All African (Self Help) Bazaar

Yale Service Tours - Yale Alumni Travel Programs, Community Development, Volunteer Work

2012-01-26T14:52:00.002-05:00

“A generation ago Sargent Shriver '38, a Yale alumnus renowned for his public service, gave voice to a new vision of global citizenship: that a single citizen could be as important as any institution; that it was possible to change the world one life at a time. His vision, of course, was the Peace Corps.”

Today the Yale Alumni Association keeps that vision alive with its Service Tours to help people around the world. Read more about it at the following link.

Yale Service Tours - Yale Alumni Travel Programs, Community Development, Volunteer Work

Anno's Africa

2011-11-09T20:07:00.005-05:00

ANNO'S AFRICA is a UK based charity that offers an alternative, arts education to orphans and vulnerable children in some of Africa’s most desperately deprived city slums. The children who have been participating( Cut) in our Kenyan programme live in the most appalling conditions, sleeping either on the streets or in corrugated iron shacks with no amenities, where often families of eight or more struggle to feed themselves on less than a dollar a day. Scavenging on rubbish tips in an effort to find something to sell so that they can cobble together enough for an evening meal is the way many of these children survive. They are prey to many illnesses: malaria, intestinal worms, pneumonia and other lung infections and of course the ever present threat of HIV / AIDS.

Anno's Africa:

'via Blog this'

Global Pulse | Harnessing innovation to protect the vulnerable

2011-10-04T13:23:00.006-04:00

The United Nations has launched a new project that may be of great value to many NGOs working to improve the conditions of communities around the Globe.

Global Pulse, is an innovation initiative of the UN Secretary-General, that allows for the analysis of patterns within big data and could possibly revolutionize the way NGOs and governments respond to economic shocks, disease outbreaks, and natural disasters around the world. You can find more information about this project at the online Forbes article: Data Philanthropy is Good for Business dated 9/20/11. Also, the United Nations has a Global Pulse web site [Link below].

In a nutshell, this initiative is working to “develop methods for harnessing real-time data to gain a real-time understanding of human well being.”

Global Pulse | Harnessing innovation to protect the vulnerable

Wherever the Need publishes its 2011 Summer Newsletter

2011-09-08T13:30:00.003-04:00

Wherever the Need has been doing wonderful work for years. Focusing on Water Resources, Eco Sanitation and other resource issues, they have been mindful and balanced Development with Ecological responsibility.

They have just released their Summer 2011 Newsletter, and it is work a look.

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"If there is a holy grail with regard to sanitation, it is

finding a solution to the needs of the billions of people

who live in inner cities. Many live in slums and the cost

of infrastructure would be astronomical as water based

toilets are often regarded as the only option – although

where the water will come from is rarely explained

satisfactorily!" Quote for Wherever the Need Summer 2011 Newsletter.

2011 Summer Newsletter | Wherever the Need

From the Field: Community Engagement Inside Kibera (September 1, 2011) | Opinion Blog | Stanford Social Innovation Review

2011-09-07T13:17:00.001-04:00

The Bazaar has been following Rye Barcotte and Carolina for Kibera for over 5 years now, and this article: " From the Field: Community Engagement Inside Kibera" recently appeared in the Sanford Social Innovation Review

"It’s easy to look at global poverty alleviation work abstractly. I spend a lot of time reading about and debating the meaning of “social entrepreneurship,” “community engagement,” and other popular jargon of our field, far away from communities in extreme poverty. But it only takes a minute of visiting a small nonprofit in, say, Kibera, a Nairobi slum of 1 million people, to remind you that distance is the wrong reference point.
This spring, I met Rye Barcott on a book tour for his memoir It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine’s Path to Peace, and learned about Carolina for Kibera (CFK). Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, CFK’s mission is to develop local leaders,
catalyze positive change, and alleviate poverty in Kibera. One of CFK’s core beliefs is that community problems require local solutions run by local leaders."

The rest of the article may be found at the following link:

From the Field: Community Engagement Inside Kibera (September 1, 2011) | Opinion Blog | Stanford Social Innovation Review

Business Daily: - Home |Mobile technology unlocks dairy farming potential

2011-08-23T16:50:00.002-04:00

By FRANKLINE SUNDAY (email the author)

On a typical day, Susan Wanjiru checks and replies to her emails, updates and checks off items on her appointment book before she starts work at a busy Nairobi hotel.

The young hotelier also receives a text message informing her of the progress of her small dairy farm in Kinangop. The message has come through an iCow application that is promising to change the way small holder farmers in Kenya manage their dairy cattle.

The iCow is a voice-based WAP enabled application that keeps farmers abreast of essential animal breeding and feeding methods through technology. A farmer can register his cows free of charge through the iCow portal and gets regular SMSs about the breeding and production patterns of the livestock.

Read more of this story at the following site:

Business Daily: - Home |Mobile technology unlocks dairy farming potential

Africa: Zambia to Host Land Policy Meeting

2011-08-22T20:40:00.003-04:00

By George Okore

LUSAKA----A stakeholder dialogue on land policy issues in Africa will held in Lusaka, Zambia from October 4-5, 2011 in Lusaka, Zambia.

The forum to address underlying transnational commercial land deals in Africa comes at time when many Western Super powers are promoting and perpetuating improper land acquisition and use, hence agricultural challenges and food crisis facing the continent. Former African colonial masters are land problems in many African countries including Kenya, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Somalia, Ethiopia among others.

The High Level Forum on Land-Based Foreign Direct Investments in Africa comes at a time when recent discussions have focused on increasing demand of farmlands across the continent by both foreign and local investors. The meeting will explore and reach agreement and consensus on appropriate and concrete actions on how to address the issue of land based investments in the continent in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.

To read more, go to the following link:

Africa: Zambia to Host Land Policy Meeting

Medicines Patent Pool and Gilead Ink Agreement Making HIV and Hepatitis B Treatment More Available in Developing Countries.

2011-07-15T12:26:00.002-04:00

The Medicines Patent Pool Announces
First Licensing Agreement with a Pharmaceutical Company

London, 12 July 2011: Today the Medicines Patent Pool announces its first licenses with a pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences, to increase access to HIV and Hepatitis B treatment in developing countries.

Photo from Medicines Patent Pool web site

* * *

The Medicines Patent Pool and UNITAID joint press release is available here [pdf], and also posted below.

Questions and answers on the Patent Pool licenses are available here [pdf].

Per the Medicines Patent Pool transparency policy [pdf], the full texts of the licenses are posted below.

The main licensing agreement between the Medicines Patent Pool and Gilead is available here [pdf].

The amended and restated form is available here [pdf].

The form sublicensee agreement is available here [pdf].

Medicines Patent Pool and Gilead Licence Agreement / Current Licences / LICENSING / Home - Medicines Patent Pool

FHI helps to spread the word of about HPTN Study 052- Initiation of Antiretroviral Treatment Protects Uninfected Sexual Partners from HIV Infection.

2011-05-23T14:03:00.008-04:00

A very encouraging press release came out on May 11, 2011 from the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) and was followed up by this posting by the Family Health International (FHI).

Cover of HPTN publication

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Initiation of Antiretroviral Treatment Protects Uninfected Sexual Partners from HIV Infection (HPTN Study 052)

FHI Statement on HPTN 052

May 12, 2011

Men and women infected with HIV reduced the risk of transmitting the virus to their sexual partners by 96 percent through early initiation of oral antiretroviral therapy (ART), according to findings from a large-scale multinational clinical study conducted by the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN).

The clinical trial, known as HPTN 052, was designed to evaluate whether early antiretroviral use by an HIV-infected individual would reduce transmission of HIV to an HIV-uninfected partner and potentially benefit the HIV-infected individual as well. The trial is the first randomized clinical trial to show that treating an HIV-infected individual with ART can reduce the risk of sexual transmission of HIV to an uninfected partner.

HPTN is a global partnership dedicated to reducing the transmission of HIV through cutting-edge biomedical, behavioral, and structural interventions, largely funded by National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases with additional funding from National Institute on Drug Abuse and National Institute for Mental Health, at the US National Institutes of Health. FHI serves as the coordinating and operations center for HPTN. As the operations center, FHI is responsible for the scientific management of HPTN and facilitates and participates in HPTN leadership, scientific working groups, protocol teams, and the community engagement program.

"FHI is proud of our role as the Operations Center for HPTN in facilitating the HPTN 052 study," said Dr. Ward Cates, President, Research at FHI and member of the leadership of HPTN. "Treating infected individuals prevents transmission to their uninfected partner and benefits the individual. Armed with these findings, FHI can continue to contribute to the informed care and treatment and prevention of HIV through our global programs and intramural research."

HPTN 052 began in April 2005 and enrolled 1,763 HIV-serodiscordant couples at 13 sites across Africa, Asia and the Americas, the vast majority of which (97 percent) were heterosexual. An HIV-serodiscordant couple has one member who is HIV-infected and the other who is HIV-uninfected. In the study, the HIV-infected partner was required to have a CD4+ cell count (T cells) between 350-550 cells/mm3 at enrollment, and therefore did not require HIV treatment for his or her own health.

The investigators randomly assigned the couples to one of two study groups. In one group, the HIV infected partner immediately began taking a combination of three antiretroviral drugs upon study enrollment. In the other group, the HIV-infected partners began ART when their CD4 counts fell below 250 cells per cubic millimeter (cells/mm³) or an AIDS-related event occurred.

Throughout the study, both groups received HIV-related care that included counseling on safe sex practices, free condoms, treatment for sexually transmitted infections, regular HIV testing, and frequent evaluation and treatment for any complications related to HIV infection. Each group received the same amount of care and counseling. In addition, individuals who become HIV-infected during the course of the study are referred to local services for appropriate medical care and treatment.

The trial was slated to end in 2015; however, the independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) recommended that the results be released as soon as possible. The DSMB concluded that it was clear that early initiation of ART by HIV-infected individuals with relatively healthy immune systems substantially protects partners from infection, with a 96 percent reduction in HIV transmission.

Study participants are being informed of the results. The study investigators will continue following the study participants for at least one year.

"This is excellent news," said Dr. Myron Cohen, HPTN 052 Principal Investigator and Associate Vice Chancellor for Global Health and Director of the Institute of Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "The study was designed to evaluate the benefit to the sexual partner as well as the benefit to the HIV-infected person. This is the first large randomized clinical trial to definitively indicate that an HIV-infected individual can reduce sexual transmission of HIV to an uninfected partner by beginning antiretroviral therapy sooner. HPTN recognizes the significant contribution that this study's participants have made to furthering the progress in HIV treatment and prevention. We are very grateful for their participation."

About HIV Prevention Trials Network

The HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) is a partnership between scientists and communities around the world to develop, evaluate, and implement cutting-edge biomedical, behavioral, and structural interventions to reduce the transmission of HIV. HPTN uses randomized controlled clinical trials, designed and conducted according to the highest scientific and ethical standards, to identify the best combinations of interventions for the populations at highest risk of HIV infection worldwide. HPTN is largely funded by NIAID with additional funding from NIDA and NIMH, at the NIH.

About FHI

FHI is a global health and development organization whose science-based programs bring lasting change to the world's most vulnerable people. Since 1971, FHI has worked with 1,400 partners in 125 countries, forging strong relationships with governments, diverse organizations, the private sector and communities. By applying science to healthcare programs and clinical research, FHI is helping countries make measurable progress against disease, poverty, and inequity—improving lives for millions.

###

For more information, view the HPTN press release (May 11, 2011) or visit www.hptn.org
Media inquiries:

Matt Matassa

703.647.1909;

mmatassa@fhi.org

FHI - Initiation of Antiretroviral Treatment Protects Uninfected Sexual Partners from HIV Infection (HPTN Study 052)

MinnPost - Addressing Africa's book famine: The impact is immeasurable

2011-05-22T23:09:00.003-04:00

This editorial by Ambassador James Kimonyo’s appeared in the MinnPost.com website on May 11, 2011 and was posted on the Books For Africa web site.

H.E. Ambassador James Kimonyo

Addressing Africa's book famine: The impact is immeasurable

By Ambassador James Kimonyo | Wednesday, May 11, 2011

I come from a family of eight in Rwanda. We worked very hard to get an education growing up. We shared books with other households and families. Sometimes we waited a week to get a book back that we had loaned out and sometimes we were lucky to get the book back the day before an examination. And so it goes for millions of schoolchildren in Rwanda and throughout Africa. We have many problems on our continent, but one of the most serious is our book famine.

As Rwanda and other countries make progress over the next 20 years, human capital and education will be the key ingredients. The only way we can transform our country is through education. Our strategy is to create a knowledge-based economy. That is our vision. There is nothing better than having books for our students to help us achieve that objective.

A container of books from St. Paul-based Books for Africa will be shipped to my country in the next couple of months through the work of Peace Corps volunteers and Ambassador W. Stuart Symington. That's 22,000 books for our children. The container will also include books for a law library donated by Thomson Reuters to help us educate young law students, build democratic institutions and develop the rule of law.

I recently visited St. Paul, where I attended a number of events sponsored by Books for Africa. I was impressed with the generosity of the people of Minnesota who donated more than $80,000 last month to help pay for books that will be sent to Rwanda and other African countries. Our people thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

For one purpose only

The West often sends money and military weapons to Africa and other developing nations. While well-intentioned, sometimes that aid ends up in the wrong hands with serious negative consequences. But books for children and for law students can only be used for one purpose and that is that is to educate. That is soft power at work in the field. A small amount of money invested in the United States is turned into thousands of books — which, in turn, are shared by millions of young people in my country and around the continent. That is a small price to pay to help us build and develop our countries.

The impact of a book in the hands of a child in my country is immeasurable. I hope that the people of Minnesota and the rest of the United States will continue to understand that concept. Your understanding and your generosity make a huge difference.

James Kimonyo is the ambassador of the Republic of Rwanda to the United States.

MinnPost - Addressing Africa's book famine: The impact is immeasurable

Books For Africa

Kabissa – Connecting people and organizations for Africa

2011-05-18T22:23:00.001-04:00

Six years ago this month I wrote about Kabissa helping folks in Africq manage the digital age. And from the looks of things, they are still going strong.

Kabissa (our name means completely in kiswahili) is a volunteer-led non-governmental organization founded in 1999. We help African civil society organizations to put Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to work for the benefit of their communities. We do this by providing an online platform where people and organizations working in Africa can showcase themselves and connect with each other for peer learning and information sharing.

Network connecting people and organizations for Africa | Kabissa

AMREF | AMREF’s New Partnership with Open University

2011-05-11T20:36:00.000-04:00

AMREF continues to find new and innovative ways to improve healthcare in Africa. The Press Release below appeared on April 13, 2011.

AMREF is pleased to announce a new and exciting partnership with the Open University (UK).

Africa has a serious shortage of health workers and many have little or no formal training; yet, they are the ‘front line’ of health care across Africa.

