Pride training program
Rare’s Pride Program training is a two-year process through which local conservation leaders receive formal university training, followed by periods of field-based formative research and results analyses. Participants learn how to change attitudes and behaviors, mobilize support for environmental protection, and reduce threats to natural resources. Rare’s local partners not only receive classroom training, but also implement an entire social marketing campaign in their communities, designed around a specific conservation goal. Participants in the program receive a toolkit for community outreach: Training 1 provides trainees with basic community engagement tools, so that they can start embedding themselves in the target audience and earn their trust. Training 2 takes place after a period of 1-2 months of field embedding, and teaches research techniques for qualitative and quantitative formative research. Training 3 takes place after 2-3 months of data collection and information gathering, to analyze data collected and design the Pride Campaign. Training 4 takes place upon campaign conclusion, to evaluate results and produce final report.
• Partner commitment to secure full-time dedication of participating fellows to the Pride program.
• Continued full engagement and adequate progress of fellows during the entire duration of the program.
• A minimum of high school degree for program participants/fellows.
• A basic Pride curriculum, tailored to programmatic theme.
• Basic infrastructure as well as training team.
A key element in the success of the Pride training program is to have specific deliverables and frequent evaluations of capacity. These deliverables and grades are recorded in an online tool that allows for multiple party follow-up. The same basic training assessment is delivered at the beginning of the cohort, and upon completion of every training phase. Having participants with different backgrounds and levels of academic training (high school or university degrees), presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is having to adapt lesson content and activities to accommodate for these differences. The opportunity is precisely to take advantage of these differences in skills and backgrounds to recruit participants to share past experiences and help fellow trainees in the learning process as mentors.