Published: July 30, 2019

KNOW-HOW3000 is all about joint learning and sharing activities. Communities of Practice (CoP) pose a great space for these purposes. In this post we would like to talk about Central America’s CoP and present a quick retrospective of their activities throughout 2018.

As part of the final report of 2018 on the KNOW-HOW3000 programme our dear colleagues in Central America have sent us some additional material that we simply have to share with you. They have created brilliant illustrations that explain the benefits of Knowledge Management on an organisational and individual level. Besides, they present a CoP’s function and the representatives of the CoP “Familia Campesina”. Keep reading in order to admire the illustrations.

Communities of Practice in Central America

Before we get to the illustrations, we would like to introduce you to the three CoP that have been very active in Central America during the last period of the KNOW-HOW3000 programme. In 2018 they got together in order to exchange their knowledge and experiences. Read a short summary of their conclusions here:

The CoP about “la Familia Campesina ante el Cambio Climático” has established that promoting agroecology as a way of living and producing is necessary. Their priorities are protecting the environment and the natural resources, reducing the consumerism rate, building a fairer society as well as fostering education about democracy and citizenship.

The Youth CoP approaches the topic of “Young Leadership and its communication strategies”. In order to conclude the year 2018 they have agreed on maintaining communication via the internet between the participating organisations about the activities they are carrying out with young people in their according territories.

The Women CoP focuses on Entrepreneurship and Empowerment of Women that goes hand in hand with a political process. It got to the following results: It has established a communication system between the different organisations in order to stay in the loop about the actions they carry out. Moreover, they have undertaken different activities for interorganisational learning to strengthen weaknesses.

In the end of the last period of the KNOW-HOW3000 programme the CoP have decided to restructre their organisation. This resulted in the fusion of the Youth and Women CoP. Together they have created a joint CoP about Social Communication and Change Promotion. Within the new CoP they have established the following goals:

• Strengthen capabilities that boost more effective measures of human rights advocacy with a focus on indigenous youth and women.
• Gaining knowledge in order to facilitate educational processes that involve pedagogic methodologies in multicultural contexts.

The CoP “Familia Campesina” keeps following their goals and working as well as learning together.

Why? Because a CoP offers many benefits. You can see them represented in the following illustrations that Carlos Edgardo Erazo Deras has created in Spanish:

Illustrations explaining a Community of Practice

Interested in more tools that we apply for Knowledge Management?