Recognising a mutual belief that empowered, well-trained and well-supported health workers (including doctors, nurses, clinical officers, midwives, and community health workers) are critical to the development and success of African health systems, AMREF and the Open University will soon be embarking on a partnership to train health workers through distance learning.

The partnership was formed after recognising the common goals and ambitions of AMREF and the OU:

AMREF, Africa’s leading health development organisation, provides training for health workers in 33 African countries, equipping them with the necessary skills to address their countries’ biggest health issues; from HIV/AIDS, to antenatal care, malaria, waterborne diseases, cervical cancer to cleft palate repair. Committed to providing the best, most relevant service possible, AMREF is an expert in curricula and Human Resources for Health (HRH) development. Using an array of training methods; from classroom-based, to print-based distance learning courses to eLearning and online trainings, AMREF brings training opportunities to those who need it the most.

Open University is a world leader in modern distance learning and has recently launched the Health Education and Training (HEAT) programme in Africa. This ambitious programme aims to train 250,000 Community Health Workers (CHW) over the next five years through providing distance learning modules to increase their skills and capabilities. The HEAT programme is now piloting in Ethiopia, but is ready to be taken to other African countries, and has the flexibility and potential to be adapted for use by midwives, doctors, nurses, and other health workers.

Recognising this shared commitment to increasing Human Resources for Health (HRH) in Africa, through this new partnership AMREF and OU will share experience and expertise, working together to develop, implement and manage distance training programmes for mid-level and community health workers. AMREF and OU will collaborate in submitting applications for joint funding, build partnerships with organisations with similar goals, and work together to roll out OU’s HEAT programme beyond Ethiopia.

“We believe that this collaboration will take AMREF’s innovative e-learning, m-learning and broader distance learning interventions further afield in Africa”, says Peter Ngatia, AMREF’s Director of Capacity Building.

“We hope to dramatically assist in the global effort to scale-up training of Human Resources for Health to ensure countries have the right numbers and competencies required for quality health delivery and attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.”

More about AMREF's work training health workers across Africa

More about Open University's Health Education and Training (HEAT) programme

AMREF | AMREF’s New Partnership with Open University

The True Size of Africa

2011-05-06T13:07:00.000-04:00

The Serpentine Gallery had an exhibit of maps. And among those maps was this one created by software engineer Kia Krause.

Click the link below to go to the Serpentine Gallery site. There you can click on the link that will enlarge the image so that you will be able to read the accompanying data.

This is something to think about when considering the relevance of Africa in a global context.

Edge - Serpentine Maps Marathon

Congolese Students and Survivors Use ICTs to Prevent the Spread of Violence

2011-01-10T16:25:00.007-05:00

This is an article that first appeared a few months ago, but because so few items appear on English language sites on the internet, in thought that it would nice to post this.

By Azur Développement for APC

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo, 27 October 2010

Five different organisations in the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) are receiving small grants as part of the APC Women’s programme’s – Take Back the Tech! to fight violence against women project. Female students, women and girls who have survived violence and abuse will learn how to use different technologies to signal cases of abuse, build awareness around their experiences and help support others victims. Read more about these innovative projects, which will be taking place until March 2011.

TAKE BACK THE TECH! FUND WINNERS IN THE REPUBLIC OF CONGO

Association Dynamique Plurielle in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, will work with 250 female 1st to 3rd year high school students from Savorgnon de Brazzaville High School to fight against sexual harassment in schools by involving teachers and school management. It will organise awareness meetings on the Portella and Potignon Acts, which prohibits relationships between teachers and students and protects minors, during which they will screen video testimonies from survivors of abuse. During the project, students will also send alerts about sexual harassment cases via SMS by the students; and a “listening cell” of the organisation at the high school will actively respond. Educational information about the laws will be sent to 250 students; and trivia questions via SMS and MMS will be sent out participants. Winners will be awarded free internet browsing tickets for the best answer. Students will also be trained on how to use the internet to teach and train others. They will also be sensitized to online privacy and security issues when surfing the internet and using mobile phones.

Association Femmes Solidaires in Brazzaville will train fifteen young mothers infected with HIV/AIDS and survivors of violence in counselling so they can provide psychological support to their peers. Awareness-raising sessions will be held on human rights, targeting 50 women and young mothers infected with HIV/AIDS. Ten of them will be trained in basic computers skills, internet browsing and searching, and writing articles and blogs to document the experiences of violence by HIV-positive women and girls. Radio shows that broadcast the testimonies of these survivors of violence will be produced with the assistance of female journalists and members of the organisation. These radio programs will be reproduced on CDs and distributed to other organisations for their advocacy and educational activities, and uploaded to the internet.

Jeunes Infrastructure et Développement (CJID) will work to reduce violence against women and girls in Kinkala, an area that was affected by armed conflict until 2003, through awareness and education on ICTs. Twenty female soldiers and policewomen will be sensitised about violence against women. Around100 survivors of violence will be reached by this project; from which 35 will be trained in basic computer skills and internet use. They will create a listening space for survivors at their office, and provide mobile internet access to the people of Kinkala, especially young students. The project will also produce video testimonials with a team of survivors of violence, which will be screened at awareness meetings and shared with other organisations. There will also be an SMS contest for the best testimonies, and a moderated blog will be put in place to give voices to the project beneficiaries on the web.

Comptoir Juridique Junior will work with 200 students in the Mpaka Secondary School and the OCH Technical High School in Pointe-Noire to fight against and prevent sexual harassment in schools. Their actions will involve teachers and school management. Students will send alerts on cases of sexual harassment via SMS, and different measures will be taken after a consultation. Competitions for testimonies by survivors of violence via SMS and MMS will be held with 200 students, and the best testimonies will be awarded with training on the use of the internet for learning purposes. The project also educates students on privacy and security online when surfing the internet and using mobile phones. A network of students from both institutions will be created before the end of the project.

Handicapés Sans Frontières in Pointe-Noire will gather some sixty female journalists, women and girls with disabilities to educate, denounce, and find solutions to end violence against them, as well as help them break their silence. The organisation will hold awareness sessions on women’s rights and how to fight violence against women in the media and women’s circles for those with disabilities. They will be trained in basic computer skills and the internet in order to communicate about violence through blogs, photos and mobile phones. They will learn how to record sounds with mobile phones, how to take and upload photos and how to upload video and audio to the internet. Women and girls with disabilities and survivors of violence will also use the internet to advocate for a space where they can express themselves. Female journalists involved in the project will present radio and television programs that demonstrate the magnitude and call for action on violence against women and girls with disabilities.

As part of its work towards achieving the Millennium Development Goal #3 (MDG3), the Association for Progressive Communicaitons Women’s Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP) is providing a small grants fund for projects working with women, technology and raising awareness about violence against women in over 30 communities. Funds from the MDG3 grant are going directly towards supporting over 60 local, primarily community based organisations to implement projects that use ICTs to end violence against women and building their capacity to do so.

The Take Back the Tech! fund is a part of the APC women’s programme Take Back the Tech! to end violence against women project, which falls under the APC’s work towards achieving the third Millennium Development Goal on equality for women. A total of $20 000 dollars have been disbursed to twelve country partners for redistribution to local and grassroots organisations that are working with women and ICTs.

Photo by l’Association des Femmes Solidaires: Survivors of violence undergo training and counseling in Brazzaville.

Original version of the story

Association for Progressive Communications

DR HAWA ABDI FOUNDATION

2010-12-30T12:42:00.009-05:00

Dr. Hawa Abdi, a physician and hospital administrator in Somalia is currently getting a lot of attention because she was recently named one of Glamour Magazine’s “Women of The Year,” (along with her two daughters, who are physicians as well) for 2010. Not only is Dr. Abdi a health care provider, but she also has created a camp for internally displaced peoples in Somalia on her own 1,300 acre farmland near the hospital. She has also created the The Dr.Hawa Abdi Foundation.

The mission of The Dr.Hawa Abdi Foundation is to ensure that no treatable condition shall ever be an obstacle to health. Through a combination of foundation programs and social activism, we will work to guarantee that quality healthcare is available to underserved populations in the Somali and around the East Africa. Furthermore, it is our goal to promote health and healing not only by providing quality medical and preventative care, but also by creating treatment environments that foster hope.

According to a brief biographical statement on one of the web pages, of the Foundation, Dr. Abdi is a “living hero.”

Dr.Hawa Abdi, a living hero before the eye of thousands of IDPs a mother, a leader of hope and prosparity,an inspiration and the couragious woman,the founder of the Dr.Hawa Abdi Foundation and the first woman to run and oparate a private hospital in somalia the first doctor and the list never end.
Abdi received her medical training in Kiev, Ukraine, during the 1960s with the help of a Soviet scholarship. At the time, Somalia was allied with the Soviet Union, while its archrival and neighbor Ethiopia was a partner of the United States. (In an abrupt Cold War reversal, a Marxist regime came to power in Ethiopia in 1974 and Somalian dictator Mohamed Siad Barre switched loyalties to the U.S.)
After completing her studies, Abdi returned and opened her clinic; soon the practice drew clients from all over the country, and even abroad. She was one of Somalia's first female gynecologists.
She married, raised three children, invested in hundreds of acres of farmland and had enough left over to purchase a beach getaway.
After Siad Barre was toppled in 1991 and Somalia descended into clan-based civil war, Abdi struggled to keep her clinic independent. One day, she says, soldiers with the HAWIYE clan swarmed the facility, looking to kill or capture patients from the DAROT clan.
"You will have to kill me first," she recalls telling the armed fighters. They left and never bothered her again. Abdi opened her private clinic for women and children in 1983. But when the government collapsed eight years later, she threw open her doors to all, treating victims of shootings, malnutrition and a string of epidemics.
As word of her generosity spread, the needy flocked here. More than 15,000 families currently live on her land. She offers treatment, clean water and whatever food she can spare. Nowadays, few can pay, but no one is turned away.
Abdi acknowledges that after 25 years, she dreams of escaping this place. "I'm tired," she says, sighing. "Sometimes you lose hope, you feel depressed. I've been here so long." [Bio here.]

More details about the Glamour Women of the Year Award can be found here.

On December 15, 2010, The New York Times ran an opinion piece by Nicholas D. Kristof that highlighted her work that took her from running a one room clinic in 1983 to managing a 400 bed hospital today. That article may be found at this link.

DR HAWA ABDI FOUNDATION

ANOTHER STORY OF VISION

2010-12-19T17:56:00.009-05:00

Photo from SIC website

Dr. Matthew Craven had a vision. He earned his B.A. in Economics from Stanford University in 2001. That year he also got his first exposure to global health during a month he spent teaching HIV prevention seminars in Tanzania. While in Tanzania he witnessed the ineffectiveness of the existing healthcare delivery systems, especially to rural communities. He returned to Tanzania the following year and co-found Support for International Change (SIC), a non-profit organization working with the government to limit the impact of HIV in underserved communities through expanded access to education, testing, and treatment.

Dr. Craven also started SIC’s global health leadership training programs, which aims to develop a new generation of leaders for the field. He served as Executive Director of SIC for the next five years, first based in Tanzania and then in the U.S.

In 2008 Dr. Craven earned his M.D. from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

SUPPORT FOR INTERNATIONAL CHANGE

Their Mission
To limit the impact of HIV/AIDS in underserved communities and to train future leaders in global health and development.

Their Vision
SIC believes that the HIV/AIDS crisis creates both an imperative to act and an opportunity to learn. We envision a world where HIV/AIDS no longer limits length or quality of life or reduces the social or economic development of communities, and where young people learn the skills to address the health crises of future generations.

Their Approach
SIC was founded in August 2002 with the dual goals of limiting the impact of HIV/AIDS in Tanzania and training future leaders for global health and development. In the rural communities where we work, poor infrastructure and widespread poverty limit access to HIV testing and prevention services, and leave people living with HIV socially and physically isolated from care. Public clinics provide VCT and antiretroviral medications in urban centers, but lack of information, stigma and the costs of transportation all represent barriers to access and leave these services beyond the reach of Tanzania’s rural majority. As a result, HIV transmission continues, few people are tested in the villages and many of those living with AIDS die without accessing treatment.

In response to this crisis, SIC currently works in rural villages in northern Tanzania, offering a comprehensive set of community based services to combat HIV/AIDS. SIC supports a Community Health Worker (CHW) Program, a Peer Educators (PE) Program in secondary schools, community-based health awareness campaigns, and mobile Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT). With a few pilot programs, in conjunction with the district hospitals, we support mobile ARV clinics.

In addition to these community level interventions, SIC offers structured service-learning programs for international and Tanzanian volunteers. During our eight and twelve week programs, volunteers add capacity to our work, primarily by serving as teachers in our awareness campaigns. Hundreds of student volunteers have passed through our programs since 2003. Many have gone on to graduate or professional training in related fields, to found other organizations, or to other leadership positions in global health and development.

KOFI ANNAN GUIDES AGRA FOR A GREENER TOMORROW

2010-05-17T10:20:00.005-04:00

AGRA’s integrated programs in seeds, soils, market access, policy and partnerships and innovative finance work to trigger comprehensive changes across the agricultural system. Our programs also strengthen agricultural education and extension, address the issue of efficient water management, and strive to involve and train youth.

AGRA’s programs and partnerships work for comprehensive changes across the agricultural system to benefit smallholder farmers, the majority women. Integrated programs in seeds, soils, market access, policy and partnerships, and innovative finance are transforming subsistence farming into sustainable, viable commercial activity.
AGRA’s programs also work to strengthen agricultural education and extension, train youth, develop rural infrastructure, improve efficient water management and enable smallholder farmers to adapt to and mitigate climate change. All of our programs pay special attention to the women farmers who produce the majority of Africa’s food. AGRA programs seek to empower women with full and equal access to finance, land security, extension services and new agricultural tools and technologies.
From Africa’s high-potential breadbasket areas, to broader and more challenging environments, AGRA’s integrated programs are making a difference. One example is found in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, where 700,000 smallholder farmers produced a record maize harvest in 2009, helping to feed drought-stricken regions of the country.

Mr. Kofi A. Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Chairs AGRA’s Board. A team of distinguished African scientists, economists and business leaders guide its day-to-day work. With a budget of close to US$400 million, as of June 2009 AGRA had approved 116 grants valued at US$83 million in 14 countries. Grantees operate across the agricultural value chain, laying the basis for the kind of comprehensive, integrated change needed by Africa’s smallholder farmers.
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Learn more about AGRA at the link below:
AGRA

Youth for Technology Foundation

2010-04-19T21:46:00.004-04:00

Youth for Technology Foundation (YTF) is an international non-profit organization that seeks to bridge the digital canyon among disadvantaged communities in developing countries, starting with the continent of Africa. The vision of Youth for Technology Foundation is to foster wealth creation, reduce unemployment and create self-sustaining communities by providing marginalized people in rural communities with the technology tools, training and resources to enable them to realize their greatest potential.

