Activity
Report
Eastern and
Central Program
Area Meeting
Compiled By: Sarah and Kenneth
Theme: “Shinning together by Branding and Rebranding Ourselves and Our PA”
NOVEMBER 2023
This report highlights the Discussions,
feedback, Action points and resolutions
from the Eastern and Central Program
Area meeting conducted on 14th17th/November/2023 at Paradise Hotel
Jinja.
was an opportunity for all the staff to
rebrand themselves?
Introduction:
The Eastern and Central Program area
meeting 2023 was convened to bring
together all staff of the Kamuli PA to
reflect on their achievements, strengths,
saboteurs and to further brainstorm and
generate ideas on how to make Kamuli
PA a centre of excellence
she also defined saboteurs and
encouraged staff to individually identify
the saboteurs that exist within
themselves and how to get rid of them.
The meeting was under the theme:
“Shining together by branding and
Rebranding ourselves and our PA”
Objectives
The objectives of this meeting were;
1.
To celebrate achievements and
have fun
2. To draw learnings, highlight
gaps and develop resolutions
for continuous improvement.
Attendance
The meeting was attended by a total of
49 people (42 PA staff (17F,25M), 2
nannies and 5 outside P A Office staff
(1F, 4M))
“Colleagues, use this meeting to
reposition yourselves for greater
opportunities.”, she said.
The PAM giving official opening
remarks
She later highlighted the theme of the
meeting and encouraged staff to have
fun during the meeting sessions.
Opening
The chairman organizing committee
(Chris Oluge) welcomed staff into the
meeting and urged them to participate
actively, shared the meeting agenda,
unveiled the two teams and their
members (Team Zai and Team Dorian)
and asked participants to introduce
themselves.
The program Area Manager (Zaituna
Asio) introduced herself last and
officially opened the meeting. In her
opening remarks, she welcomed all
members and said that the PA meeting
Morale boosting @team Zai
Discussions
Key learnings and gaps from the last
financial year
2
This session was led by Milton Oyita,
Project Manager DECIDE SPAD Who
asked participants to define a learning
and a gap. He further asked participants
to pair up in groups to discuss and
present on the key learnings, gaps and
recommendations drawing from the
previous F/Y.
Teams discussed and presented as
below;
The philosophers (Maganda’s Group)
Recommendation: The sponsored
children to participate and benefit from
projects
Team Shuga (Gloria’s Team)
Learning: Great team work and visibility
in the communities
Gap: Monday morning meetings stretch
too long thus time consuming, Lack of
synergy (Plan projects involving similar
stakeholders at ago)
Learning: A blended approach to
sponsorship has given more results. This
blended approach includes;

Having CDFs, Program staff and
management work together
 Follow up of the children
 Use of volunteers
 Use of model parents
 Engaging children and schools
 Increasing accountability of
parent support groups
Results yielded include;




Meeting KPI’s
Increased caseload assignments
Reduced backlogs
Reduced NOI’s
Team shuga presenting their learnings,
gaps and recommendations
Recommendation:


Reducing the frequency of the
Monday morning meetings.
Need for projects to plan
together for proper alignment
of activities.
The Eagles (Christine’s group)
The strikers during their group
discussion
Learning: Paper work and system-based
processing of PRs and payments have
been effective
The Shakers and Movers (Rehema’s
Group)
Gap: Time wasting, resource wasting
and delayed payments
Recommendation: Kamuli PA to
champion a paper free working online
system
Recommendation: Integration of project
activities.
Learning:
Gap: Limited knowledge on child
sponsorship amongst the grants staff
Recommendation: shortening the
vehicles repair and servicing timelines
Recommendation: Need to have proper
programming targeting SCs challenges
The go getters (Constantine’s group)
Learning: The teams are innovative and
ready to learn e.g Rising, PF and learn.
Gap: Motor vehicles repair and service
processes are long
Gap: Failing to address issues
concerning children
Gaps: We are projectized
Team Play (Masaba’s Group)
Learning: Making quarterly TORs and
PRFs
Learning: Many sponsored children are
turning to become uncooperative
Gap: Documentation and reporting of
the activities done is still a challenge
(Little of what we do is documented and
reported out there)
The shiners (Zaituna’s Group)
The strikers (Jude’s Group)
The Salongos (George’s Group)
Learning: Teamwork and integration of
activities makes us achieve more with
less efforts
Recommendation: Regular Capacity
building session
Recommendation: Steeping up on
writing concept notes to support the
sponsored children better.

