Berkehan Erkılıç - Candidature for IFMSA Capacity Building General Assistant for the term 2020-2021

BERKEHAN ERKILIÇ

CANDIDATURE FOR: CAPACITY BUILDING GENERAL ASSISTANT 2020-2021

TABLE OF CONTENT MOTIVATION LETTER

03

PLAN OF ACTION

05

CURRICULUM VITAE

08

MOTIVATION LETTER

Dear dreamer, ‘’What is the secret ingredient of human intellect?’’, ‘’What is it that makes us special?’’. I was a kid and did what every other kid did, I wondered a lot. I had a lot of thoughts, but not too many words to tell them.

Along the way to my 20s, I discovered answers here and there, some philosophical, some scientific, or merely speculative. But now, let me tell you that it’s because we, as humanity, broke free from the chains of stability that’s provided by nature which limited us to a certain number of individuals, slim survival chances and only so much food and no time to look up in the night sky to see the stars. But the human dreamt.

Thus, the human ventured for more.

The human mind grows exponentially, defying the rules of nature, and taking us to the moon and back. We plan, we execute, and most importantly we dream. And I plan to make IFMSA members gain the capacity to plan, execute, and most importantly, to dream.

My name is Berkehan Erkılıç, among other titles and attributes, a fellow trainer that is committed to realizing our federation’s goals by capacity building, through capacity building, and for capacity building.

And I hereby feel the exhilaration to present you my candidature for the Capacity Building General Assistant of the term 2020-2021.

As much as capacity building is a tricky road, we capacity builders know by heart that it has certain principles; needs assessment, implementation, evaluation, and sustainability. And I will be aiming for these 4 to achieve the full cycle of our institutional learning. Being in full recognition that I will be the right arm of the VPCB, I comprehend the foreseen and unforeseen tasks that will keep my engines going the whole term. I plan to also help create an orderly internal organization of the CB IT in accord with the VPCB, as the change starts within, and further tend to our trainers, our building blocks. The last step is to bring all these to you, the members through an accessible approach with campaigns, open-access databases, and more. I understand the pivotal role of proper/targeted follow up in order to make sure our impact is lasting. Thus, transparent documentation and publishing of what we do for the members to ensure a reliable and accountable working body within the federation.

Luckily, I have been to both sides. After all these years in IFMSA as a trainer and an international team member in charge of all aspects of the development of Capacity Building within a Standing Committee for a year, I learned profoundly the importance of teams that make a family when it comes to Capacity Building which gave me the bigger picture of what we are doing and how cooperation matters more than individual efforts. Hence, while undertaking the maintenance of IFMSA’s Capacity Building as the GA, happily, I will have my teammates that I believe will make a marvelous job at carrying forward the aspirations from the last terms - Trainers Pool, the new IOGs, and very much needed online platforms - and much newer endeavors that will shape our future as IFMSA Capacity Building of 2020 and beyond.

As a small kid that was confused about the world and wished for the better is now empowered and confident that he shouldn’t settle for what there is, he stopped wishing and started acting. He found the words to articulate ideas and learned to realize them with Capacity Building, the most transformative and accessible force there is. Thus the human, Berke, dreamt.

Thus, he ventured for more.

CB Passionate,

Berkehan Erkılıç

PLAN OF ACTION

My main guiding principles as the Capacity Building General Assistant will be first the IFMSA’s values, bylaws, priorities as well as our vision and mission as stated in the CB IOGs, which is to capacitate our members through peer education, growth, and evidence. Along with the AWP for the term 2020-2021, the role of the new IFMSA strategy will be pivotal as well as the evaluation of the 2017-2020 Strategy.

As a Team Member: 1) Competency model (development of the intended learning outcomes, delivery, and evaluation as a team, as well as drawing conclusions on how to move forward the coming terms with the data available. This can be expanded to include the trainers - in pursuit of creating an internal accountability mechanism - by collecting data and pointing out the shortcomings of our trainers.

2) Capacity Building has ‘’improvement’’ and ‘’sustainability’’ at its core. NMO Management Sessions are the perfect tool we have to achieve these in one stone. As part of the CB IT and the Sessions Team I will; a. Take part in the collection of inputs from NMOs in order to formulate relevant content in the NMO Management Sessions, b. Actively participate in the drafting, creation, and delivery of the educational content including but not limited to Establishing CB, Strategic Planning, Needs Assessment and other collabs with various ITs, c. Help out with the coordination of the Sessions’ Team jointly with VPCB, d. Regulate the follow-up process including the assembly of reports, participants’ lists and resources to be shared with the members, 3) As it is a commodity for the ITs to hold webinars, live streams, and other means direct contact with members I want to make good use of this by: a. Managing a spreadsheet to track our activity in an orderly way to give equal opportunities to CB IT members to reach out to members and to see that we are touching topics that matter to us as the CB IT, b. Tracking common problems and FAQs as well as important announcements and proposing such webinars in collaboration with the CB IT, 4) As a former CB DA of a Standing Committee, I believe I have quite a bit of experience in online or in-person workshops, SRTs, PreGAs, PreRMs, and the processes that concern these. In this regard, I will be fully ready to support my teammates in specifics of crosscommunication with the SCs and drafting and improving proposals when needed.

5) As an active trainer that did quite a bit of workshops and sessions, I will try to be maximally available for workshops held in SRTs, PreGAs, and PreRMs and take part as a trainer. These include but are not limited to; MinFaDe, TNT, TAT, CBB, or any other workshop.

