About

Jakub is the Executive Director for Salanga and the design lead behind Kinaki.

Jakub has a BA in International Territorial Studies and MA in International Development. He is an experienced and engaging trainer with over 10 years of experience training development practitioners and students in safety and security, proposal writing, and monitoring and evaluation.

Jakub began his career in international development working in Turkey, Ghana and Mongolia. Jakub has a passion for the safety and security of aid workers. Through his work he realized that poorly trained and poorly prepared aid workers were putting humanitarian and development programs at risk, ultimately doing a disservice to the people they were intending to help. In 2007 he and his colleague founded Salanga as an organization to train aid workers and organizations in personal safety and security management.

Since then Salanga has expanded its focus to include monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL), proposal writing and technical expertise for NGOs. Jakub has supported teams in countries like Haiti, Niger, Philippines, Cambodia and Rwanda – to name a few – in proposal writing, project implementation and MEAL. Through these experiences he noticed that the challenges to meet reporting requirements, tight timelines and other administrative needs were having an impact on implementing teams’ ability to remain focused on community engagement and to meet community needs. In 2013 he and his colleagues at Salanga developed Kinaki, a MEAL tool to help make data collection, analysis and reporting easier and more efficient. In developing Kinaki his goal was to make using project data more accessible and intuitive so project teams can spend more time working with communities and using data to inform their projects. Jakub has trained numerous project teams in mobile data collection, which works hand-in-hand with Kinaki to make monitoring and evaluation more efficient.

Jakub uses his experience working with project teams to work with our software developers to lead the design process for Kinaki, engaging users and the development community in the process. He ensures Kinaki remains true to its original purposes, to be intuitive and easy-to-use; accessible for clients working in all contexts; and flexible enough to measure all kinds of data.

Volunteer work is an important part of Jakub’s life. Jakub served as a volunteer board member of the Ontario Council of International Cooperation (OCIC) from 2015-2016. He currently volunteers with Romea, an organization providing scholarships to students from the Roma community, providing programmatic support.

Paula is passionate about monitoring, evaluation and learning and driven to use data to make a difference. As the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Program Lead for Salanga she coaches organizations to identify key metrics, craft useful and gender-sensitive data collection tools and implement software for better data storage, analysis and learning. Paula is the go-to person for designing user-friendly data management and evidence-based learning tools and systems, and her expertise in Food Security, Sustainable Economic Development/Market Development, Gender and Organizational Development projects provides a key advantage for clients.

Paula has 15+ years in the development sector managing complex projects and spearheading cutting-edge monitoring, evaluation and learning tools and technology for over 15 programs in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean (ranging from $2–$20 Million in budget). She has boosted the MEL capacity of various organizations including the Canadian Hunger Foundation (past MEL Manager), Canadian Feed the Children, Vets Without Boarders, World University Services of Canada (WUSC), Save the Children, Well Grounded, Aga Khan Foundation, Plan International, Humber College and USC Canada (current part-time MEL Manager). Paula has overseas experience in Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica and Guyana.

Paula holds an M.A. in International Affairs from the Norman Paterson School (Carleton University), and a B.A. Honours in International Development and Gender, where she was awarded the Canadian Graduate Scholarship for her thesis work on African development (University of Guelph). She has undergone further training from Humber College, the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET) (World Bank), and the School of Oriental and African Affairs (London, UK).

She has certificates in “Sampling Techniques for Development Evaluation”, “Excel Level II and III”, “Survey Design”, “Program Logic Model and Evaluation Matrix”, “Microsoft Access Data Base I”, and “Participatory Techniques for Assessment and Evaluation.”

Paula is a seasoned facilitator and excels at building capacity, buy-in and ownership in MEL activities. She has conducted over 50 trainings and workshops with international development organizations and government, and presented at Universities, MOASIC’s 3-day advanced M&E courses and at the Canadian Evaluation Society Conference (Ottawa 2015/Vancouver 2017) and the Global Development Symposium (Guelph 2012/13/14).

Paula is committed to using MEL tools to listen deeply. She pursues data collection efforts and methods that elevate local voices and perspectives in order to enable project participants to inform and influence their own knowledge systems and in turn the projects and policies that affect them. She makes MEL an engaging and collaborative process by including a range of stakeholders in data interpretation exercises in order to stimulate joint inquiry and catalyze learning and evidence-based decision-making within individuals and across organizations.

