Dr Jane Cocking
On Thursday, 25th May students from the Global Development Institute had an unique opportunity to work with leading members of two of Manchester’s major NGOs. Students on the masters programmes in Management and Implementation of Development Projects, Organisational Change and Development and Development Management engaged in information exchange and workshop activities with representatives from MAG and RETRAK.
Dr Jane Cocking, CEO of MAG, spoke about the work and challenges of this world-leading NGO and their efforts to eradicate the threat of anti-personnel landmines. The NGO, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, is the largest NGO in Manchester and this provided an excellent opportunity for students to learn about the management of a large organisation. Jane also presented a real life scenario relating to this NGO’s management to our students which they tackled effectively.
David King, Chair of the Board of Trustees RETRAK
MIDP, OCD and DM students
The second NGO to meet with the students was RETRAK, an international faith-based international NGO, focussed on vulnerable (street) children in Africa and Latin America. Maggie Crewes, Director of Programmes and David King, Chair of the Board of Trustees, discussed the organisation’s works in enabling street children move from a life of vulnerability, exclusion and poverty to a life within a positive family or community.
Maggie provided students with an overview of the organisations’s aims and challenges and then engaged students in an actual organisational partnering management decision-making challenge faced recently by RETRAK. David then spoke engagingly about his role as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the NGO and the steps he has taken to engage with those that they work with.
This session provided an invaluable opportunity for students to apply theoretical frameworks and management approaches they had studied to real life organisational contexts and challenges.
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