Technology - even in small amounts- is helping developing nations and communities overcome tradition totake leaps forward. YTF recognizes that access to information holds the key to the empowerment of marginalized people, particularly youth and women.

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The above is the logo and introduction to Youth for Technology Foundation posted at their website. You can learn more by going there.

Italian official condemns Haiti earthquake relief as 'vanity parade'

2010-01-27T17:29:00.004-05:00

The Bucharest Herald ran this story illustrating that many question the primary motives of many organizations and governments who have rushed (with great flourish) in to help Haiti in the aftermath of its most recent horrific disaster.

The picture posted from the Bucharest Herald story shows what appear to be combat ready soldiers in front of an American flag and poses the question: :"Why do these American soldiers need to be combat as they try to assist Haiti?"

Guido Bertolaso, the head of Italy's civil protection service, who is quoted in this story stated that the large US military mission in the country was not entirely helpful.

The story can be found at the link below.

Italian official condemns Haiti earthquake relief as 'vanity parade'

FUGEES FAMILY'S COACH MUFLEH WINS COMMON GROUND AWARD

2009-10-26T14:42:00.008-04:00

Photo from Fugees Family website

Fugees Family came to my attention because it's founder, Luma Mufleh is receiving an award from Search For Common Ground, another non-profit engaged in making the world a better place. Coach Mufleh and her story - and the story of the Fugees Family can be found on the websites listed below. But here briefly is a short statement from the Fugees Family website that explains what it is doing.

FUGEES FAMILY, INC. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoted to working with child survivors of war. We build upon the power of soccer to galvanize these kids by giving them the support and structure they need to realize their vast potential. Five years ago, Coach Luma Mufleh started a Fugees team to provide refugee boys with free access to organized soccer. Since then, our programming has grown to include year-round soccer for 86 boys aged 10-18, after-school tutoring, a private academy, and an academic enrichment camp.

The Fugees Family provides a space for the kids to heal and meet others like them, from different countries, who have been through similar experiences. The players might begin by regarding one another with distrust or even hostility. By conducting drills with various players grouped together and enforcing an English-only policy at all times, the kids learn to cooperate. Africans and Asians, Northern and Southern Sudanese, Muslims and Christians, Sunni and Shia Muslims - they all play on the same team, finding their commonalities instead of focusing on their differences. Their bonds make them more secure in their own identity and more capable of acclimating to the mainstream.

The Fugees Family works to afford our kids equal access to the educational opportunities others in their age group have, helping them to acquire the social and academic skills necessary to succeed. Our goal is for the players to work hard and graduate from high school with a plan for college, technical school, or job training. We are committed to an approach that takes the whole individual into account: we are consistently involved in all areas of the kids' lives, we set high expectations on and off the field, we foster a familial atmosphere, and we have fun.

FUGEES FAMILY

SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND'S STORY ABOUT COACH MUFLEH

SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND

PLAY SOCCER

2009-10-22T01:17:00.005-04:00

Image from Play Soccer web site

The PLAY SOCCER grassroots community says that its program aims to make the world a better place for children and youth who master and enjoy playing soccer/football while learning health, physical and social development life skills.

BID NETWORK: LOOKING FOR DEALS

2009-10-15T19:29:00.007-04:00

Photo from BiD Network web site

BiD Network has proudly announced that the Access to Clean Energy Challenge was launched on October 1st of 2009. The Access to Clean Energy Challenge is a business plan competition for entrepreneurs that deliver access to clean energy in developing countries, and is being organized by BiD Network with the support of E&Co, GVEP , Barclays, Jump up and FMO.

On its web site Bid Network gives ground rules for the competition:

“Clean energy comprises: wind, solar, biogas, hydro, liquefied petroleum gas, biomass and energy efficiency. Non-renewable energies are not excluded but the approaches to energy production, usage or financing should focus on established, affordable, reliable technologies that move communities up the energy ladder towards cleaner, more modern forms of energy.

“As with all the Challenges, participants submitting plans will receive feedback and support in the writing of their business plans. Winners will receive an actual investment and their business plans will be presented to more than 100 potential investors.”

In addition to the main competition, there is a “sub” competition which is only open for East African countries called: Access to Clean Energy Challenge East Africa. This Challenge is focused on the following countries: Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania & Uganda.

The BiD Network states that it is an “online marketplace for business in developing countries. It is an online community of thousands of entrepreneurs, experts and investors from all over the world with a common aim: to stimulate business opportunities in developing countries.”

The BiD Network:

1. Makes SME business plans visible

2. Links entrepreneurs to finance and expertise

Ambitions of the BiD Network Foundation:

Establish several decentralised national BiD Challenges in developing countries

Bring more entrepreneurs into the BiD Network (start-up and established businesses)

Engage hundreds of professionals from companies and NGOs as business coaches

Move from a ‘prizes-only format’ to one providing loans and investments

Develop an online investor-to-entrepreneur lending facility

What moves us

The Private sector is the backbone of any economy. It is of key importance for economic development and poverty reduction in developing countries. But two significant problems arise in this context:

The ‘deal- flow’ problem: over large geographical distances it is hard to find, identify and verify good business propositions in developing countries. Quality business plans are ‘hidden’ and so are entrepreneurs to implement them.

The ‘missing middle’ problem. There is a financing gap between $5.000 and $500.000 (where microfinance stops and commercial finance starts) for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries.

Our mission is to tackle these two problems. We have created the BiD Network and the BiD Challenge to support SMEs in developing countries.

Our objective

To contribute to sustainable economic development by stimulating entrepreneurship in developing countries

We try to achieve this by

Stimulating small and medium sized entrepreneurship to create jobs and raise income in developing countries.

Engaging professionals, investors and organisations offering them the opportunity to directly contribute to poverty reduction through SME development in developing countries.

Inspiring people that business and poverty reduction can go hand-in hand.

What is the BiD Challenge?

The Business in Development (BiD) Challenge is the first international business plan competition for entrepreneurship and development. The BiD Challenge offers entrepreneurs worldwide the opportunity to develop and execute business plans that improve living standards in developing countries at a profit.

What can the BiD Challenge offer you?

Entrepreneurs: access to a worldwide platform to make your business plan visible; receive professional feedback and assistance from business coaches; get exposure to a network of investors, experts and business partners and a chance to win prize money.

Companies & NGOs: the opportunity to share the competence and expertise network of your organisation with thousands of entrepreneurs in developing countries. Engage your employees, invest in SMEs and get a network, market insight and possible return on investment.

Professionals: the opportunity to make a difference by sharing your business expertise with entrepreneurs as a coach, screener or jury member. Enjoy a wonderful experience, broaden your market insights and possibly get a stake in a change-making business.

Clean Energy Challenge East Africa

THE BID NETWORK

William Kamkwamba: 14 year-old Energy Innovator

2009-10-01T20:03:00.006-04:00

William Kamkwamba, a 14 year-old Malawian secondary student won international fame and admiration for having self-built a windmill in Masitala, a small hamlet where he lived with his family. Building the windmill with materials obtained from a local junkyard, bicycle parts and blue gum trees, he was able to power the electrical appliances in his family's house.

William had to drop out of school because his family could not afford the tuition that amounted to about $80.00 U.S. After leaving school, he decided to build the windmill for his family. He taught himself how to

construct the energy device by looking at photographs and reading a book from the nearby library.

Picture frm librarything.com

There are plenty of stories about William Kamkwamba on line and in the media but this video below from the TED Foundation is a good place to hear him tell his own story.

TED

THE CIVIL SOCIETY DECLARATION AS AN OUTCOME OF THE CIVIL SOCIETY FORUM

2009-09-09T18:44:00.007-04:00

From November 25 - 27 there was a CIVIL SOCIETY FORUM held in DOHA, QATAR. The Doha NGO Group on Financing for Development (DNG) issued a "Civil Society Declaration" in response to that forum and concluded:

"In the face of the multiple crises, we urge governments to take the side of women and men workers, farmers, youth and children to promote environmental sustainability by taking an alternative economic path. We, 250 national and international civil society networks, representing millions of people from around the world, therefore call for change in Doha that puts effective development, poverty eradication, human rights, gender equality, decent work, and environmental sustainability at the fore."

The DNG expressed why they felt the need to issue its Declaration when they stated:

"Today the world is consumed by an urgent series of crises: energy, food, climate, and finance that not only threaten the realization of the MDGs and the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, in the North and the South, but also the stability of the world’s economies. The Northern governments and financial system are responsible for the current crises, but the costs and the impacts are paid for by the entire world, and by the poorest countries in particular. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization $30 billion are required every year to eradicate poverty. Trade negotiations have reached a stalemate. Persistent gender inequalities reflect and are related to all these structural imbalances in the global economic system; thus it is urgent to include a gender perspective into all policies, at all levels and sectors, as well most Northern countries are falling far short of meeting their aid commitments. Overcoming these crises requires decisive action and leadership from the global community. To date however, such leadership has been sorely missing."

The entire Declaration can be read online at the CIVIL SOCIETY DECLARATION

WATER.ORG: THEIR HEADS IN THE CLOUDS AND THEIR FEET ON THE GROUND

2009-08-31T21:02:00.007-04:00

[This information has been taken directly from the web site of Water.org; and more information may be found at its web site by following the link at the end of this posting.]

Photo from Water.org

About Water.org

Co-founded by Matt Damon and Gary White, Water.org is a nonprofit organization that has transformed hundreds of communities in Africa, South Asia, and Central America by providing access to safe water and sanitation. Water.org traces its roots back to the founding of WaterPartners in 1990. In July 2009, WaterPartners merged with H2O Africa, resulting in the launch of Water.org. Water.org works with local partners to deliver innovative solutions for long-term success. Its microfinance-based WaterCredit Initiative is pioneering sustainable giving in the sector

Projects

Since its inception in1990, Water.org had helped hundreds of communities in Africa, Asia, and Central America gain access to safe water and sanitation. All of the projects we support are self-sustaining, with organizational and financial structures in place to allow communities to independently operate and maintain them. Projects have an active water committee governing the operation of the water system, and users paying a water bill to cover the costs of operating and maintaining the water system.

Below are links to countries where we have active programs. If you have any particular questions about our work, please contact us using the Information Request Form.

Africa

Ethiopia. Our program in Tigray, Ethiopia is serving 32,000 people in 76 communities and six schools. Tigray is a region in northern Ethiopia that borders on Sudan. Tigray is often one of the regions that is hardest hit by drought and crop failure.

Ghana. Program activities in Ghana take place in the Volta and Upper East regions, located in the southeast and northern parts of the country, respectively. Activities include community-based water, sanitation, and hygiene education programs.

Kenya. Water.org is working in the Kisumu region of Kenya. Located on the equator, Kisumu’s climate is hot all year. Much of Nyanza Province, where Water.org is working, is semi-arid and is subject to severe drought. Most people obtain their drinking water from Lake Victoria, seasonal rivers and streams, and hand-dug wells. All of these sources are contaminated. Women and children walk up to six kilometers each day to haul water, a task that can take three hours. Water is not only contaminated at its source but also from the way it is transported and stored.

Asia

Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, Water.org offers both grant and WaterCredit programs, and is addressing safe water needs in both rural and urban areas. Our urban program focuses on the slums of the capital city, Dhaka. Our rural program is located in Rajshahi and Manikganj Districts.

India. Water.org’s program in India provides safe drinking water and adequate sanitation facilities to the families living in five states - Andhrah Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, and Tamil Nadu. Water.org offers both grant and WaterCredit programs in India.

Philippines. Water.org’s program in the Philippines began in 2003 with a project in Barangay Villahermosa.

Central America

El Salvador. Water.org has completed two rural water and sanitation projects serving over 1,200 people in the communities of Caulote and Las Americas. These communities are located in the department of Cuscatlán, located approximately 20 miles northeast of San Salvador. The new water systems in El Salvador are spring-fed pumped systems.

Guatemala. Our projects in Guatemala are located in the department of Quiché. Quiché is in the Western highlands of the country. Because of the high prevalence of mountain streams in the Guatemalan highlands, all of our water solutions in Guatemala are spring-fed gravity flow systems.

Honduras. Water.org has helped more than 40 Honduran communities build their own safe water systems. Our program in Honduras focuses on the Departments of Lempira and Intibuca, in western Honduras. The once heavily forested Departments now suffer from deforestation. This has led to extreme depletion of the local water tables, forcing women and children to walk long distances to collect water for their families.

WATER.org

A MODEL FOR INEXPENSIVE RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE DEVELOPED IN SOUTH AFRICA

2009-08-25T17:27:00.003-04:00

[photo from ICT Update]

Orange Farm, South Africa, an informal settlement of approximately 300,000 people who live about 45 km south of Johannesburg. Water and reliable electrical service is not always easily available in Orange Farm, but thanks to one company, mobile phone service is becoming a reality. The company that is making the mobile service a reality is Dabba, a South African telecommunications company. Debba was initially based in Orange Farm and its service makes wireless service much cheaper than it would have been otherwise. Now Orange Farm has affordable telephone service and other rural communities may be able to follow this example.

The full story about Orange Farm and Dabba can be found in an article titled: “The Mesh Potato Network” in Issue 45 of ICT Update, published in October of 2008.

SOLVING EVERYDAY PROBLEMS WITH AFRICAN INGENUITY

2009-08-20T21:03:00.009-04:00

If you want to find out how A Locally Fabricated Radio Station was made or A plastic waste recycling press was created, or even how to charge mobile phones with bikes and scrap you should surf on over to AFRIGADGET.COM.

[photo from Afrigadget.com]

"AfriGadget is a website dedicated to showcasing African ingenuity. A team of bloggers and readers contribute their pictures, videos and stories from around the continent. The stories of innovation are inspiring. It is a testament to Africans bending the little they have to their will, using creativity to
overcome life’s challenges."
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Afrigadget is also supported by The Grassroots Reporting Project.

"One of our goals at AfriGadget is to find more stories of African ingenuity. The Grassroots Reporting Project is our plan to find, equip and train more AfriGadget reporters in the field throughout Africa.

AfriGadget’s goal is to leverage the power of current and emerging technology such as video cameras, digital cameras, laptops and phones to bring quality content online and eventually on television.

A combination of mobile phones and computers will be assigned to individuals in 10 African countries for the purpose of getting more on-the-ground reporting of stories of African ingenuity to the world. An AfriGadget editor will be in charge of identifying the best candidates for inclusion in the program. This editor will also travel to each country to train and equip the new AfriGadget reporters for the program.

This is possible by creating a network of field reporters who report on stories that meet the following criteria:

•Ingenious innovation that is new, or a repurposing of existing technology in a new way.

•Interesting in the sense that the story captures the imagination of others, inspiring others to see solutions in uncommon ways.

•Practical ideas that solve problems in a demonstrable way.

