The Power of Facilitation: Work in Tanzania Receives an International Award (Tanzania 2)

One of 18 Focus Groups

Last October (2025), I travelled to two regions of Tanzania, Morogoro and Tanga, to support the work of 3T (Three Trees).

Three Trees is a company working on large-scale nature restoration and reforestation. Through agroforestry projects, it works to remove carbon, restore biodiversity, and create economic opportunities for local communities. By bringing together environmental action and support for local communities, the company aims to contribute to long-term climate solutions.

My support had two main purposes.

The first was to help the 3T team design and facilitate a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) process to promote agroforestry that genuinely reflects what communities themselves want — one of 3T's core principles.

The second was to support team building between the 3T Tanzania team, which had been established earlier in 2025, and the 3T global team.

For me, this was an opportunity that brought together much of what I am passionate about today: contributing to meaningful climate action while working directly with communities; drawing on my skills as a facilitator and the mindsets and approaches I bring as a coach and mediator; and contributing insights from my previous experience of working directly and collaboratively with communities.

And, in fact...

These two areas of 3T's work in Tanzania were recognised with a Silver Facilitation Impact Award, an international award for facilitation!

The Facilitation Impact Awards are presented by the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), an association with its head office in Canada. They recognise organisations that have used facilitation to create positive and demonstrable impact. You can find more information about the award here.

What the Award Means

Three Trees has been working not only in Tanzania but also in Ghana and Rwanda, deepening community engagement through PRA and investing in team building. So, of course, the work in Tanzania last October was not the first time the company had reflected on how it engages with communities or considered communication among its staff.

The real significance of this award lies elsewhere, in my view.

First, there was a willingness to pause, reflect on, and review how PRA and team building had been approached so far. In other words, there was a willingness to engage in reflection — something I consider extremely important.

Second, although PRA itself was nothing new to the company, there was a willingness to look at it afresh through the lens of established practices in the facilitation profession and the core competencies expected of facilitators, and to strive for even higher-quality, more genuine community engagement.

And third, there was a willingness to improve internal communication. The global team and national staff do not meet in person very often, yet the quality of their collaboration has a direct impact on the quality of the project. There was a willingness to ask: how can we improve communication between these teams, and what might become possible if we bring in a third-party facilitator to help us do that?

These attitudes themselves deserve recognition. I believe it takes a certain degree of courage and willingness to manage a company or an organisation in this way. Even for a company such as Three Trees — relatively young, with many younger people at its heart, and working in the impact sector on social and environmental issues — this requires a strong commitment to making the company better and increasing the impact of its work.

In fact, the more worthwhile and socially important a company's mission is, the harder it can sometimes be even to adopt an attitude of questioning its own ways of working or seeking to improve internal communication. Pride may get in the way, or the reputation that has already been built, or concerns about how clients and other external stakeholders might perceive the company.

In that sense, I see this award as recognition of Three Trees' approach to organisational management and leadership.

The opportunity for me to support this work in Tanzania actually came about because I already knew Ms Misaki Matsuo, who works with the Three Trees global team. When I heard her mention that she would be travelling to Tanzania in the autumn — and, moreover, that one of the purposes of the trip was PRA — my immediate reaction was, "I really want to come with you."

That was where it all began.

I remain deeply grateful to Misaki for accepting what might have seemed like a rather sudden request, and also for embracing my idea of submitting the work for the Facilitation Impact Awards; to the members of the Three Trees global team; and to everyone on the Tanzania team who welcomed me so warmly.

The colour of the sky made me nostalgic

Participatory Processes

When people in a community, team, organisation or company come together to have a dialogue, discuss something that needs to be decided, or exchange views, the overall process can be described as a "participatory process".

Being asked what you think about something that affects your own life, and having your views genuinely heard, has value in itself. That is at the heart of what makes a process participatory. Genuine participation creates an opportunity for people to share their views and ideas and to have them heard.

This is separate from whether those ideas are ultimately adopted or whether an individual's view is reflected in the final outcome. Whether or not it is incorporated into the outcome, participation itself has real value.

If that is the case, how we design the space for participation becomes extremely important. Depending on how that space is designed, people may find themselves unable — or unwilling — to express their views and ideas.

