sta@rspo.org now!