Innovations, tools for tracking
participation of children
 Standing out as a result of
working in advance on
sponsorship
Gaps: Limited support to sponsored
children
Learning: Effective communication is
key to success of the team
Gap: Coordination and integration
amongst projects is low
Recommendation: Regular teams’
meetings, strengthening coordination
and integration.
Joel’s Group
Learning: Reducing sponsors across the
world thus reduced funding
Gap: Disallowable costs, Data
inconsistencies and poor tracking of
beneficiaries
Recommendation:
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



Working in line with donor
requirements
Innovation of the sponsorship
products for the SCs and local
materials shops to train SCs
Strengthening the COVAS
(bringing them onboard to
solve data inconsistencies)
Quality assurance
25
20
15
10
5
0
share their learnings from the game and
the responses were as below;
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
6
5
Weekly

Twice a
month
Monthly

Based on the results above, it was
agreed that;
The Monday Morning meeting will be
conducted twice a month, held for one
hour and where need arises it would be
increased to two hours.

PAC will help reschedule the meeting to
twice a month effective January 2024.
(Action point)
A team member sharing her views
The Iculis (Suzan’s Group)
The Tororo team to attend online and
then have one person attending
physically every month.
Learning: Sponsorship program
integration is no longer theoretical, it
has now been taken up to address the
challenges.
The PAM concluded the discussion on
MMM by urging members to respect
their votes and ensure regular
attendance.
Gap: Delayed implementation of
projects (Slow payment processes)
A team member @ team Dorian
illustrating what he heard
The PAM concluded this exercise by
encouraging members to;
Recommendation: Routine project
meeting for proper targeting and
synergies to identify the gaps and fill in

Team Inebantu (Otim’s Group)

Learning: Use of quarterly TOR for
improved performance

Gap: Delays in program implementation
Recommendation: Timely submission of
the Quarterly TORs
Reactions to the presentations on
Gaps and the recommendations
Having had the presentations from the
different groups, a review of the
recommendations was launched to
discuss and draw logical conclusions and
resolutions as below;
The Monday morning meeting
Participants were asked to vote on the
frequency of the Monday morning
meeting and the results were as below;
Drawing what we heard is a way
of communicating
Picking up something from
every communication is key
regardless
Listening carefully is important,
everyone listened carefully in
order to deliver the right
information.
Emotions affect
communication, during the
game, all participants were
eager to listen and deliver the
message regardless of how
they feel about one another.
Know when and where to
respond to a communication
Detach from emotions while
communicating
Avoiding to respond while
annoyed
The chairman Electoral commission
handing over results from the MMM
voting exercise to the chairman
The communication game (For the two
teams)
Participants broke into 2 teams (Team
Zai and Team Dorian) and made long
lines, the team leads were asked to
whisper words to their immediate team
member and the same was repeated
until the message reached the last
person who was instructed to
illustrate/draw something related to the
message they received.
Both the teams performed well in the
game and participants were asked to
Kona dance! @team Zai
PACs presentation on team work
The PAC played a video of the Cart,
asked participants to identify key
learnings from the video, the following
responses were identified and
thoroughly discussed;







Benchmarking is key (The lead
learnt from the passer-by)
There were saboteurs amongst
some team members
Need to set objectives for
everyone to understand what to
do
Being bold in giving feedback
Taking charge (the lead person
took charge)
Elements of motivations and
incentives
Accepting change
The PAC further presented on team
work, characteristics of bad and good
team members.
Participants also highlighted more
strategies on how to build a good team.
PAC presenting on teamwork
The PAM concluded this teamwork
session by encouraging members to set
the brand by being different in how they
practically do things.
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70% is learnt on job by acting and taking
on new responsibilities, 20% is learnt
from others through team work and
coaching and mentorship, 10% is learnt
from school and other trainings.
She then highlighted the Global Hub
Direction in regards to sponsorship as
follows;
Improving the quality and timeliness of
sponsorship communication processes
and products where digitisation of
sponsorship was key to ensure accuracy,
timeliness and effectiveness to guide
programming, dealing with sponsorship
in emergencies, looking at timelines of
sponsorship communication and
partnership for sponsorship
Optimising the cost of delivering
sponsorship communication, clear
account lines to charge for sponsorship
communications will be adopted by
FY25
Improve consistency of allocation
methods and to reduce global and CO
unassigned SCs, the caseload will be
reduced at country office level.
Modernizing sponsorship
communication products:
Recommendations from sponsorship
communication are being put to revamp
the project which would include for
example use of Kobo collect, streamline
production processes, online system to
help sponsors get information on
projects.