Petra is a Project Manager with Salanga though our partners fondly call her the ‘Kinaki Guru‘. She works with Salanga’s partners providing timely support, helping with problem-solving and troubleshooting, and providing capacity building and training on all things MEL and Kinaki.

Petra is a MEL enthusiast with exceptional skills in qualitative and participatory research and monitoring techniques. She is an experienced trainer of trainers for Focus Groups, Key Informant Interviews, and Mobile Data Collection, having delivered training for teams and individuals around the world.

Petra is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague. She has extensive experience conducting research in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Brazil. As part of her Ph.D., Petra participated in the evaluation of a European Commission-financed program. She conducted surveys, interviews and focus groups with project participants in Cambodia and Vietnam and led the report writing process for the six countries involved in the study.  Having personal experience using various software for data analysis, Petra has a great appreciation for Kinaki – making the work much more simple, enjoyable and professional. She believes our users have the same experience.

Alexander D. Nayve serves as the Community-led Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (CoLMEL) advisor for Salanga. Alex has a Bachelor’s degree in science specializing in Biology and a master’s degree in Disaster Risk Management.

He comes from the Philippines with experience in community development work since 1996, and DRR and humanitarian aid since 2006. Serving in various capacities, he has worked for NGOs such as the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM), PLAN, CARE, Save the Children, Fundacion IPADE, Christian Aid, and ADRA Philippines. Working for these NGOs exposed him to direct implementation and partnership-based programming approaches for projects that spanned the sectors of natural resource management, child-centred community development, integrated conservation and development, disaster relief, early recovery, rehabilitation and resilience, maternal and child health and nutrition.

He was drawn to monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) during his work with PRRM, CARE, IPADE, Christian Aid and ADRA Philippines. This earned him exposure to the design and MEL practices of these organizations, and their donor proposal development and reporting requirements. He started testing participatory quality monitoring approaches in projects with ADRA Philippines – and is now bent on pursuing his interest in ColMEL with Salanga and its implementing partners.

David works at Salanga as a Data Scientist.

He has a Bachelor’s in Economics from Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic and Master in International Development Studies with a specialization in Economics of Development from Wageningen University in The Netherlands.

Prior to joining Salanga, during his master studies, David worked on impact evaluations in Ghana and Sierra Leone. He is experienced in the development of survey instruments, setting up electronic data collection and training survey teams. Furthermore, he possesses advanced skilled in data analysis and statistical methods and facilitates training sessions on working with data and data analysis.

David is an important member of the Kinaki 6 design team and leads testing of the product. He hopes to provide Kinaki users with easy and pleasant user experience. Further, he is eager to advise Kinaki clients with their needs regarding survey design, data management and analysis.

Christina is the Partnership Manager for Salanga. She is passionate about finding ways to make data collection, analysis and reporting more efficient for Salanga’s partner organizations. Through her work with Salanga, Christina builds on her extensive experience in international development and social work.

Christina has 10 years of experience as a project manager and technical advisor for development, humanitarian and social projects in Haiti, Zambia, Tanzania, Canada and elsewhere around the world. Christina brings to Salanga her skills in MEL, project design and proposal development, project management and coordination, reporting, facilitation, and training.  She has been on the proposal writing team for successfully funded projects ranging from $1 million to 24 million CAD. Christina has trained numerous organizations in mobile data collection and results-based management. She is excited about helping organizations find ways to use technology to make their work more efficient.

Christina has a Master of Social Work and Honours B.A. in Global Studies and Political Science from Wilfrid Laurier University.  She has previously worked for ADRA Canada and WaterAid Canada. She has certificates in Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation and Results-Based Management.

Alex Deva has been a web developer since the web existed. He thinks of
programming as an exciting way to create things, and to create tools that
create things. Together with Raul Radu, he founded Indigenious Development in
2007. Alex is a Romanian living in Sweden with his family.

Victoria has 12 years of experience in international community development projects, spending a large portion of that time in countries throughout East and West Africa. She specializes in Monitoring and Evaluation for youth resilience and child protection initiatives, working with the security sector and communities on how to prevent children from being used in conflicts. She is passionate about knowledge mobilization and training groups on the importance of monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning – and how to prove what they are doing works. She is based in Halifax, Canada, and spends her non-work time with her city-planning husband and two young children, exploring and cycling through the beaches and parks of Nova Scotia.