Learning is foundational to SALT Alliance, and is one of the key reasons for its existence. Learning happens in the following ways:
Expert learning where SALT Alliance Members meet together and receive training from an expert in a field where they need to increase their understanding and skills.
Peer to peer (horizontal) learning where a SALT Alliance Member shares expertise that they have or where Alliance Members share their experiences, struggles and successes related to a specific topic.
Community learning where SALT Alliance Members facilitate learning sessions with community groups in order to teach, learn and enable learning between community groups.
Previous learning topics These include:
Working with change agents
Designing pathways to change (theories of change)
Defining and monitoring programme outcomes
Organisational gender policies
Contextualised bible study as a community development tool
Family Impact’s model of strengthening family through local church
Transformational advocacy
Current learning topics SALT Members are currently exploring the following topics:
Sustainable family approaches
Integral mission
Leadership for community transformation
Building capacity of community groups
Research methods
Research
Formalised
research is a relatively new area for SALT Alliance, but one which is set to
increase.
SALT Alliance sees that it has a role to play in bringing grassroots community
understanding and knowledge into the development and academic arena. This is possible because of
the position of Members as non-profit organisations working at a community level.
All
research is made freely available.
The challenges of widowhood in KZN
TWR-SA recently completed a study on widows in five villages in rural KwaZulu-Natal. This research has clearly shown that widows are a vulnerable people group.
Further to the TWR-SA study, SALT Alliance has developed a Research Toolkit that can be downloaded. This toolkit provides a research study (questionnaire), guidelines on disseminating the information gathered, material for reflection and discussion by the organisation/church with regards to widows, and the Biblical mandate to care for widows.
SALT Alliance, and Alliance Member TWR-SA, have submitted a paper on "Shalom for Widows" and will present a workshop on this topic at Micah Global's Consultation in Peru in September 2015.
SALT Alliance is in the process of drawing together their findings related to their work 2011 – 2015 with various types of community change agents – in school youth, older youth, church leaders and women. The are seeking to answer the question: "“What are factors that influence behaviour change and
what is the role of change agents in these changes in behaviour?”