Target sponsored children.
Monitor and track SCs
Conduct data entry, analysis
and reporting.
She also stated that the COVAS model
will help us to increase presence in
communities and monitor wellbeing of
sponsored children and lastly urged
participants to have the 9 commitments
of plan at their fingure tips.
The PAM concluded the sponsorship
session by reminding participants that
they are attached to sponsorship since
most budgets within the grants are
covered by sponsorship thus the need
for all to support sponsorship
Presentation on Quality improvement
The chairman played a video on quality
improvement and its importance,
further went ahead to present on the 5 S
i.e Sort, set in order, shine, standardize
and sustain
Presentation on Risk Mitigation
Joel presented on Risk Mitigation,
cautioned participants on declaring
there where a bouts for security
purposes and emphasized on the need
to secure visibility and identity through
branding.
She also further broke down the
participants allocation policy
implementations as below;

Sponsorship manager presenting on
sponsorship
Presentation on sponsorship
The sponsorship manager begun by
hailing Kamuli PA for being the best
performer, she then introduced the 70
20 10 learning model and explained that
All Country offices will have
uniform caseloads, every
country with excess caseloads
will reduce caseloads by
cancellation.
 Kamuli will have to phaseout
sponsorship in communities
that have had sponsorship for
15-20 years.
 Assignment of sponsorship to
be maintained at 90%
She further called upon the sponsorship
team and grant projects to work
together to;
The newly elected branding focal
person giving a speech
Branding
Discussions around branding revealed
quite a number of gaps as below;
There are no standards and guidelines
that guide our branding and thus nonuniformity.
The materials used for branding have not
been durable for example the sign posts
we have at the schools and within
communities are peeling off and are being
vandalized.
We have done a lot in the community
but it’s not known, we need to resort to
engraving all our constructions and
invest in the media to increase our
visibility.
“We need to adopt the idea of branding
bags given to sponsored children. This will
help to increase our visibility in
communities.” Robert Masaba
” Our visibility at functions like
Runs(marathons) is almost non-existent
and yet we contribute to a greater
percentage”, Jacob Otim.
We shall take up the idea of branding in
CMT and cross functional meeting.
Suggestions were made to have
certificates given to our participants and
It was also resolved that certificates
would be issued based on competence
(certificates will be competence based)
“I suggest we come up with a focal point
person for communication and
influencing”, Christine Oseku
The branding Focal person Maganda
Ahamada was nominated unopposed
and the team agreed on his roles and
responsibilities as below;





Ensuring visibility in all plan
events
IEC materials are used and
stored well
Linking
communications
department to the PA.
Work with M&E and project
managers to identify areas that
require branding
Support the team to develop a a
branding plan and standards
The PAM concluded the session by
advising the team to start with the kind
of branding that we are able to do as
they wait for PIU standards and
guidelines for branding.
She further highlighted that Managers
should take lead when it comes to
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branding for example during trainings,
each project needs a communication
and influencing strategy.
Presentation from the finance team
The presentation was shared by the
Assistant accountant who informed the
team that all accountants had held a
meeting with the country Director and
Kamuli emerged the best PA.
“We are doing well in terms of reporting,
compliance and filing of finance
documents”, John Okumbe
He then made a presentation on Areas
of improvements for the PA,
Management of open items, Wrong
postings, Intercompany charges, GL
coding, Lending WBSs, Narration in the
PRs, Requirements for Mobile money
payments, Invoice payment essentials,
Finance best practices, Cash flow
management.
He finalized his presentation by urging
the team to be vigilant while typing the
payment list to avoid the typo errors and
suspicion of fraud by auditors.
Reactions to the finance presentation
“We been having challenges with
incompetent facilitators nominated by the
District leaders (departmental heads), Is it
a must for District leadership to always
nominate facilitators used by projects or
project officers and managers can select
facilitators they deem competent”, Gloria
Adero
The PAM concluded that Identification of
facilitators is at the discretion of
Administration but project teams can
suggest facilitators they wish to work
with, however cautioned the team to
follow the right procedures and ensure
communication is made to the various
departments of the district prior to district
staff engagement.
A team member sharing her views.
Accomplishments (Summarized)
The following were the accomplishments
of the PA meeting;
1. Staff recognized and celebrated
best practices, achievements
and had fun.
2. Staff received guidance and
recommendations from the
PAM on how to respond and
resolve major challenges as
below;
 Managers need to identify the
need for branding at planning
level i.e ensuring the aspect of
branding is embedded in the
TOR and requests raised
 Visibility is a way of branding,
there is need to have banners
and tear drops in every
workshop or training
 Issuing certificates is also away
of branding and therefore,
certificate will be issued based
on competence and significant
contributions
 Staff to conduct orientation
with service providers prior to
any engagement to share
expectations
and
key
deliverables, this should be
followed up by close monitoring
and further support for better
results
 Staff to work with the
procurement department to
ensure
engagement
of
competent service providers
and communicate to the
department before engaging a
district staff.