•Entrepreneurs who are inventing new products or solutions."

AFRIGADGET.COM

Japan Supports Promotion of Bednets to Prevent Malaria in Ghana

2009-08-10T22:21:00.007-04:00

[This article by Junko Mitani was posted to the UNICEF web site in September of 2007, but the word still needs to be spread that bed nets do work. The text of this article and the accompanying photo are the property of UNICEF. At the end of the article, there is a link to a short video on the project.]
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GUOMONGO VILLAGE, Ghana, 10 September 2007 – Malaria remains the largest single killer of children in Ghana, taking a toll of approximately 20,000 child deaths every year. One in every four deaths of Ghanaian children under the age of five is due to the mosquito-borne disease.

Malaria also continues to be a major contributor to prevailing poverty and low productivity here.

But ongoing support from Japan – including $1 million contributed recently – is helping families in Ghana reduce the spread of malaria and its deadly impact.

Prevention is the key

Apripey Anyongubire, a mother from Gumongo village in the country’s Upper East Region, has suffered the loss of two children to malaria.

“One evening, I realized one of my children had high fever. I took him to a clinic but nobody was there,” she said. “I took him to another clinic but on the way home, he went into convulsions. I rushed to an herbalist but the child died on the way.” Another of her children died of malaria at home after experiencing similar symptoms.

It is not easy for poor parents like Ms. Anyongubire to seek and obtain appropriate medical treatment for their children in a timely manner, especially in rural villages. Prevention is the key to reducing the number of malaria deaths.

Proper use of insecticide-treated bednets, for example, can reduce about 20 per cent of all child deaths.

Community volunteers raise awareness

To spread that message, Ghanaian community health volunteer Robert Azerko makes house visits on a blue bicycle provided by UNICEF. With a focus on reaching pregnant women, he explains the importance of sleeping under a bednet to prevent malaria.

The visits are critical because some people don’t believe malaria is transmitted through mosquitoes. Others don’t like to sleep under the nets because they feel uncomfortable or too hot, or have trouble hanging them up.

Hundreds of volunteers like Mr. Azerko are working to promote appropriate behaviours that will prevent malaria in their communities.

Nets for 400,000 children and women

With more than $3 million in funding from the people and the Government of Japan since 2004, UNICEF supports the Ghana Health Service’s provision of bednets to children and pregnant women.

“Reduction of child mortality is a priority for Japan’s official development aid,” said His Excellency Masamichi Ishikawa, Japan’s Ambassador to Ghana. “The people and the Government of Japan are committed to support Ghana’s efforts in malaria prevention.”

Japan has contributed over $1 million this year to purchase long-lasting bednets that will protect approximately 400,000 young children and women from the disease.

In November, the nets will be distributed as part of the country’s Integrated Maternal and Child Health Campaign, an initiative led by the Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service.

Support from development partners

“This campaign will not only provide lifesaving bednets to young Ghanaian children and pregnant women but will also provide oral polio vaccine, vitamin A supplements and deworming medication,” explained UNICEF’s Representative in Ghana, Dr. Yasmin Ali Haque.

“Such efforts are supported by a number of partners, including the Government of Japan, DFID [the UK Department for International Development], USAID and other development partners,” she added.

“In the Upper East Region, the use of the nets is between 26 and 29 per cent, which is still low,” said UNICEF Ghana Health Officer Felicia Mahama. “Our main challenge here is communication on the use of bednets.”

UNICEF: Daily Glance Story site

Video on story from Dailymotion

LONDON'S AFRICA CENTRE GETS A MAKEOVER

2009-08-06T19:23:00.004-04:00

[Below is a message from the Chair of the Council of Management of the Africa Centre in London's Convent Gardens. A new building is in the works and the Centre has a new website. This message is taken verbatim from their new website.]

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Dear Friends,

Welcome to our new Africa Centre website!

The Africa Centre is being renewed to serve its stakeholders better. Since its inaugural launch in 1964, the Centre has played an important role in projecting a positive face of Africa in London, providing a focal point for all forms of cultural and social activities related to Africa through meetings, talks, visual arts exhibitions, cinema, literature, and the performing arts.

As you may be aware, financial difficulties led to the deterioration of the Covent Garden building, ultimately hindering the full and effective use of the facilities and affecting programming. The latter has now been reduced to a minimum and we are currently forging ahead with plans to redevelop the premises and sustain its operations into the future.

The purpose of the present redevelopment is to guarantee a future Africa Centre where the building’s main facilities can effectively serve the Centre’s remit as a topflight contemporary African cultural and creative centre in Europe, whilst at the same time providing income generation that will ensure long-term sustainability. Business of Culture were brought on board to manage the Centre in the interim and to direct and advise on the Development of the Centre and its future organisation. Considerable progress has been made in stabilising the Centre’s operations and finances and in creating a credible foundation to go forward.

Since the redevelopment process started in 2006, we have come a long way. A lot is happening and various project preparation strands are coming to completion. These include the Feasibility Study carried out by a professional team led by Ash Sakula Architects and project managers, Malcolm Reading Consultants; the commercial and business case for the future centre, incorporating the findings of a thoroughly researched cultural demand assessment, carried out by Good Communications and Business of Culture; the fundraising strategy being developed by The Philanthropy Company and the development of a new programming vision for the future Africa Centre. During this transitional period the centre will continue to be involved in small-scale but exciting cultural events that will pave the way forward.

As Chair of the Africa Centre’s Council of Management since 2004, and on behalf of the Trustees, I would like to reiterate our determination that the Centre’s role be continued and enhanced in the future, free from the uncertainties of the past twenty years. We are committed to realising the potential of King Street site, which has been one of the main strengths of the Centre in its forty-year history and, and offers an unrivalled 'shop window' for Africa in central London.

This new website forms an essential part of our series of initiatives intended to incubate the new Africa Centre in people’s minds, and to reflect the dynamism and excitement of the redevelopment process on an ongoing basis. I encourage you to visit the site regularly for updates on progress made, as well as for details of upcoming programming activities and initiatives.

Best Wishes

Oliver Tunde Andrews

Chair

The Africa Centre

THE AFRICAN GREAT LAKES INITIATIVE

2009-07-27T19:35:00.003-04:00

The African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) of the Friends Peace Teams has been around for quite a while and done a lot of good. But for all their work and for all the good that they have done, they are still unknown to many people; even people who stay abreast of development work in Africa.
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[The information below has been taken directly from the AGLI website:
http://www.aglionline.org/index.htm

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Mission of the African Great Lakes Initiative

The African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) of the Friends Peace Teams strengthens, supports, and promotes peace activities at the grassroots level in the Great Lakes region of Africa (Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda). To this end, AGLI responds to requests from local religious and non-governmental organizations that focus on conflict management, peace building, trauma healing, and reconciliation. AGLI sponsors Peace Teams composed of members from local partners and the international community. We are a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization.

History of the African Great Lakes Initiative

The African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) is a program created by the Friends Peace Teams, an organization consisting of sixteen Quaker Yearly Meetings in the United States who have united to support the traditional emphasis of Quakers in promoting a more peaceful world. In April, 1998, the Friends Peace Teams realized that Quakers in the Great Lakes region of Africa, numbering almost half of the Quakers in the world, were in countries with a great deal of violence, social unrest, genocide, and civil war. Consequently in January 1999, an international delegation of seven team members visited Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. From this visit and subsequent discussions, the Friends Peace Teams decided to create the African Great Lakes Initiative to support peacemaking activities at the grassroots level. We are a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization.

AGLI Programs

AVP:
In Rwanda, AVP is conducting six workshops in six resettlement communities for Hutu and Tutsi Rwandans who were recently expelled from Tanzania. They are also doing a series of workshops in remote villages of Eastern Province where the wounds from the genocide are still festering. In Kenya, due to the violence after the December 27, 2007 elections, AVP in western Kenya plans are to conduct 200 basic, advanced, and training for facilitator workshops in various communities. Many of these workshops will involve the young people who were involved in much of the local violence after the election. Sites may include Kisii, Kisumu, and Bondo in Nyanza Province; Shinyalu, Kakamega, the Mt Elgon area, Lugari District, Malava District and Vihiga District in Western Province; and Turbo, Eldoret and Kitale in Rift Valley Province. Each site will have ten or more workshops so that each area can be adequately impacted.

HROC:
In Burundi, HROC is concentrating its work in three up-country sites. They are also developing a special workshop for HIV+ women and a second level, Healing of Memories, workshop.In Rwanda, HROC plans on developing a workshop geared for teenagers and a second for youth in their twenties. These will be done with the children of the Women in Dialogue program of the Friends Peace House. They are also beginning workshops with the Batwa, the third, minority ethnic group in Rwanda. After AGLI began the HROC program in North Kivu of the Democratic Republic of the Congo last year, HROC-North Kivu will use its trained Healing Companions to do basic HROC workshops in internally displaced camps.

Workcamps:
AGLI is planning five workcamps for summer 2009 - FWA clinic in Kamenge, Burundi; Friends Peace Centre in Lubao, Kenya; building homes in Lugari District, Kenya; Gisenyi Peace Center in Gisenyi, Rwanda on the border with Congo; and, the Bududa Vocational Institute and Children of Hope orphanage in Bududa, Uganda.

Friends Women’s Association:
One of the AGLI workcamps will complete the last three rooms needed for the clinic to be recognized by the Government as an approved full clinic. FWA is working with HROC to develop the HIV+ workshop. They continue to work with local HIV+ women (and some men) and do regular medical work for the surrounding population.

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If you get the chance, drop by their web site and take a look at the many exciting things that they are doing in the Great Lakes Region.

THE AFRICAN GREAT LAKES INITIATIVE

YOUTH FOR EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP FORUM

2009-07-20T23:06:00.005-04:00

This information is taken directly from the Youth for Effective Leadership Forum web page of the Eden Readers Commission of Nigeria (ERCON) web site.
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YELF is an acronym of Youth for Effective Leadership Forum. This project is an initiative of Eden Readers’ Club of Nigeria (ERCON), which is currently working on 2 of the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): promoting universal Basic Education and Ensuring Environmental sustainability. Its core focus is to strengthen Youth / Leadership development projects in the state, Nigeria and Africa through education and social events that engage Youth/ Leaders in and on interacting platforms, with eye on effectiveness in service delivery that seeks to develop young people into self sustained individuals, able to build self- esteem & positive attitudes, and find knowledge around vocational practices that will expose and offer them the opportunity to train and acquire entrepreneurial skills, which make them confident and versatile in maintaining all manner of jobs and finding a better livelihood (empowerment).

VISION
Our vision is to see a Nigeria, Africa and world free of ignorance and illiteracy, where Leadership is effective and young people have the opportunity to realize their potentials and pursue their aspirations, even as they work with Leadership to make it work in an atmosphere of peace, literacy, poverty and corruption free, and sustainable environment.

MANDATE
To hold activities that seek to promote the culture of reading for writing skills development and transforming leadership through education and social events for youth integral development (which covers their physical, spiritual, mental and intellectual growth).

MISSION STATEMENT
Our mission is to engage young people in intense reading programs and entrepreneurial skills acquisition (vocational) training for self sustainability and personal development and also involve youth/leaders in interactions that aim to reduce leadership ineffectiveness in service delivery and expose youth to participation, scholarships and other resources for empowerment. Through this statement of purpose, this project reduces: ignorance and illiteracy, youth idleness and unemployment, immorality, alcoholism, other unholy behaviors, critical mind-set towards leadership and reduction of poverty level through education and social events.

Amedu Monday Amedu President /Founder Gen. Sec/M&E Officer

Blessing Ejiogu General Secretary

Mohammed. Nurudeen Project manager

Philip Joshua Provost

YELF

African Leadership Academy - World Class Pan-African Secondary Institution

2009-07-13T22:45:00.006-04:00

[This Article was taken directly from the web site of (the) African Leadership Academy; which can be found at the web site posted below.]

African Leadership Academy was founded in 2004 with the belief that ethical leadership is the key to transforming the African continent. Founders Fred Swaniker, Chris Bradford, Peter Mombaur, and Acha Leke sought to create an institution that would develop, connect, and support those individuals who will lead the continent toward a peaceful and prosperous future. In the two years that followed, the founding team built a powerful network of advisors and developed a robust, sustainable operating model for the Academy, a world-class, pan-African secondary institution on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa.

In 2006, these efforts were rewarded when Founders Fred Swaniker and Chris Bradford were recognized as “two of the 15 best emerging social entrepreneurs in the world” by Echoing Green. The momentum only continued in 2007 with the identification of our initial campus and the announcement that Christopher Khaemba, one of Africa’s finest educators, will join African Leadership Academy as the inaugural Dean of School. Dean Khaemba brings extensive experience as a school leader and is noted for his ability to inspire and develop students from a wide variety of socioeconomic backgrounds.
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African Leadership Academy recruited its first class of 100 young leaders from across the continent for entry in September 2008. They also hire world-class faculty members from across Africa and around the globe and developing a broad range of partnerships.

Visit the African Leadership Academy's web site to learn more.

Volunteer Uganda Kampala Abroad - Worth Watching

2009-07-03T21:17:00.006-04:00

Volunteer Uganda Kampala has a video, thanks to A Broader View.Org. Take a minute to watch it and then pass the word along to others. [Don't forget to hit the "Play" button.]

Volunteer Uganda Kampala Abroad www.abroaderview.org
Video sent by abroaderview

This organization offers people the opportunity to volunteer in Kampala, Uganda supporting orphanage assistance, teaching English and IT/Computer programs, and construction projects. It is programs like this that help well meaning individuals to be meaningful contributors in the Global community. Pass the word along about this great opportunity to explore life in rural Africa, living and working with interesting people and learning that one person can make a difference.

http://www.abroaderview.org/

FEMNET - Advancing The Quality Of Life For Women

2009-07-01T00:41:00.004-04:00

[This information was taken from the FEMNET web site.]

The African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) was set up in 1988 to share experiences, information and strategies among African women's non-governmental organisations (NGOs) through advocacy, training and communications so as to advance African women's development, equality and other human rights.

FEMNET aims to strengthen the role and contribution of African NGOs focusing on women's development, equality and other human rights. It also aims to provide a channel through which these NGOs can reach one another and share experiences, information and strategies to as to improve their work on African women's development, equality and other human rights.

FEMNET is governed by a Constitution and the following governance and administrative structure:

- National focal points in African countries whose representatives
attend a tri-annual Programming Conference and General Assembly;

- An elected Executive Board which includes two Board members per
sub-region and a Chairperson. In addition, there are two Ex-Officio Board
members (immediate past Chairperson and the Executive Director);

- An elected Board of Trustees to oversee FEMNET's assets; and

- A Secretariat that implements FEMNET's programmes and is headed
by an Executive Director.

