Since 2010, Cegos and LINGOs have partnered…
Since 2010, Cegos and LINGOs have partnered to offer training high-quality resources to individuals and organizations working in the development and social sectors.
LINGOs is a consortium of 80+ international NGOs, representing over 200,000 staff and local partners worldwide. Its mission is to help any organization working to improve lives in the developing world to affordably build its own capacity.
With over 80 years of experience, Cegos is a leading provider of multilingual training and development, reaching approximately 250,000 people in 50 countries each year. By partnering with LINGOs, Cegos can share its training resources with an ever-broader global audience. And over five years, the Cegos-LINGOs partnership has continued to grow in depth and reach, demonstrating Cegos’ founding values of commitment, agility, and sharing.
Commitment: Empowering NGO staff on a Global Scale
Through the partnership, Cegos provides LINGOs members with access to over 200 courses at greatly reduced cost. The multilingual curricula in subjects as varied as management and leadership, sales and marketing, and individual and collective effectiveness, have enabled thousands of development and humanitarian workers around the world to do their work more effectively.
“While LINGOs offers our Members’ staff access to courses from many providers, the courses from Cegos cover an incredible range of topics and languages,” says Marian Abernathy, LINGOs’ Partnership Engagement Manager. “We find that people are interested especially in management training, which is available through Cegos in the first language of many development workers.”
At the American Refugee Committee (ARC), the soft skills training provided by Cegos supports humanitarian workers, some of whom have seen their educations interrupted by conflict.
Courses in management, negotiation, emotional self-assessment, and dealing with conflict “are of special value to our national staff who live and work in very harsh and insecure environments, and have survived some pretty horrific situations,” says Colleen Striegel, vice president of HR and Administration at ARC. “We are grateful that Cegos has been so generous with their courses because they are having a big impact on our staff.”
Agility: Adaptation for Impact
Above and beyond its provision of wide-ranging, multilingual learning to LINGOs members, Cegos has also played a vital role in helping LINGOs provide skills training for the entire NGO community.
In 2012, when LINGOs wanted to develop a catalog of courses in multiple skill areas that it could share broadly and freely with the sector, Cegos generously provided source materials. “By providing us with a foundation, Cegos made it possible to open a broad part of the LINGOs catalog to the sector,” says Mike Culligan, LINGOs Director of Learning Architecture.
Today, LINGOs offers over two dozen free courses in five languages, enabling the field staff of any NGO, including local partners, to quickly gain a common language and training in subjects as vital as project management, organizational development, and financial planning.
Sharing: Creating a Learning Community
Thanks to the generous support of volunteers and partners like Cegos, LINGOs is an ever-growing community of members and learners. “When Cegos donated course materials for us to share freely, a group of volunteers came together to tailor and translate the courses for a development context,” says Ross Coxon, LINGOs Director of the Learning Collaborative. “Cegos’ donation was one of the catalysts for collaboration within the community.”
Drawing on a shared pool of accessible, relevant courseware, development professionals are learning wherever they are in the world, enabling them to reach their potential within their roles and increase their impact for communities they serve. NGO staff can access free courses based on Cegos’ donated content in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, or Arabic at www.lastmilelearning.org.
“The two courses I have completed so far have helped me to understand myself better. This has enabled me to interact much better with my colleagues and the people I serve.”
Hassan Ambe, American Refugee Committee