3.
4.
5.
Admin to conduct a meeting
with all drivers to improve on
motor
vehicle
servicing
timelines (Action Point)
The branding focal person
(Maganda Ahamad) was elected
and the team agreed on his roles
and responsibilities.
A committee was established to
develop a concept on how the
PA will position itself to be a
centre of excellence as agreed.
The team came up with
resolutions on the different
items discussed as below;
6
The meeting was successful and so
refreshing given that there was much
fun with minimum concentration on
work related matters.
The team was glad to meet and know
each other especially meeting the
Tororo team.









Monday Morning Meeting to be
conducted twice a month i.e
the first and third Mondays of
the month with effect January
2024.
Sponsorship coordinator to
provide a detailed monthly
report every first Monday of the
new month.
Program Area meeting to held
once a year outside the PA.
Admin to hold a meeting with
the drivers to shorten the
processes of repair
Program Area Chairperson to
open a WhatsApp for the PA
PMs and PCs to regularly meet
and integrate activities in their
areas of operations
Certificates to be awarded
based on competence and
significant contributions
PMs to share documentation
and profiling of the activities
Branding Focal person to
provide a branding standard for
the PA
PAC to come up with a concept
for the craft shop
Feedback
The team gave feedback that;

What would we want to leave
behind?
Procrastination and negative
mindsets/ energies
2.

What do we want to become?
A centre of excellence
3.
How would we want to get
there, what challenges shall we
have on the way and how are
we going to overcome the
challenges?
Innovation
Branding and visibility
Adhering to plan policies and
values and guidelines
Motivation sessions for staff to
be held
Mr. Masaba and the country team
applauded Kamuli team for organizing a
meeting and encouraged the team
members to support one another.
Team Tororo raised concerns about the
late vehicle arrival times and urged the
admin to improve for smooth
programming
A summary of the resolutions
Having had thorough discussions on
the different items and areas of
concern, the team came up with the
following resolutions;

1.




4.

where are we?
Midway
Lastly the team established a committee
that was responsible for developing a
concept on how the PA will position its
self as a center of Excellence, these
committee members were;
The boys @team Zai and team Dorian
1.
Closing Remarks
In her closing remarks, PAM urged staff
to master positive intelligence (ability to
identify saboteurs) as a way of shinning
our brand as a PA.
She related the structure of the PA to a
bridge and asked the team to identify
materials used in constructing a bridge.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
John peter Okumbe
(Chairperson)
Christine Oseku (Member)
Catherine Apio (Member)
Flavia Kitop (Member)
Jude Kaddu (Member)
She requested a team member to draw a
picture of a bridge and asked the
questions below;
“Dear colleagues, imagine our PA crossing
a bridge from one end to another, what
would we want to leave behind? how
would we want to get there? What do we
want to become? where are we? And
what challenges will we have on the way
and how are we going to overcome the
challenges?” Zaituna Asio
Together, the team brainstormed and
reflected on the answers to the above
questions as follows;
A team member receiving a gift with joy
The after-meeting sessions were full of
games, the chairman organizing
committee finally shared information
about the evening games agenda,
exchange of gifts, dinner and adjourned
the meeting to next year around
November.
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