The Master Training of Trainers Workshop (MToT) was held in Pengzhou, Sichuan from March 30th to April 2nd, 2009. This was the initial activity to begin training in the pilot county of Sichuan province. Of the total 20 participants, two were female (10%). Mr. Liu Zhaogang, Deputy Director, participated in the training and was quite supportive of the planning exercise at the end.

A short opening ceremony was held and Paul Schuster introduced what the MToT process was and why we were using this methodology. Deputy Director Liu welcomed all the participants. Mr. Liang Wenbing, Deputy Director of Chengdu Veterinary Bureau, also presented and made a short speech to the participants.

An introductory name tag exercise was conducted and the participants were put in groups after moving the tables. Activities were conducted to ascertain the knowledge of the participants of adult learning and participatory training methods. The results were posted and reflected upon through the next series of exercises.

During the workshop the participants did a good job of working together and presenting. Highlight was understanding that the attention span of adults was only 15 minutes long and what impact this had on how training should be done (in short, varied segments). Also, time was given to the participants to reflect and write in their participatory action plan (PAPA).

On the training participants did well in understanding the how and why of conducting a needs assessment. This seems to be a concept that the participants are interested in learning more about. Participants were given some good tips on how to conduct training using simple and available techniques. Activities were dedicated to the mini-teaching program and the participants were very active and made some excellent presentations. Many came back to the classroom early to prepare and practice.

The later activity was a participatory, technical presentation given by Paul Schuster and Wang Xiaosha on Introduction to Infectious Disease. Although the concept of epidemiological triad may have been new, the participants clearly understood that there are ‘factors’ associated with the severity of disease. The presentation was well received and included an activity that asked all the participants to contribute to in order to differentiate the factors that can or cannot be affected in a disease situation. Lynda Nicholls and Wu Jie also gave a presentation on assisting sows at Fallowing. It began showed participants that prior knowledge can be captured by simply asking trainees to ‘fill-in-the-blank’ using a diagram. The activity is not directed at individuals in order to test their knowledge, but it is geared towards the group in order to promote team work in solving an answer. A demonstration was then given on assisting sows at fallowing using a toy piglet model, color slides and a shirt sleeve ‘womb’ to encourage participants to ‘see what you feel’ in order to resolve fallowing problems.

Finally the workshop wrapped up with the final module on closing the course and the development of the participatory action plans was assigned and submitted their in the reports.

Pengzhou training room and banner	Director Liu working on participatory activity

Chick vaccine demo	The heifer international team