Those creating the space have a fundamental responsibility to design it in a way that enables everyone to contribute. This does not mean that the organiser or organisation has to design everything alone. One option is to bring in and collaborate with an external facilitator — a professional who specialises in process.

When I worked in humanitarian assistance in the past, I repeatedly experienced the importance of creating these kinds of participatory spaces. It was probably the part of my work that I loved most.

When the space was created well, I could feel its energy: people thinking deeply and seriously about their own futures, asking themselves what they could do here and now and what they would need in order to move forward.

When it did not work well, the same community representatives who always spoke might say something that sounded just so familiar, while someone whose perspective I knew mattered — and who I knew had ideas to contribute — might sit silently, seemingly having given up on the conversation.

When that happens, the responsibility lies first with those who created the space.

For example, were participants divided into groups in a way that made sense given the characteristics and history of that particular community? Were the process tools used by the facilitator appropriate for that community? These are the kinds of questions we need to reflect on.

During the project in Tanzania last October, we eventually conducted PRA with 18 focus groups, involving a total of 233 participants.

Numbers like these tell us part of the story at a surface level. But what really matters is how those groups were formed, what questions were prepared for the PRA, how those questions were asked, whether the facilitators maintained neutrality, and whether people in each of the 18 groups were able to participate in a way that felt meaningful to them.

Those are the things that truly matter.

One of the focus groups

Internal Communication

The other purpose of the project was to strengthen trust, solidarity, and effective communication between the 3T Tanzania team and the global team, enabling them to work together effectively and professionally despite the geographical and interpersonal distance between them.

With the aim of rebuilding trust between the two teams, we reflected — through questions posed by the facilitator — on why communication had become difficult and why trust had been damaged.

As a result, roles and responsibilities within the Tanzania team became clearer, and the two teams were able to agree on approaches to communication and coordination that both sides felt comfortable with.

After the project, all members of the Tanzania team said that they felt renewed motivation and greater clarity about how they could contribute. Members of the global team also spoke about having reflected on their own leadership and realigned themselves around the project's shared goals.

There was also a visible shift from somewhat fragmented coordination towards a more cohesive, forward-looking approach to implementation. This not only enabled the PRA design and fieldwork to move forward as planned, but also seemed to foster a renewed sense of solidarity and passion for the work of 3T.

You can read more about Three Trees' award-winning projects and see a gallery of photographs here.

Walking down the mountain path

As a Facilitator

I believe the Facilitation Impact Award recognises Three Trees as an organisation that believes in the power of facilitation, consciously chooses to make use of it, experiences what facilitation can make possible through these two projects, and then receives the results with humility and carries the learning forward.

To me, this is exactly the kind of reflective leadership that I would encourage in any organisation.

My role in all of this was as the facilitator who supported these two projects.

For me, Three Trees receiving this award has also felt like a powerful encouragement regarding the work I have pursued with passion and want to invest even more in from here onwards: "Yes, this is the right direction. I'm not wrong about this."

It reminded me of the importance of participatory processes, the depth of team building, and the tremendous power of facilitation within them. That has been deeply encouraging.

Words from a Colleague

I have also received some very generous words about my work as a facilitator from colleagues I worked alongside on this project. I receive them with gratitude and with a renewed sense of responsibility.

One of such words came from Melissa, a Tanzanian colleague:

Chizu's impact was something you could feel!

She’s very calm, very observant, and really knows how to listen. At the beginning, there were different working styles and unspoken expectations within the team, but she created a space where conversations just started to open up naturally. Nothing felt forced. With time, the team became more aligned, and the energy shifted from working separately to moving with a shared understanding and direction.

During the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), I saw how she connects with people. The communities were comfortable, open, and really engaged. It didn’t feel like a formal process, more like real conversations where people could share and be heard. That built trust very quickly.

What stood out most is that she doesn’t try to control the room, yet everything flows because of her presence. She listens deeply, picks up on what others miss, and guides with intention.

Working with Chizu showed me how powerful facilitation can be when it’s done with patience, respect, and quiet confidence.

Reflections on Tanzania

It had been 17 years since I had last travelled to Africa for work, and many different thoughts and feelings surfaced and intersected during the trip.

I wrote about some of these reflections in "What Has Changed in 17 Years (Tanzania 1)"

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