FEMNET's specific objectives include:

- exchanging experiences in planning, implementing and evaluating women's programmes and projects through interaction with NGOs, development agencies and relevant regional and international intergovernmental bodies;
- promoting women's activities in Africa through the strengthening of existing organisations and the establishment of new ones as may be needed;
- playing vanguard and catalytic roles in the treatment of feminist issues which cannot be handled by government gender mechanisms due to the threat that such issues pose to patriarchal states;
- promoting the better utilisation of African women's NGOs by development agencies and regional and international intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) such as the African Union (AU) and the various United Nations (UN) agencies;
- mobilising resources for African women's development, equality and other women's human rights by local, regional and international sources; and enabling collective action by African women's movements in order to tackle regional gender issues.

Since its inception in 1988, FEMNET has played a leadership role for African women's NGOs at regional and international decision-making and policy fora. FEMNET has gained recognition as the convenor of African women’s movement in key circles, including the United Nations agencies, African Union, NEPAD processes and among women’s regional NGOs. This recognition has resulted from persistent pursuit of its networking mandate and the quality leadership FEMNET has offered over the years.

Programme context:

FEMNET’s major goal is to ensure that African women’s organisations, lobby groups, decision-makers, like-minded organisations are able to gain conceptual clarity of key concepts and issues relating to the empowerment of women and gender equality. Further, that given this knowledge, they will be in a position, to act towards creating an environment of gender equality and social justice and to bring an end to all forms of discrimination against women.

FEMNET works in three main programme areas:
The Advocacy Programme
The Communications Programme
The Capacity Building Programme

The Advocacy Programme includes projects designed to evolve approaches and methodologies for dealing with barriers to the implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action (PFAs). FEMNET was the focal organisation for African women's preparations for participation in the 1995 Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women. FEMNET continues to collaborate with African women's non governmental organisations (NGOs) on follow-up activities to the Beijing NGO Forum, the parallel intergovernmental conference and the Beijing Plus Five review process. The programme has also been involved in mainstreaming gender into regional processes and institutions, most notably engaging with the African Union and its specialized mechanisms. The advocacy programme has also been involved in promoting the economic, social and cultural rights of African women.

The Communications Programme is the core programme of the Network. It is a vital avenue through which FEMNET generates data and information, facilitates the exchange and sharing of this information on women's human rights issues at international, regional and national levels to its various constituencies across Africa and globally. The programme seeks to optimumly use ICTs to provide African women with qualitative strategic information on women's development, equality and human rights and to build the capacity of African women's organizations to produce content for advocacy.

The Capacity-building Programme plays an important role in empowering and building networking expertise, skills and the capacities of its members through training in critical areas such as women’s human rights, gender analysis and mainstreaming, leadership, advocacy, ICTs etc. In 2002, FEMNET developed a model for training of trainers in gender mainstreaming which is applicable to the 12 priority areas outlined in the African and Beijing Platforms for Action. The model has been tested at the national level in a number of African states and has been developed to explicitly address sectoral concerns. For example, several subject-based manuals and resource books for gender mainstreaming have been developed in areas such as gender equality, macroeconomics, and sexual reproductive health. These have proved to be useful information materials and tools for advocacy and training.

Following the development of its Strategic Plan for the period 2008-2012, the following Vision, Mission and Core Values will guide FEMNET.

Vision

African women's collective leadership for equality, peace and sustainable development.

Mission

FEMNET seeks to facilitate and coordinate the sharing of experiences, ideas, information, and strategies for human rights promotion among African women's organisations through networking, communication, capacity-building and advocacy at the regional and international levels.

FEMNET's Core Values

Commitment and passion for women's advancement;
Integrity, credibility, transparency and accountability;
Unity in diversity, solidarity, inclusiveness, respect and tolerance;
Professionalism, effectiveness, creativity and responsibility;
Justice, equality and democracy.

As a pan-African, membership-based network, FEMNET has continued to play a leading role in building the women’s movement in Africa and ensuring that African women's voices influence decisions made at different levels that impact on their lives. FEMNET links up and implements various activities in collaboration with sub-regional networks and national focal points (NFPs).

Beginning August 2008, FEMNET embarked on a project that seeks to review and strengthen its members communication and networking linkages at country and sub-regional levels. The purpose is to ensure more involvement of the member organisations in FEMNET's programs, mobilize new member organisations and update its database of women organisations in the region, strengthen the connection with women operating at the grassroots level and minimize the difficulties in obtaining continuous feedback from its constituency at different levels. To make this happen, FEMNET idenitified national women's networks and umbrella organizations in five countries: Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia to be the lead in establishing the country level NFPs. Most of the NFPs identified are expected to sign Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) with FEMNET, specifying and agreeing on ways to collaborate in their various programme activities.

Visit FEMNET's Web Site to learn More.

LUKMEF - HONORING A GREAT LEGACY

2009-06-08T18:55:00.002-04:00

The following information was taken from the LUKMEF web site which has several additional pages with more information about the organization
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LUKMEF-Cameroon (Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Foundation -Cameroon) is an NGO legalized in Cameroon since 1999. LUKMEF’s mission is to promote peace, nonviolence, social justice and sustainable development in Cameroon.

Management
The organization is managed through an independent Board of Directors (from Australia, Holland, Germany, USA and Cameroon) that meets once every year (November). The day-to-day activities of the organization are run by an administrative team headed by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) assisted by three Directors of Programs (DP-Peace/Nonviolence, DP-Social Justice, and DP-Sustainable Development). Each project is headed by a project director drawn from the staff.

Staff
The organization works with 7 permanent staff, part-time and volunteers (nationals and expatriates). Additional project staff are recruited on contract basis during the life cycle of each project.

Track Records
Since 1999 the organization has supported 3729 youth in job training in varying domains. And up to 61.3% of trained youth gain jobs or start small businesses after the trainings. The organization has also carried out a wide range of other peace and development programs such as: the inter ethnic dialogue programs, organizational networking and capacity building, Micro-Grants for Income generating activities for rural women, the first women’s conference on HIV/AIDS, the HIV/AIDS Rights Watch Group to provide pro-bono legal assistance to HIV infected persons, The Resource Centre, Base-line studies, project monitoring and Evaluation including the Abuja 15%, NACC, UNGASS DOC etc. For networking and resource sharing, the organization partners with many local organizations and has organized a wide range of capacity building programs (project writing, project management, Reporting, Human Resource Management, community project design methodology, etc). The organization has supported a number of rural projects such as; bridges, community centers, and environmental conservation. It has also taken part in many regional and international conferences including UN review meetings. The organization is a member of many national and international networks and activists groups in its domains of operation. We provide consultancy services to other agencies and NGOs in Cameroon. Though the organization’s activities touch the general population, we put a lot of attention to problems faced by women and the girl child.

Working Languages
The working languages of the organization are English and French.

Partners
These programs and projects are being realized thanks to the financial and technical support of national and international organizations such as Action Aid-International, CARE-International, UNAIDS, US Embassy, British Council, Limbe City Councils, SONARA, Apara Family Fund, Global Action to Prevent War, Rotary Club of CT, Peace Centre (Columbus university USA), Peace through Dialogue Inc.

How LUKMEF Expenses are Allocated
Administrative Costs = 9.5%
Program Activities = 90.5%

Contact Addresses
P.O. Box 1348, Limbe
SW Province
Cameroon
Tel: +237-33.33.28.60
E-mail: info@lukmefcameroon.org Contact Person

Tanyi Christian E.
President / CEO
LUKMEF-Cameroon
Tel: +237-77.94.74.49
E-mail: christian@lukmefcameroon.org

LUKMEF

With The Help of On Line Volunteers Benin Is Converting Pig Waste Into Energy

2009-06-05T12:36:00.004-04:00

[This story is a reprint of an article from the United Nations' "Online.Volunteering.Org" Newsletter of June 2009. The entire Newsletter can be read here.

This story is a powerful example of what can be done with good will in combination with the internet.]
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Combining their expertise in engineering, life sciences and international commerce, seven online volunteers have been helping the NGO Africavenir develop a sustainable solution to environmental pollution caused by pig breeding.

To address the contamination of groundwater, emission of green house gases and odour through pig breeding in Porto Novo, Benin, Africavenir developed the idea to turn pig waste into energy and use that energy to provide electricity for public schools and health centres. For example, left-over waste can be used as compost for organic farming. Through the Online Volunteering service, Africavenir was able to harness expertise from volunteers around the world to materialize their idea.

Contributions
The online volunteers contributed their various specializations and skills to different aspects of the project. First, they developed the project outline to identify the project elements and tasks. Then they produced the technical project document, comprising an analysis of the characteristics of biogas, the environmental impact, a description of the process to generate biogas, the requirements for the power plant, cost estimates, etc. Through Internet research, the volunteers identified the type of generator that was needed and located a potential supplier in China.

Although a big piece of the work has already been accomplished, some important tasks remain before Africavenir can start looking for sponsors to finance the implementation of the project: the financial document needs to be finalized and the legal documents elaborated.

Impact
Africavenir posted the technical document on the Réseau International d’Accès Aux Energies Durables (RIAED), a knowledge and resource-sharing platform for renewable energy. Several companies have already demonstrated interest in investing in this project. In parallel, Africavenir is engaged in negotiations with the supplier of the generator in China. “Through the collaboration with the online volunteers, we learned about the complexity of such a project, the range of tasks and activities involved and the necessary elements to be covered by the project document,” says Megan Stanislaus Afan, the director of Africavenir.

The volunteers
Comlan Tony Kouteh, Benin, is an Energy Engineer who also holds a Masters degree in Project Management. “This was not only an opportunity to serve others and to contribute to environmental conservation, but also to gain professional experiences and exercise my skills. I very much enjoyed the exchange with volunteers from other countries about various technical and organizational questions of the project.”

Jean Bosco Utuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, is a rural development specialist with experience in environmental management.“I had already realized a similar project. I am glad that I could share my experiences”.

Andrea Rudin Montes de Oca, Costa Rica, is an Industrial Engineer, with experience in purchasing, planning, supply chain and people management. ”I am glad for having had the opportunity of participating in this project and being part of the solution.”

Hippolyt Fogaing, Cameroon, holds a diploma of higher technician (University of Technology) in Electrical Engineering with eight years of industrial experience, currently pursuing a degree in Electromechanical Engineering. “This was a rich experience; my research on the use of biogas helped me learn a lot about this renewable energy source.”

Koulibaly Kayergué, Côte d’Ivoire, holds a Masters in International Business and Negotiation and is in charge of foreign trade statistics at the General Management of the Customs of Côte d’Ivoire. “My contribution to this project was validated as an online internship required for my PHD in International Relations”.

Amandine Hourt, France, lives in Spain and is an agro-development specialist with a Masters degree in Economic and Territorial Development, and is experienced in technical and financial project analysis and management. “We organized our collaboration in such a way that first each of us drafted a proposal with our own ideas, which we then exchanged and discussed. This was a bit challenging at times because of our different schedules and time zones.”

Read More at UN OnlineVolunteering.Org

ONE FOR ONE – GETS TO STEPPING

2009-05-21T15:14:00.002-04:00

Since our beginning in 2006, TOMS Shoes has given 140,000 pairs of shoes to children in Argentina, Ethiopia, and South Africa. With the help of generous people TOMS plans to give 300,000 pairs of shoes to children in need in 2009. The story of TOMS follows -

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One for One

TOMS Shoes was founded on a simple premise: For every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of shoes to a child in need. One for One. Using the purchasing power of individuals to benefit the greater good is what we're all about.

Our Story

In 2006 an American traveler, Blake Mycoskie, befriended children in Argentina
and found they had no shoes to protect their feet. Wanting to help, he created a company that would match every pair of shoes sold with a pair given to a child in need. One for One. Blake returned to Argentina with a group of family, friends and staff later that year with 10,000 pairs of shoes made possible by caring TOMS customers.

Since our beginning, TOMS has given over 140,000* pairs of shoes to children in need through the One for One model. Because of your support, TOMS plans to give over 300,000 pairs of shoes to children in need around the world in 2009.

Our ongoing community events and Shoe Drop Tours allow TOMS supporters and enthusiasts to be part of our One for One movement. Join us.

Why shoes?

Most children in developing countries grow up barefoot. Whether at play, doing
chores or just getting around, these children are at risk.

Walking is often the primary mode of transportation in developing countries. Children can walk for miles to get food, water, shelter and medical help. Wearing shoes literally enables them to walk distances that aren't possible barefoot.

Wearing shoes prevents feet from getting cuts and sores on unsafe roads and from contaminated soil. Not only are these injuries painful, they also are dangerous when wounds become infected. The leading cause of disease in developing countries is soil-transmitted parasites which penetrate the skin through open sores. Wearing shoes can prevent this and the risk of amputation.

Many times children can't attend school barefoot because shoes are a required part of their uniform. If they don't have shoes, they don't go to school. If they don't receive an education, they don't have the opportunity to realize their potential.

There is one simple solution...SHOES.

Of the planet's six billion people, four billion live in conditions inconceivable to many. Lets take a step towards a better tomorrow.

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This past February, Blake Mycoskie, who is now not only known as TOMS Founder, but also as its Chief Shoe Giver, spoke at the annual TED conference in Long Beach, CA. TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, began in 1984 as a conference to bring together people from those three worlds. As Blake stated in his blog, "I have been given the opportunity to give a TED talk before a crowd of the most intelligent and innovative people in the world, including people like Bill Gates, JJ Abrams, Jeff Bezos and Seth Godin. I usually do not get nervous speaking in front of people, but today is a little different."

In March of 2009 Blake visited the White House for meetings with President Obama's Senior Administration. Along with other top young business leaders, Blake presented viable solutions and ideas regarding US economic policies. Blake specifically spoke to the potential in the economic plan to support small businesses in their difficult first years.

On May 15th, the Spring 2009 TOMS Vagabonds returned to TOMS Santa Monica headquarters after a 13-week tour across the United States. “The Vagabonds traveled in 5 regional teams to share the TOMS story and ignite passion for the One for One movement. Teaming up with TOMS Campus Reps across 37 states the Vagabonds invited communities to purchase and decorate their own pair of TOMS and watch the TOMS documentary film “For Tomorrow”. TOMS wants to let the public know that anyone interested in hosting a Fall 2009 Vagabond Event can click this link to contact them.

TOMS SHOES

Small Enterprise Education and Promotion (SEEP)

2009-05-18T12:51:00.003-04:00

Begun in 1985, SEEP was founded with the belief that "sharing practical experiences within a trusting environment would result in improved microenterprise development practices."

Operating in over 180 countries today, SEEP reaches more than 23 million micro-entrepreneurs and their families.

While SEEP has many initiatives, time will only permit a brief examination of one program below. After a brief paragraph on How SEEP Works there is an examination of an outline for a program in Africa that reveals an excellent planning strategy to acheive sought after outcomes.