As the General Assistant: A GA is the right arm of the VPCB and, I will be having yet-to-be-defined tasks along the term regarding the allocated and delegated portion of the VPCB’s work as the GA. This requires flexibility and for sure resilience under stress. A versatile working environment where a mental health watch is properly done is the ideal working environment that wields the most outcome. My main pillars as the GA are ‘’Innovation’’ and ‘’Maintenance’’:

1) Innovation 1) As an IT with limited reach to members until recently I believe in the power of engagement through strong activities to make our voices heard and achieve meaningful impact. I plan to: a. Continue the tradition of the CB Fest with improvements such as competitions and open spaces to prove that CB is not only sessions, b. Make sure every standing committee participates in the CB Fest in a bare minimum level as well as creating space for non-SC individuals to hold sessions, c. Design campaigns throughout the term to engage with trainers and bring Capacity Building closer to the members allowing them to demonstrate their skills and keep active internationally, d. Draft and delegate the work of new SWGs for various needs along the year from toolkits to member engagement issues to the betterment of other existing documents, e. Open a discussion platform about important decisions and further queries from the members regarding IOGs or other matters, 2) We are as powerful as we are visible. In order to ensure that what we do is seen, I plan to: a. Revive our IFMSA Capacity Building Facebook group and help it gain a brand type of personality and a recognizable outlook for the CB, in coordination with the PRC IT. b. Filter members according to their status in the Trainers pool to create meaningful interaction within the group as well as keeping it active by sharing regular updates about our work and highlighting opportunities for trainers. c. Devise a more comprehensive promotion strategy for the Trainers Pool since it is still a brand new concept for IFMSA and it remains to be confusing, d. Design infographics via various online tools, to keep our members actually up to date with the important aspects of the CB IOGs, regulations, and most recent changes after GA CB Plenaries in the form of a CB Week,

e. Possibly plan a campaign called ‘’The Impact Built’’ every half term where we showcase what we have achieved in terms of number of people engaged in online campaigns, participation in the General Assemblies and potentially Regional Meetings and increases in the number of CB Representatives or their activeness as it’s evaluated bi-monthly as it’s stated in the IOGs, f. Probe for other opportunities to improve the visibility of CB within the IFMSA brand jointly with the PRC IT, 3) Understanding that Standing Committees cannot exist without the CB IT and vice versa, I am really fond of concerting our efforts with the standing committees not only on knowledge sharing perspective but also working on joint campaigns and supporting each other in CB issues that are way more than just SRTs. 4) Buddy Groups’ system is an outstanding opportunity for both the CB IT to interact and the NMOs to find a common ground. For the groups to better serve their purpose, I plan to: a. Allocate NMOs according to their CB needs drawing from the data from the past terms, b. Support NMO’s hands-on with their specific problems and potentially referring them to the pertinent RA, c. Coordinate the CB IT to continuously organize OLMs and other means of communication with their groups at least once every two months, d. Create a set of indicators of success for the groups at the beginning of the term and mandate the CB IT to report their outcomes according to these indicators, most important being the CB Reps reporting a heightened sense of productivity and accomplishment in their NMOs, e. Guide the CB IT to utilize this space to promote certain elements of CB among NMOs,

2) Maintenance 1) Knowing that big machines function only when all the parts are in sync. As the GA I will assist the VPCB to coordinate the CB IT and I will be responsible for our Internal Organization to make sure we operate unanimously at projecting our work as an impact in IFMSA. I am experienced at managing databases and I recognize that the data collected shall comply with GDPR and the databases be sustainable to ensure Institutional Memory. For all these, I plan to: a. Revolutionize the templates radically for reports, databases, concept notes, and all other documents to have a standardized outlook, b. Establish sound communication within the IT by coordinating the internal discussions in IT OLMs and other matters through our communication channels c. Regularly monitor the wellbeing and mental health status of the CB IT members with the Scrum method (through a set of regular checks on work and the overall state of the team as well as to make information more transparent) in coordination with VPCB to optimize our productivity, d. Organize all the deadlines for CBIT general tasks are scheduled in a calendar through a common account where the calendar is kept up to date weekly, e. Create a task-list sheet where CB IT general tasks are included, f. Coordinate the bi-monthly reports of the CB IT and the sharing of it through the server and the Facebook group, g. Potentially implement brand new techniques to evaluate our progress and ensure sustainability such as the Scrum Method together with the VPCB, h. Develop the handover manual for a sustainable future for CB in IFMSA, 2) Certification processes in IFMSA have been tricky as long as anyone can remember it and I know this by heart as a former CB DA. As situating myself in another step of this process I aim to: a. Optimize the certificate requesting process by making it a bi-monthly check-in for all the standing committees to avoid such crises as we faced the last years, b. Work jointly with the VPA and be the bridge between the VPA and the Standing Committees for requesting and issuing certificates, c. Be in close contact with the DAs jointly with our CB DA and make sure they are informed about the certificate request processes at the beginning of the term preferably by an OLM, 3) Capacity Building Plenaries are not only places that bring CB representatives together but also to involve them in the decision making of the future of the CB. I will make sure this process runs smoothly as I plan to; a. Send out the official change proposals to the NMOs within 1 week after the deadline and ask for input, b. Coordinate the process of the discussion of the change proposals and voting in the CB Plenary, c. Ensure that we, as the CB IT fill in a report after MM and AM that includes the minutes and the accepted change proposals, 4) TPAB is a brand new board that will help CB IT to better monitor the Trainers Pool, ensure the quality of the trainings we hold, and ensure a fair selection of trainers among others. CB IT will be constantly in contact with the TPAB within the term. For this matter I will; a. Coordinate the call for TPAB within the given deadlines in line with the IOGs,help evaluate and select the members jointly with the VPCB. b. Manage the call for Trainers Pool and make sure it’s open and updated every 2 weeks as it’s stated in the previous CB AWP, c. Reconcile the Trainers Pool with the online trainers’ platform.

CURRICULUM VITAE