The EnCompass Learning Center (ELC) is committed to helping strengthen communities and organizations through the use of evidence, learning, and leadership development. Our partnership with EvalYouth to provide scholarships for young and emerging evaluators is an important part of our Eval4Action commitments.
We recently caught up with two of our EvalYouth scholars to learn more about the work they are doing in the world and how the ELC courses they attended supported their personal learning journeys.
Mark Mulobi, one of our first EvalYouth scholarship awardees, is an independent evaluation consultant and community development specialist based in Nairobi, Kenya, where he is completing/has recently completed a Master’s degree in monitoring and evaluation at Daystar University. His role with EvalYouth includes a leadership role in Task Force 1, which focuses on promoting the involvement of young and emerging evaluators in Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation, known as VOPEs. His interests and training include national capacity strengthening for country-led monitoring and evaluation (M&E), the professionalization of evaluation in Africa and the Asia Pacific region, and equity-focused and gender-responsive evaluation.
Leonard Yosi, another ELC EvalYouth scholarship awardee based in Kenya, is the Vice Chairperson at the Evaluation Society of Kenya and a member of EvalVijana, an organization focused on Kenya’s young and emerging evaluators. Leonard is also involved with EvalYouth Task Force 3, which focuses on e-learning development and virtual conference planning. As a Performance Management Officer at a Government of Kenya agency that manages the supply chain for health products and technologies, Leonard leads the efforts to monitor and evaluate the agency’s supply chain processes. Leonard is an M&E graduate student at Maseno University with 4 years’ experience in M&E data analytics. He specializes in building M&E systems, data visualization, and performance improvement programs.
Both Mr. Mulobi and Mr. Yosi attended Being an Evaluator: A Journey into the World of Evaluation Practice with Dr. Donna Podems and shared their experience with us, including how the ELC course will support their career goals, the perspective and experience they were able to bring to the class, and the ways in which they hope to apply what they learned at work.
Mark: To achieve true development, evaluators need to play a role. This scholarship sharpened my skill set as an evaluator and has helped build capacity at the Evaluation Society of Kenya, by virtue of training my peers.
Leonard: Currently, I am finalizing a Master’s degree in M&E that has greatly exposed me to more theoretical aspects of the M&E profession. Also, my current job entails monitoring interventions with no exposure to commissioning and/or conducting evaluations. I, therefore, believe the ELC course of Being an Evaluator will help me with the required technical skills to conduct credible and useful evaluations.
I have well-developed data analytics and visualization skills, which I believe I could impart to my colleagues who I hope to encounter during the course. Also, I am familiar with problem identification and program improvement techniques that I am willing to share.
I would like to take back how to deploy evaluative thinking in my work as an evaluator. I would also like to explain the role of an evaluator to society, which is to understand the effect of their action, bring positive change, and not do further unintentional harm.
Join the ELC Community
We look forward to welcoming more young and emerging evaluators to our courses through this partnership with EvalYouth and the scholarship program. To hear about upcoming ELC courses, scholarships, and other news, please sign up for our ELC mailing list and visit the Course Catalog.
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