The information below is taken from the SEEP website.
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Practitioner-led Learning and Impact

The primary way SEEP undertakes practitioner-driven research, learning, and product development is through member-driven learning initiatives. Working groups, task forces, initiatives as well as the grant-funded practitioner learning programs (PLP) comprise a comprehensive learning agenda within three communities of practice: Finance, Enterprise Development, and Associations & Networks. To learn more about these communities of practice, visit our SEEP Initiatives.

Microenterprise development practitioners from SEEP member organizations have contributed to action research and best practices in a range of areas, including financial services, social performance, consumer protection, and market development. They have developed tools and resources such as standardized financial statements and reporting, market research tools, poverty assessment tools, and HIV & AIDS and microenterprise development integrated programming guidelines.

SEEP learning initiatives generate practitioner-oriented products, tools, and training materials. SEEP publications are widely recognized for being prepared by practitioners, field tested for accuracy, and accepted as the industry standard. SEEP’s manual and training course on standardized financial statements for microfinance institutions (FRAME: A Framework for Reporting, Analysis, Monitoring, and Evaluation) is one of the best examples of the quality, usefulness, longevity, and influence of our practitioner-oriented products. SEEP’s lateral learning approach is key to translating knowledge into practice and yielding such products.

SEEP’s global membership results in a broad international community of practice. Our strategic relationships with partners in the NGO, philanthropic, and socially responsible corporate community further support and strengthen member impact.

SEEP Learning Initiatives

The SEEP Network supports a range of member-led initiatives, including several thematic working groups and Practitioner Learning Programs (PLPs). To see a current list of active working groups and PLPs, visit our SEEP Initiatives page.

-----------------------------------

PLP in Building Alliances to Serve HIV/AIDS Impacted Communities in Sub-Saharan Africa (BASICS)

Purpose: to identify and promote successful strategies for microfinance and enterprise development programs to partner with local community-based organizations to better serve clients affected by HIV/AIDs.

Membership: Public

Contact: Laura Meissner (Meissner@seepnetwork.org)

Timeframe: February 2008 - February 2009

This initiative assemble(d) the following participants:

· CHF International (CHF) in Rwanda, an implementer of the USAID/PEPFAR-funded Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Program (CHAMP), and African Evangelistic Enterprise, one of CHF’s local partners, which is building its capacity to better deliver services to HIV/AIDS-affected persons.

· Emerging Markets Group, which implements USAID’s OVC-COPE Project in Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and Rwanda. Its local partners for this PLP are CBOs in Uganda that serve the income generation needs of caregivers of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). EMG works with caregiver associations to promote access to higher-value markets.

· Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Rwanda, the lead for AIDSRelief, a consortium funded through PEPFAR that supports nine countries in delivering HIV care and treatment to poor and underserved populations. CRS implements programs with its local partner, Caritas.

· Fantsuam Foundation, a holistic NGO in Nigeria offering microfinance and other services to HIV/AIDS-affected clients, and its local partners, including Hope for the Blind, volunteer groups and community development councils.

· Mercy Corps (Ethiopia) and its local partner, WISE (Organization for Women in Self-Employment), an Ethiopian NGO that facilitates and provides capacity building to savings and credit cooperatives, as well as training to women.

· Sinapi Aba Trust, an MFI in Ghana and part of the Opportunity International Network, is building a partnership with Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana to provide HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention education to Sinapi Aba’s microfinance clients.

These organizations will seek to identify, document and disseminate the most effective models for developing strategic alliances between MF/ED programs and CBOs and for improving the impact of MF/ED programs in such alliances.

From March 2008 to February 2009, participating organizations will return to the field for collaborative action research. All participants will begin to document their learning in one of two ways:

1) Alliance Strengthening: the participants have identified areas in which they want to work with their partners to strengthen the alliance; and

2) Learning Products: the participants are working in teams (not necessarily with their alliance partners) and focusing on about 5 issues around strategic partnering and will produce various learning products on the selected areas. Final products (case studies, tools, etc.) will be available early in 2009.

In order to achieve its goals and its desired impact, the PLP will address the following kinds of questions:

1. What programs and services are appropriate to offer through a strategic alliance, and which are most appropriate for HIV/AIDS affected clients? Why do successful models work? Who benefits from the activities, products and/or services? What makes these programs sustainable? Are there successful programs that can be documented?

2. Are strategic alliances indeed a successful model for reaching HIV/AIDS-affected clients?

3. Given their complementary strengths and weaknesses, how can community-based organizations (CBOs) and microfinance/enterprise development (MF/ED) programs and organizations work collaboratively to expand outreach and increase impact?

4. How can institutions form appropriate private/public partnerships (e.g. ED programs fostering market integration) and public/public partnerships (e.g. between a range of CBOs, NGOs, and government agencies) to deliver integrated programs that address people’s needs through both community-level and large-scale ventures?

5. How can the development community support CBOs in their holistic approaches to dealing with the pandemic? For example, support might include cross-training between MF/ED programs and CBOs, networking between community-based groups to share strategies and generate joint projects, capacity building of community implementers, or financial support for grassroots initiatives.

6. What constitutes appropriate capacity building for MF/ED development practitioners and agencies involved in larger-scale economic development initiatives? Is there training and support that would enable them to improve their reach to affected individuals and households, to effectively collaborate with CBOs, and to advance the integration of youth and the elderly into programs?

7. What enables successful strategic alliances to work? That is, how do MF/ED organizations and CBOs overcome differences in their structures, operations, values, and cultures to work well together? What motivates them to work together? What are the main “dos and don’ts” for these alliances?

SEEP

STAFF BENDA BILILI: Making Music and Doing Good

2009-05-11T22:33:00.004-04:00

They are called: Staff Benda Bilili and they are a musical sensation that is known for their unique personal stories as well as their captivating music. I can (and will) point to stories and articles found in the UK Guardian and The Independent (and let us not forget their My Space page) to give you a very good idea of who Staff Benda Bilili are but I would like to preface the remainder of this post by saying that both their message and their music is uplifting.

The names of the musicians are: Theo Nsituvuidi, Coco Ngambali (vocals, guitar); Cubain Kabeya (vocals, drums); Roger Landu, Ricky Likabu, Kabamba Kabose Kasungo, Djuana Tanga-Suele, Zadis Mbulu Nzungu (vocals); Paulin Kiara-Maigi (bass guitar); Randy Buda (percussion).

Staff Benda Bilili are paraplegic street musicians who live in Kinshasa, Congo in the vicinity of that city’s zoo. A description of the group, found on their My Space page puts it this way:

“The band's mesmerising rumba-rooted grooves, overlaid with vibrant vocals, remind you at times of Cuban nonchalance, at other times of the Godfather of Soul himself. You can hear echoes of old-school rhythm and blues, then reggae, then no-holds barred funk. Four senior singer/guitarists sitting on spectacularly customized tricycles, occasionally dancing on the floor of the stage, arms raised in joyful supplication, are the core of the band, backed by a younger, all-acoustic, rhythm section pounding out tight beats. Over the top of this are weird, infectious guitar-like solos performed by young Roger Landu, (an ex-street kid the band took under their wing), who plays a one-string electric lute he designed and built himself out of a tin can.”

Their first album is entitled: "Très Très Fort" for 'Very Very Strong' or 'Very Very Loud'. A review of Très Très Fort in the U.K. Guardian can be found online.

The U.K. newspaper The Independent has this to say about Staff Benda Bilili:

“Disabled by polio, a group of homeless Congolese buskers called Staff Benda Bilili are attracting Western film-makers, musicians and internet fans with their sweet and funky music. Andy Morgan reports from Kinshasa”
…
“The band who are weaving spells about our ears with their dulcet rolling rumba and keening vocals are the unrecognised geniuses of Article 15, the masters of survival. They call themselves Staff Benda Bilili, which, in Lingala, the lingua franca of this vast and variegated country, means something like "the people who see beyond..."Beyond prejudice, corruption, the lies of priests and politicians, the grimy veneer of daily life."

Ricky Likabu, described as the “backbone” of Staff Benda Bilili hopes that the group will be able to use some of the proceeds from their musical success to open opening a centre for the disabled and homeless people of Kinshasa. “He also dreams of touring Africa with Staff Benda Bilili, spreading the message of communal resilience and self-help.”

STAFF BENDA BILILI

MCDI - Making a Difference in Health Care

2009-05-08T15:54:00.006-04:00

THIS INFORMATION WAS TAKEN FROM THE MCDI WEBSITE

MCDI is a division of Medical Care Development Inc, Augusta, Maine. As an international NGO, MCDI has been accorded consultative status (Roster) with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. MCDI is a founding member of the CORE Group of PVO's.

==========================================

The mission of MCDI is stated as follows:

"The mission of MCDI is to enhance the well-being of peoples and communities in developing nations through superior technical assistance in health and socio-economic development. We will seek to empower families with the knowledge and behavior needed to improve infant and child survival and maternal health and care.

"We develop and disseminate tools, mechanisms and strategies that improve access and management of sustainable levels of health care services. We work with a full spectrum of organizations, from grassroots community groups to multi-lateral donor institutions, to enable continuing and progressive improvement in the quantity and quality of care available and affordable to the neediest people on earth, and seek to enhance their financial ability to benefit from these improvements."

==========================================

MCDI operates in the following African nations:

Angola
Benin
Burkina Faso
Cape Verde
Central Africa Republic
Chad, Comoros
Djibouti
Equatorial Guinea
The Gambia
Ghana
Guinea Bissau
Lesotho
Madagascar
Mali
Mozambique
Nigeria
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Somalia
South Africa
Sudan
Swaziland
Tanzania
Togo
Tunisia
Uganda and
Zanzibar

==========================================

MCDI has a wide range of interests and functions and they are listed below:

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Child Survival

- Immunization
- Combating diarrheal diseases
- Acute respiratory infection
- Integrated management of childhood illnesses
- HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment
- Maternal and newborn care
- Pneumonia case management
- Malaria
- BCC interventions
- M & E

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HIV/AIDS

- HIV prevention care and treatment
- Prevention of mother to child transmission
- Promotion of anti-retroviral therapy
- Stigma reduction
- Home-based care
- HIV/AIDS/TB
- co-infection
- BCC/IEC
- School-based peer-to-peer education / outreach

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Malaria Treatment & Control

- Reduction in malaria transmission through indoor residual spraying
- Intermittent presumptive treatment of pregnant women
- Proper case management of uncomplicated malaria using ACT
- Insecticide and drug resistance monitoring
- Improved diagnostic capacity
- BCC/IEC to promote compliance and bed net utilization
- M & E

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Architecture & Engineering

- Health facility surveys
- Preparation of design and tender documents for facility construction/ renovation
- Equipment specifications
- Construction management
- Equipment and plant maintenance training

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Orthopedic & Rehabilitation Services

- Provide disabled war victims with prosthetic and orthotic appliances
- Provide physical therapy services
- Support the social and economic reintegration of the disabled in Sudan
- M & E

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Health Sector Reform

- Design of health manpower rationalization / development strategies
- Health facility demand and location modeling
- Implementation of decentralization strategies

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Water Supply & Sanitation

- Construction of water supply and sanitation infrastruction, e.g., wells and latrines to reduce morbidity and mortality among children and women of reproductive age
- Improve knowledge and promote behavioral change regarding basic sanitation and disease prevention among school children and communitie
- Introduce home-based management of water quality

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Health Care Financing

- Evaluation and reform of national health care financing strategies
- Health sector expenditure reviews and national accounts
- Health system and program cost assessments
- Evaluation, design, and implementation of community financing, including risk-sharing and credit schemes
- Demand for care and pricing analyses

==========================================

These folks are doing a lot of good work, so if you get the chance, please drop by and take a look at the MCDI website .

BATONGA: GIRLS CHANGING AFRICA

2009-04-23T20:55:00.002-04:00

This article is taken from the Batonga website
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“Batonga is giving girls a secondary school and higher education so they can take the lead in changing Africa. We are doing this by granting scholarships, building secondary schools, increasing enrollment, improving teaching standards, providing school supplies, supporting mentor programs, exploring alternative education models and advocating for community awareness of the value of education for girls.

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VISION

There is a growing consensus that the most cost effective way to help African nations reduce poverty and improve the quality of life for their citizens is to support education for girls. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan summed it up when he said, “To educate girls is to reduce poverty.”

When a woman is educated, it changes not only her life but those of her children and her family. Educating women translates to higher economic productivity, reduced child mortality, improved family nutrition and health, and increased prevention of HIV/AIDS. It greatly increases the chances of education for the next generation—for both boys and girls.

The good news is that more girls are going to primary school throughout Africa than ever before. However, prejudice, poverty, travel distance and cultural traditions keeps less than 17 percent of them from going on to complete secondary school (grades 7 to 12). And only a handful of those who graduate from secondary school go on to university, vocational school or some form of job training.

If the great advances in primary education for girls in Africa are to have a lasting impact, there is an urgent need for similar advances in secondary and higher education for girls.

West African singer, songwriter and UNICEF International Goodwill Ambassador Angelique Kidjo made up the word “batonga.” At a time when education for girls was not socially acceptable in her native country of Benin, Angelique invented the word as a response to taunts when she was going to school. The boys did not know what the word meant, but to her it was an assertion of the rights of girls to education.

Later it became the title of a hit song of Angelique’s in which her lyrics address a young African girl and can be roughly translated as, “you are poor but you dance like a princess, and you can do as you please regardless of what anyone tells you.” Now Angelique has given this name to a new US-based non-governmental organization that has submitted its application for non-profit 501(c)(3) registered charitable status.

“Educating girls in Africa gives them the strength and the tools they need to be the mothers of change,” Angelique said when launching Batonga. “My mother was educated and she fought for me to go to school, despite pressure from many in our extended family who argued that only boys should be educated. And my daughter is now in school. Once an African woman is educated, she fights to ensure both sons and daughters receive an education. From this is born a tradition that is passed on and grows from family to family, from generation to generation—a tradition that is going to change the future for Africa.”
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MISSION

Batonga’s mission is to support both secondary school and higher education for girls in Africa. We are doing this by granting scholarships, building secondary schools, increasing enrollment, improving teaching standards, providing school supplies, supporting mentor programs, exploring alternative education models and advocating for community awareness of the value of education for girls.
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PROJECTS

The work of Batonga in Africa is to:

grant scholarships for girls to attend existing secondary schools (grades 7 to 12), with continued support as they progress through university, vocational school or other skill-based adult learning activities.

build secondary schools in a limited number of communities that can guarantee that a minimum of half the students will be girls and where the school, once built, will be operated through ongoing government and community support.

increase enrollment of girls in existing schools by building dormitory facilities where distance from school to home are too great, and providing parental support and incentives that help to ensure the girls stay in school.

improve teaching standards in secondary schools by supporting internet-based distance learning, wage incentives, enhanced summer programs, mentoring by master teachers and onsite teacher-training programs.

provide school supplies in the form of textbooks, library books, teaching materials, notebooks, paper, pens, pencils and other basic items which are often non-existent or in short supply.

support mentor programs for girl students that link them with older women who can serve as guides and elder ‘protectors’ as the girls face challenges both personal and social during the course of their education.

explore alternative education models such as mobile secondary schools and radio-based distance learning for remote communities or for families with cultural restrictions on girls being sent away from home for schooling.

advocate for community awareness to promote and support girls’ education by addressing the gender prejudice and cultural traditions that restrict the empowerment of women in general, and their access to education in particular.

