The United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDs Relief (PEPFAR) through USAID awarded a grant to the Christian Health Association of Nigeria CHAN and US based Management Sciences for Health MSH.

It is part of the US government's support to civil society organisations CSOs and faith based organisations FBOs and networks to provide HIV and AIDS prevention, care and treatment services.

The project being implemented with the grant is known as the Nigeria Indigenous Capacity Building Project NICAB. During the bidding process for the grant, the Federation of Muslim Women's Associations of Nigeria FOMWAN was one of numerous CSOs that applied and when CHAN won the bid, the stakeholders decided to work with other network CSOs that applied to ensure that the project reaches the underserved communities in Nigeria. The NICAB project is a joint partnership with Management Sciences for Health and also collaborates with CHAN member institutions and three umbrella organizations to provide high quality HIV/AIDS services to hard to reach People Living with HIV/AIDS PLWHA and their families.

The project aims at strengthening NGOs' ability to respond to HIV/AIDS in their communities by providing quality HIV/AIDS services; and integrating TB and HIV diagnosis and treatment. It hopes to achieve this through three strategic approaches which are; strengthening the capacity of CHAN, developing the capacity of selected NGOs. The NGOs are Civil Society HIV/AIDS Network, CiSHAN, Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, NEPHWAN, the Federation of Muslim Women's Associations In Nigeria FOMWAN, and other FBOs mainly CHAN Member Institutions or hospitals. The third approach is building the skills of care providers, volunteers, and community leaders.

The main strategies adopted for NICABs success are to strengthen the capacity of CHAN which is a key Nigerian multiplier organisation to provide local capacity for HIV/AIDS services in hospitals. The capacity building project is being implemented in six states, one from each of the six geopolitical zones: Abia, Benue, Delta, Oyo, Sokoto and Taraba. The project has been implemented for one year and the stakeholders decided that it was necessary to review activities and re strategize to achieve more in the second year. A retreat was therefore organised at the Hydro Hotel in Minna December 16-19 2008 which all the stakeholders attended. Three consultants, my humble self, Mrs. Tasallah Chibok and Amina Baba Manu of Action Aid were invited to facilitate the project retreat.

The two day retreat had the following objectives: To review the progress of the NICAB project in the past year, compare achievements against set project targets, and cost the targets to justify project expenditure. Others are to analyse areas where implementers performed below expectations, proffer reasons, develop plans to address the issues and determine challenges to project implementation and develop strategies to overcome them. The retreat began with participants agreeing on the outcomes, setting the ground rules for their interaction and going through the objectives of the workshop. They also shared their expectations and fears. The first technical session was titled the NICAB Project Overview and featured the NICAB Chief of Party, Dr. Zipporah Kpamour who presented an over view of the project.

The Chief of Party said the project had taken off with MSH and CHAN promoting the performance based determination of the funding they provide to sub grantees. Dr Kpamour said several training workshops such as Management and Organisational Sustainability Tool MOST have been organised for the Member institutions that are supposed to manage the projects in the six states. Consensus had also been developed on aligning CHAN's vision, mission and core values with that of NICAB/PEPFAR. A fully functional secretariat had been established, two project vehicles purchased and relevant staff recruited in all the project states. The Chief of Party reminded participants at the retreat that it was a forum for assessment of progress and challenges and strategizing for the next project year. The representative of the MSH Susanna Kachatrian, who came all the way from the USA to participate in the retreat, gave a good will message. She also provided a brief background of the MSH which is an international NGO providing technical assistance to CSOs and implementing health development projects in different parts of the world. Ms Kachatrian expressed delight with MSH's partnership with CHAN to provide technical assistance for implementing the project.

The next session was titled Synopsis of Deliverables, Indicators and Targets and it was presented by Nancy Nelson Twakfor, the NICAB Monitoring and Evaluation Officer. The session highlighted the key targets the project is supposed to achieve. Some of these are Anti retroviral and non antiretroviral services. They include providing service at twelve CHAN Member Institutions with laboratory services so that 39 are providing HIV related palliative care (including TB/HIV). These service outlets should include hospitals, mobile units, and Primary Health Care facilities, NGOs, FBOs and Community Based Organisations CBOs. Other targets have to do with training of staff of various CHAN Member Institutions and other partners.

The session on team building was introduced by the facilitators and it featured a fast paced group exercise known as Building Castles in the Air often used to foster team spirit, improve communication and delegation by team members. Participants were divided into two groups that competed to build the tallest castles from pieces of wood. The next session was titled Achievement: What did We Achieve in Project Year One? It was facilitated by Dr. Ademola Adetunji, the NICAB Quality Assurance and Clinical Coordinator. Participants were divided into working groups to undertake an assessment of the project's successes.

After that, the last session for day one was titled What was left undone in Project Year Two and it was facilitated by the consultants. After the sessions ended, the consultants met with the Chief of Party to conduct a review of the day. It was decided at the meeting that an additional session on team building to wrap up the retreat should be added. A lot was achieved on day one of the retreat and the following day followed the same pattern and featured the following with sessions on Challenges to Implementation, Strategies to Overcome Challenges, Review of Work plan for Year Two etc To consolidate on the team building session introduced to participants on day one of the retreat, the facilitators decided to introduce a session on group dynamics and wrap it up with the outline on how to elicit commitment of team members.

The group dynamics session featured a role play in which members were divide into groups and asked to display their acting skills by relocating them to a real life community scenario. The setting was Kawo village and they were given the following context:

You are all members of the Kawo village in Niger State. You have been invited to a community development meeting at the request of your District Head, Sarkin Kawo. The District Head is concerned that Kawo has dismal reproductive health indicators. Very high maternal and infant mortality rate, high rate of HIV/AIDs infection, particularly among the youth. The Kawo people are hard working and have successful traders, farmers and craft people. They also have well educated citizens who work in Nigerian cities and abroad. They all converge during festivals. This year, Sarkin Kawo requested all the indigenes and residents of Kawo to set aside a Kawo day in December every year to discuss Kawo's development challenges. This year's Kawo Day will include launching an appeal fund for the construction of a Primary Healthcare Center in the village. All the sons and daughters of Kawo are home for the Christmas and New Year holidays and you are now ready to hold a planning meeting to organise the first Kawo Day.

Among the roles played by the participants are citizens of the village the "Been tos" who only come home during festival seasons to flaunt their wealth and return to the cities or countries abroad where they reside. Others were youth and women leaders who insisted on being involved and given their rightful place or Kawo Day would not hold, intellectuals and technical experts who believed that as professionals they were supposed to lead such meetings and guide project implementation. There were also the egocentric citizens who believed that they are the born leaders who are the natural guide in all issues where leadership should be displayed. Lastly, there were local champions and 'sons and daughters of the soil' who had lived all their life in the village, who feel they had more at stake in village and resent the idea of some once a year citizens lording it over them.