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This coming December, VIA Water, in cooperation with MDF-ESA, is organising a special event for applicants still in the running for a VIA Water grant in Kenya. They get the opportunity to come together, learn from each other and from experts, and to share experiences about proposal writing, starting up a project, and making their projects into successful businesses.

As you might have already noticed, VIA Water aims to be more than just a fund for projects. We believe in learning through innovation, which means we hope the contracted VIA Water projects will not only reach their goals, but will also result in a wealth of knowledge about innovating in the water sector in urban Africa. This learning can be done in various ways, for instance through our 'narrative storytelling' as part of the way applicants report back to us about their project. In other words, we stimulate applicants to keep us and you updated (through our online community) about their project, their successes and failures, the questions they might have, and the general progress.

Learning can also be done by the applicants themselves, and who better to learn from than other participants going through the same process as you are? In Kenya, where we already received a considerable amount of applications, we are organising this through a Learning Tour.

During two days, the participants will hear about each other's projects through pitches, and they will be able to receive feedback on their project from the other participants and from experts. They will also join workshops on innovative and creative thinking and on networking: both essential skills for bringing your innovative ideas to the next level. They will discuss the challenges they face or might face in the future with their project, and last but not least: they get to discuss their projects with the Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Lilianne Ploumen.

Of course we will let you know what the results of the Learning Tour are, and hopefully you will be able to join one of our future Learning Tours yourself!