In choosing the individual girls, schools and communities to receive support, priority is given to the most disadvantaged populations within the target countries. Particular attention is given to girls who are AIDS orphans or whose families are affected by AIDS. They will receive scholarships as well as financial assistance so that they can stay among their neighbors, friends and extended families in their communities rather than on the street or in an orphanage.

Batonga implements its mission at a country level by working in partnership with existing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have successful onsite experience in girls’ education. Our work is guided by the input of a Board of Advisors who have extensive experience in this field.

The principle international partnership is with World Education. Using education as a primary strategy, World Education unleashes the deep instinct, drive and potential of people at the community level through groundbreaking programs that build the skills, talents and confidence they need to take control over their futures.

Batonga is supported by The Opportunity Fund, a non-profit charitable organization established by John Phillips and Mary Louise Cohen with proceeds from two public interest lawsuits. The Fund supports charitable organizations in the United States and in Africa.

===================================

World Education is an implementing partner of Batonga. Visit World Education's website to learn more about their Girls' and Women's Education Initiative

Batonga

New On-line Book Helps Educators use ICT to Support Schools

2009-04-06T20:42:00.002-04:00

This information is taken from the web site of the “Educational Research Network for West and Central Africa” (ERNWACA):
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“The debate is no longer whether to use information and communication technologies (ICT) in education in Africa but how to do so, and how to ensure equitable access for teachers and learners, whether in urban or rural settings. This is a book about how Africans adopt and adapt ICT. It is also about how ICT shape African schools and classrooms. Why do we use ICT, or not? Do girls and boys use them in the same ways? How are teachers and students in primary and secondary schools in Africa using ICT in teaching and learning? How does the process transform relations among learners, educators and knowledge construction?

“This collection by 19 researchers from Africa, Europe, and North America explores these questions from a pedagogical perspective and specific socio-cultural contexts. Many of the contributors draw on learning theory and survey data from 36 schools, 66000 students and 3000 teachers. The book is rich in empirical detail on the perceived importance and appropriation of ICT in the development of education in Africa. It critically examines the potential for creative use of ICT to question habits, change mindsets, and deepen practice. The contributions are in both English and French."

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Anyone who is planning to start a school that will use ICT to enhance its offerings, or wishes to enhance the offerings of an existing school should take a look at this.

You can get the online version of the book:

in ERNWACA’s Virtual Library

or at the following link for: Both French and English Versions

THE Appropriate Technology Movement Lives with KICKSTART

2009-01-11T18:59:00.001-05:00

This article was taken from Kickstart’s website and was only moderately edited by the blogger.
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"KickStart’s mission is to help millions of people out of poverty. We promote sustainable economic growth and employment creation in Kenya and other countries. We develop and promote technologies that can be used by dynamic entrepreneurs to establish and run profitable small scale enterprises.

KickStart believes that self-motivated private entrepreneurs managing small-scale enterprises can play a dynamic role in the economies of developing countries.

These entrepreneurs can raise small amounts of capital ($100-$1,000 US) to start a new enterprise. KickStart then helps them to identify viable business opportunities and access the technologies required to launch the new enterprises.

In addition to promoting small enterprise development, KickStart’s technologies, expertise, and methods are widely applied throughout Africa to support programs in agriculture, shelter, water, sanitation, health, and relief.

Our History

In 1991, Martin Fisher and Nick Moon founded ApproTEC, which in 2005 became KickStart. Their model was based on a five-step process to develop, launch and promote simple money-making tools that poor entrepreneurs could use to create their own profitable businesses.

KickStart’s early efforts focused on building and food processing technologies. But in Africa, 80% of the poor are small-scale farmers. They depend on unreliable rain to grow their crops and have, at most, two harvests per year. With two valuable assets, a small plot of land and basic farming skills, KickStart realized that irrigation would allow people to move from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture.

In 1998, KickStart developed a line of manually operated MoneyMaker Irrigation Pumps that allow farmers to easily pull water from a river, pond or shallow well (as deep as 25 feet deep), pressurize it through a hose pipe (even up a hill) and irrigate up to two acres of land. Our pumps are easy to transport and install and retail between $35 and $95. They are easy to operate and, because they are pressurized, they allow farmers to direct water where it is needed. It is a very efficient use of water, and unlike flood irrigation, does not lead to the build up of salts in the soil.

With irrigation , farmers can grow crops year-round. They can grow higher value crops like fruits and vegetables, get higher yields (The Food and Agriculture Organization reports that irrigation increases crop yield by 100-400%) and most importantly, they can produce crops in the dry seasons when food supplies dwindle and the market prices are high. Because of the long dry seasons and growing population, there is potential for many thousands of farmers to start irrigating without flooding the market. There are local, urban and even export markets for the new crops.

Since 1991, 73,821 successful new businesses have been started in Africa using our tools. Today more than 800 new businesses are being created each month. Since each of these enterprises supports a family, we conservatively estimate that these businesses have already lifted 369,107 people out of poverty. Each year these businesses generate over $81 million in new profits and wages and have created 65,917 new waged jobs. In Kenya alone, the users of our tools are generating new revenues equivalent to 0.6% of the GDP.

KickStart continued to expand across Kenya, proving that our model was scalable. In 2000, KickStart expanded into Tanzania, and in 2004, we expanded into Mali. Both countries were significantly different from Kenya, yet our programs in both countries have flourished and grown, proving that our model is replicable. Other organizations have distributed our pumps across Africa and today, thousands are in use in Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Sudan and Rwanda.

1. Identify Opportunities

We look for business opportunities that many thousands of people can start with initial investments of no more than a few hundred dollars, and that are so profitable that entrepreneurs will recover their investment in the first three to six months.

This is “farm time.” Farmers are used to putting their money in the ground for short periods while they wait for the harvest. A payback period of one to two years will be unacceptable to them and so it is unacceptable to KickStart.

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These new businesses must initially serve the needs of other poor people. As the businesses grow and the entrepreneurs become more experienced they can expand their market to include the local town and then can start selling to middlemen who sell in the local city and even to export markets.

But these business opportunities usually require some kind of equipment or tool.

2. Design Products

We start with a challenge--design a tool that will generate income. Then, to make the task even harder, we have developed a list of design criteria. Every tool has to meet every criterion if it is to go into production.

Why do we make things so hard on ourselves? Because our mission is to get people out of poverty. Our tools (and everything else we do) are a means to that end. It is not enough to come up with a clever invention. It must be useful, productive, safe and durable.

Most technology trickles down to the poor. Things like cell phones have been revolutionary for poor people. But this technology was developed for the wealthiest consumers on earth and only became accessible to the poor thanks to economies of scale.

KickStart, on the other hand, is designing specifically for the poor. We know that our tools represent a significant investment for a family. We honor the commitment our entrepreneurs make by producing tools of “first world” quality.

Sometimes “Appropriate” Technology Isn’t
In designing technologies for the world’s poor, there is too often a focus on developing things that "we" think "they" need. Or worse, we develop a technology to address a problem that we have defined, without fully understanding local culture.

For instance, we (in the West) purchase technology that promises to save us time and effort. But in the developing world, time and effort are two assets that people have in abundance. So rather than trying to ease a burden, we look for tools that will help a person maximize the cash income they receive in return for their investment of time and labor.

Local Design for Local Solutions
The vast majority of KickStart’s design work is done in Nairobi, Kenya, at our Technology Development Centre. Our team of engineers, designers, and technicians develop and test prototypes to ensure performance, cultural acceptability and durability. It takes many months to invent, design and produce each new technology.

As challenging as the design phase is, this is the easiest part of the process.

Establish a Supply Chain

The greatest invention cannot change the world if it does not get of the inventor's workbench and into the market. KickStart builds a supply chain from the existing private sector to create a permanent and sustainable way to make and distribute our products.

High Volume, Centralized Manufacturing
Early attempts to bring "appropriate technology" to the world's poor failed. Mainly they failed because they thought their inventions could be made by local artisans spread across the countryside. The idea was that this would create jobs and provide valuable technology. The idea is appealing, but is fundamentally flawed.

KickStart's tools are made in large quantities in centralized factories—just like cell phones, computers, and cars. We contract with the most advanced factories we can find and even develop the jigs and fixtures needed for mass manufacturing.

From Factory to Retailer Shop
KickStart buys the finished tools back from the factory and recruits existing local wholesalers, distributors and retail shops. Most of our retailers are small agricultural-veterinary shops that sell seeds, fertilizer and other farm inputs. We have shops in every major city, town, and village. These are local business people, motivated by profit. They are already part of the community and know the local customers.

Private Sector vs. Giveaway
Why not just give them away? In a word--sustainability. More importantly, a profitable supply chain is self sustaining. As long as there is demand, the factory, the wholesalers and retailers will have an interest in ensuring our tools stay available.

It also means that we have a permanent network for replacement parts. Our tools are machines with moving parts and all moving parts wear out eventually. These parts can be changed easily by hand and without any tools. With our supply chain, a farmer can go back to her local retailer and for a few dollars buy a new set of piston cups to keep her pump working for another few years. Once the supply chain is in place, the real work begins--building awareness and demand.

Develop the Market

To lift as many people out of poverty as possible, KickStart technologies need to be as well known and easily available as commodities such as sewing machines and bicycles that help create businesses.

Our MoneyMaker pumps increase net farm income by 1000% on average. They are a significant investment for the typical small-scale farmer, as much as a quarter of a family's annual income. Our tools can help people make a lot of money, but they will have no impact if people do not know about them or don't understand their value.

KickStart has to spend a lot of time--and the majority of our resources--building awareness, developing sales teams and marketing the MoneyMaker pumps.

We are selling "big ticket" items to risk-averse buyers who have little cash. If a poor person buys a pump and it fails to make him money, his family could go hungry.

Rural customers can be hard to reach. They live miles from the closest village and often miles from the nearest road. They may come to town once a month. They might have a radio, listening when they can afford batteries. They might see a newspaper if someone brings one back from the city.

These are challenges that specific marketing and sales strategies are in place to overcome.

Promises Made. Promises Kept.
"MoneyMaker" is the brand name because that is a poor person's greatest need--a way to make money. We work to ensure that our products live up the name testing and offering a one-year guarantee. If anything goes wrong, the farmer can bring the pump back to the store for a replacement.

Our impact monitoring team visits farmers and sales people often follow up a sale with a visit to the farm to see how the pump is working.

Aspiration and Trust
For many poor Africans, farming has not been a successful way to make money. People dream of success in business and think it means a shop or a job in an office. Farming can be a tough, backbreaking job with not a lot of return. We are changing that perception as thousands of MoneyMaker farmers become prosperous businessmen and women.

More than 73,821 entrepreneurs have created successful businesses with MoneyMaker pumps.

KickStart's comprehensive global marketing campaign built on the message, "Farming is My Business," that links farming with business success. Sales are increasing and awareness of the pumps is creating buzz and more sales opportunities.

We have over 200 sales reps stationed in every major town, transit point and trading center in Kenya, Tanzania and Mali. They demonstrate the pump at retail outlets and organize on-farm demos. Customers won't invest in a pump until they are certain it will work. Community wide pumping competitions gather big crowds and generate excitement and interest.

It is labor intensive, but given the limited marketing channels and very cautious customers, these efforts are effective at creating demand for our pumps.

The good news is that this level of market building does not have to go on forever. Once our pumps are as commonly known as bicycles we can reduce our marketing efforts. Then KickStart will make a profit on each pump sold.

Measure and Move Along

KickStart’s model is based on the Diffusion of Innovation theory. When a new product is first introduced into any new market, sales are few and the costs per sale are high. In fact, as the market is building, items are sold at a loss until the market reaches a “tipping point.”

Right now it costs us $17 to get a family out of poverty, but once we reach this tipping point, our cost per family out of poverty drops to zero.

The more radically new the product is, the more expensive it is to make these early sales. In the private sector, these early losses are subsidized by investors. KickStart uses donor funds the same way a for-profit would use venture capital.

A Permanent Solution
By using donor funds as smart subsidies KickStart is building a permanent solution to poverty.

We have set three measures of success for ourselves:

1. Do the people whom we’ve helped out of poverty, stay out of poverty?
2. Can more people avail themselves of the solution, without additional investment from KickStart?
3. Is KickStart becoming more self-sufficient as an organization?

Because we are building a profitable, private-sector supply chain, replacement parts are available to keep existing pumps in operation (like all machines, our pumps have moving parts that wear out and need to be replaced). We know from our Impact Monitoring efforts that the entrepreneurs continue to expand and diversify their businesses.

Because we distribute through local retailers, new pumps will be available to anyone who wishes to purchase one.

Once we reach the tipping point, KickStart will make a profit on every sale. We will reinvest these to develop new technologies and enter new markets so that we get millions of people out of poverty.

Time to Tipping Point
The tipping point is reached when sales of a technology reach 15% to 20% of the total market potential. We predict that it will take between 12 and 14 years from market entry to tipping point.

Compare this to cellular phones, personal computers, or the internet, which were developed for and marketed to the wealthiest consumers in the world.

We expect that we will reach a tipping point in Kenya around 2014. Proving the KickStart model will change the way the world fights poverty.

KICKSTART

James Iroha Uchechukwu of Nigeria wins 2008 Prince Claus Awards for Photography

2008-12-28T16:20:00.000-05:00

These articles were taken from the Prince Claus Awards web site and also from the on line web site “The Power of Culture.” The web address where the original of each excerpt may be found follows each excerpt.

"James Iroha Uchechukwu (b. 1972, Enugu) is the leading light of a new generation of Nigerian photographers. By fusing the documentation of everyday reality with the creative language of imagery, Uchechukwu expands the possibilities of photography, pushing local art in new directions. His high quality images depict bodies in context, exploring the physicality of existence in the mix of cultures and influences that is 21st century Lagos, a megacity with urgent social issues. Fire, Flesh and Blood (2004), a group of images depicting open-air abattoirs, won the Elan Prize at the African Photography Encounters (2005). While documentary in inspiration, the series plunges the viewer into the chaos of colour, smoke and close-ups that are iconic in their intensity, capturing moments that are at once harsh, powerful and poetic.

Uchechukwu was instrumental in founding the Depth of Field (DOF) collective, bringing six talented young photographers together to create strong exhibitions in Nigeria and abroad. By combining their highly individual perspectives they offer insight into the complexity of their environment. Uchechukwu is also instrumental in mentoring a younger generation of photographers through workshops and seminars.

James Iroha Uchechukwu is awarded for his striking photographic work, for his stimulation of photography as a contemporary Nigerian art form, and for his energetic support of young artists.

The Prince Clause 2008 Awards
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Below is an article about Uchechukwu taken from “The Power of Culture.”

Photographer James Iroha Uchechukwu and the shape of blank spaces

December 2008 -The Nigerian photographer James Iroha Uchechukwu(Enugu, 1972) just completed a stay in Amsterdam at the Thami Mnyele Foundation studio. Within the framework of the Terrain Vague project, he combed the city looking for empty places, images that fit the bill of his concept of the phrase. His chosen directive was the definition applied by architect Professor Ignasi de Solá-Morales: "seemingly blank spaces that are either underused or abandoned, nondescript or just plain boring." Terrain Vague is a residency project in Amsterdam (Thami Mnyele) and Las Palmas (Casa África), with four participating artists. The project is organised by Multipistes, a multi-stage cooperative established by Abdellah Karroum and Eline Van der Vlist, cultural administrators for the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture. The results will be exhibited on Las Palmas and bundled into a publication.

Uchechukwu is one of the eleven winners of the Prince Claus Awards 2008. From the jury report: "James Iroha Uchechukwu is awarded for his striking photographic work, his stimulation of photography as a contemporary Nigerian art form, and his energetic support for young artists."

In the summer of 2008, Uchechukwu’s work was on display in the Netherlands at Snap Judgments, an exhibition compiled by Okwui Enwezor in the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum. On that occasion, Uchechukwu’s work was presented as part of the artists collective that he personally established: Depth of Field (DOF). Like in Terrain Vague, the focus in DOF is determined by the city. Uchechukwu, for example, photographed an abattoir in southern Nigeria and made group portraits of athletes and soda vendors. Regarding his importance as an African photographer from the African continent, Mark Sealy, curator and director of Autograph (Association of Black Photographers): "[…] Uchechukwu’s photographs function like hot molecules across the body politic of photographic institutions that regurgitate the same old canon […]."

The Power of Culture
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The Prince Claus Awards have been presented annually to artists, thinkers and cultural organisations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean since 1997.

About the Prince Claus Awards

The Prince Claus Awards initiative
The Prince Claus Fund approaches a changing group of experts in fields relevant to its mission of culture and development to nominate candidates.

Outstanding quality
Outstanding quality is an essential condition for an award. The most important consideration of the jury is the positive effect of a laureate’s work on a wider cultural or social field. The Prince Claus Fund interprets culture in a broad sense to encompass all kinds of artistic and intellectual disciplines, science, media and education.

A principal award and additional awards
The Principal Award of € 100,000 is presented during a festive ceremony at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam in December every year. The additional awards of € 25,000 each are presented in the Dutch embassies in the countries where the recipients live in December and January.

The Prince Claus Awards Books
Every year, the Fund publishes a book including the awards speech by one of the Honorary Chairmen, an extract of the lecture by a leading thinker, the jury’s report and extensive discussions of the laureates’ work by renowned experts.
Prince Claus Awards Books

Policy
The Prince Claus Fund maintains a broadly based view of culture that accommodates all kinds of artistic and intellectual disciplines, the transmission of culture, and education and media. In addition, the Fund is interested in the cultural and intercultural dimensions of fields that are not obviously a part of ‘culture’ in the conventional sense. Examples include technology, science and sport. These fields may also entail vocabularies and vernaculars – such as salsa, rap, combat sports and marathon running – that travel across the world and develop into universal languages that span different cultures. Interculturality is prominent on the Fund’s agenda.

Themes
The Fund is interested in all the concepts and activities that are relevant to the extensive field of culture and development. Each year the Fund chooses a theme in order to introduce an area of concern.

In its policy, the Prince Claus Fund is guided by four main themes: Zones of Silence (the locating and opening of areas of cultural silence); Creating Spaces of Freedom (the creation of cultural sanctuaries); Beauty in Context (the analysis of beauty in different cultural environments); and Living Together (the art of co-existence). Over the years, the Fund has also worked with a series of sub-themes, such as The Survival and Innovation of Crafts (as part of Beauty in Context), The Positive Results of Asylum and Migration (as part of Living Together) and Humour and Satire (as part of Creating Spaces of Freedom).

The Prince Claus Awards

SolarAid - Powering Up

2008-12-23T10:08:00.002-05:00

The following is a statement of strategy taken from the SolarAid web site:

SolarAid aims to enable the world's poorest people to have clean, renewable power. Solar power leads to better education, health, safety and income by allowing poor communities to cook, pump water, run fridges, store vaccines, light homes, schools, clinics and businesses, power computers and homes, farm more effectively, and much more.

SolarAid carries out DIY solar projects - training local communities how to build small scale solar devices such as solar powered radios and lanterns - and installs small solar systems for community centres, medical clinics, schools and other such communal infrastructure.

For the duration of this plan, we will:

1. Focus on sub-Saharan Africa, where the need is greatest. This will allow us to benefit from synergies as we develop a programme of activity that is geographically focused.

2. Focus mainly on the rural poor, who are the most impoverished and marginalised from energy networks, although we will work with the urban poor if their access to the grid is limited or non-existent.

3. Build a solid programme of DIY solar and installations before moving on to disaster relief and advocacy.

4. Work through international NGOs and local partner organizations rather than implementing directly. We will work with organizations that take a community-involvement approach to development.

5. Focus on programme sustainability through a microbusiness approach that encourages beneficiaries to develop their own solar or solar-powered businesses; sustainable technologies; and a gender approach.

6. Develop from the outset a solid system for monitoring and evaluation.

As SolarAid grows, it will educate and influence the public and policy makers on issues related to renewable energy and climate change and their impact on the world's poorest people.

The following article by John Keane - Head of programmes at SolarAid gives a clear idea about how SolarAid is helping to achieve its goals. [Published online by ICT Update

Solar power provides income-generating opportunities in East Africa

The introduction of solar power systems to rural communities in East Africa is providing new business opportunities, as well as affordable and safe electricity supplies.

Johari lives in the Iringa region of Tanzania. She used to work as a manual labourer, breaking rocks and selling the stones for building material. But now, after a short training course, Johari is assembling and selling small solar panels that can be used to power radios and recharge batteries for lamps and mobile phones.

Johari is one of several hundred people already trained by SolarAid, a charity set up in 2006 to fight climate change and global poverty. The organization is currently focusing its efforts in Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania, and promotes economic development by encouraging entrepreneurs to set up their own businesses building and selling solar products. The businesses provide new sources of income for the trainees, who can supply solar equipment at affordable prices, giving even the poorest people access to clean, renewable energy.

The market for inexpensive solar power is considerable. Using Tanzania as an example, only 2% of rural communities are served by the main electricity grid, forcing those without to burn kerosene, diesel and candles for light in the evening. All of these sources emit carbon dioxide, cause accidental fires and, in the case of kerosene and diesel, can lead to respiratory disease. Many people also rely on cheap but poor quality disposable batteries for their radios, which they have to replace regularly. The used batteries are rarely disposed of safely, and are often left to decompose on the ground, poisoning the land and posing a danger to livestock and small children.

The good news is that solar power is a viable and realistic energy alternative. In much of Africa there is plenty of free sunlight year-round that can be converted to electricity. There are, however, three significant obstacles preventing greater access to solar power:

financial barriers – solar power is traditionally seen as too expensive for the majority of people;
access to the market – it is difficult for many solar companies, often based in large towns, to reach customers living in
rural areas, and of course for potential customers to contact them;
education and awareness – many people do not understand how solar power works, what it can do, or how to choose a system and
maintain it. Many systems fail due to poor maintenance, misuse and incorrect sizing, affecting consumer confidence and the
reputation of solar power.
SolarAid is tackling the above problems through what it calls microsolar and macrosolar projects.

Microsolar

Microsolar projects provide opportunities for enterprising people to set up businesses selling solar power equipment. These
entrepreneurs market low-cost solar systems tailor-made to meet the local demand for affordable electricity. The projects
provide business management, technical and marketing training to enable individuals and community groups to establish and
operate successful businesses. For instance, part of the income generated by the project participants is reinvested to ensure
the long-term continuation of their businesses.

Microsolar projects attempt to overcome financial barriers through the promotion of small solar panels and products that,
because of their size, are less expensive than the more usual, larger solar systems. Of course their small size also means
that microsolar products only generate small amounts of power (typically less than 2 watts), but even 0.3 watts of power is
enough to play a radio all day long for years on end, or to power long-life or energy-efficient LED (light-emitting diode)
light bulbs. Rural communities benefit by being able to recharge their mobile phones using a reliable and low-cost energy
source. Farmers are then able to communicate with buyers to find the best prices for their produce, giving them increased
access to new markets and removing the need to deal with local middlemen.

Microsolar products are also small enough that travelling salesmen can easily transport them to rural areas that are not
connected to the grid, and display them in village markets where there is a high demand for solar products. Households that
start using microsolar products no longer need to buy as much kerosene or as many batteries, and can use the money for other
necessities.

Macrosolar

Macrosolar projects are designed to enable institutions in rural areas not connected to the electricity grid, including
schools, clinics and community centres, to benefit from electricity-generating solar installations (typically 100–500 watts).
All the projects are designed to improve community services and generate an income by including a business component such as
a phone recharging service.

In Mumbwa district in Zambia, for example, one solar installation provides lighting for a community centre, which houses a
small library and an area where local women’s groups meet in the evening to make clothes. The centre also uses the system to
earn money by recharging mobile phone batteries. A vocational training centre in Malawi, meanwhile, is also using its solar
system to provide lighting and power for a television. The centre generates extra income by charging community members who
want to watch sports events on TV.

While the ways in which each system is used may vary considerably, the themes common to all of these projects are community
use and income generation. If a system cannot generate funds, it is likely that it will fall into disrepair. SolarAid works
to ensure that every system installed includes a component that can be used to generate an income, and will enable the
community to save part of the proceeds and reinvest it in the system.

The larger solar power systems are often too expensive for many individuals or communities to purchase outright, but SolarAid
does not provide them for free. Around the world, too many solar projects have failed as a result of poor planning and the
lack of local participation, as community members feel they have no vested interest in the system. To avoid this, SolarAid
provides users with details of how much the components cost, how long they are likely to last and, based on this, works out
the minimum income targets that the community needs to meet per month and per year.

Investment

SolarAid’s projects give low-income rural communities access to an electricity supply that serves local needs and can
generate an income by selling solar-powered services. To apply for a system, community members first need to put together a
sound business plan detailing the benefits for end users, how the system will be used to generate an income, and how it will
be managed. They have to commit themselves both financially and physically, meaning that they also have to contribute through
some form of work, such as helping to install the system or teaching other community members about solar power. End users
also have to attend training courses prior to installation. This helps to ensure that the users know how to operate the
system correctly and how to monitor it and carry out repairs should part of it fail.

SolarAid is currently carrying out research into using solar systems to power water pumps in Malawi that can be used to
irrigate farmland. Irrigation has been shown elsewhere to dramatically increase, crop yield which in turn can lead to
increased incomes for the farmers. They are also developing a pilot project in Tanzania with NoPc, an organization working to
bring the internet to schools in rural areas.

SolarAid sees its microsolar and macrosolar projects as just the beginning of its work in Africa and elsewhere. Countries
with high levels of solar insolation (sunshine year-round can certainly look to solar power not only as an off-grid solution,
but also as power source that can contribute towards the expansion of the main electricity grid.

Ultimately, SolarAid wants to help governments understand the benefits of solar energy so that they are more likely to adopt
solar solutions in the future rather than relying on carbon-emitting fossil fuels.

SolarAid

FADECO: A Model To Follow

2008-11-20T11:42:00.000-05:00

This item was found in the “AfricaFocus Bulletin” and is a reprint of a portion of the article: Unbounded Possibilities: Observations on sustaining rural information and communication technology (ICT) in Africa Written by Ian Douglas Howard on behalf of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) - October 2008. References to “the author” in the text are to Ian Howard. Also, the text of the article uses British common usage of English and that that commonly used in the U.S.

Case Study #1: Grassroots ICT Development in Tanzania - FADECO

8.1 Background

FADECO is located in the small town of Karagwe in northwestern Tanzania near the Burundi and Ugandan borders. The town, marked by a police outpost, a few schools and a concentration of mud and some cinder block buildings, rests on a table-top plateau that overlooks lush valleys where bananas, coffee, and staple foods are grown. The road from Bukoba, the regional capital, is unpaved - like most roads in the large east African country. The drive takes several hours, weaving past farmers carrying their goods on their heads, bicycles, scooters and the occasional car, all cloaked inred clouds of dust along the winding and bumpy road.

Registered not-for-profit NGO founded in 1996 by a group led by current director Mr. Sekiku Joseph Mtabazi, FADECO is a small and very modest association. In addition to the director, its principal staff consists of Mr. Itegereize Titus Tobias (chair), Mrs. Elieth Kikaka, (office manager) and Mr. John Kibuuka (information technology manager). The organisation works to provide information resources that help families to improve their living standards. It serves as a vehicle for promoting new agricultural methods and other activities to heighten community and economic development.

Where possible these efforts have been commercialised as separate ventures. For example, Sekiku began a very small seasonal fruit drying business, FADECO Trading Co. Ltd., based on techniques that he promoted via FADECO. As well as acting as chair, Mr. Titus sells agribusiness products that support the farming techniques taught by FADECO, such as solar drying and composting. FADECO largely serves as a brand name for initiatives promoted by the group, as it has few resources.

The group has maintained an apolitical nature, partly to avoid any confrontation. As noted by Sekiku, the organisation allows the group to participate in not-for-profit initiatives where there is funding and no commercial interest. The association is best described as a manifestation of Sekiku's interests and a body that legitimises his endeavours.

In 1997, Sekiku, a self-taught technologist, began work on a small telecentre for the community under the FADECO umbrella. This centre was based on his property in the building next to his home that was previously used for the aforementioned fruit-drying business. Sekiku purchased used computers for a few hundred dollars each ... They were then connected to the internet via modems on a fixed-line telephone network. To pay for some of this equipment, Sekiku received small grants and donations from the Dutch NGO the Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation (Hivos), the British Council and others.

In 2004, after a few years of operation, he was able to buy a VSAT (a weighty purchase at more than USD 3,500) with the financial support of an NGO called the Regional Agricultural Information Network (RAIN). He purchased the VSAT so that he could avoid the onerous charges for internet access. To access the internet, his telecentre previously had to dial out to Dar Es Salaam, 1,500 kilometres away, with fees for these long-distance calls calculated based on distance. ,,,

In late 2006, ... Sekiku began to build a wireless network. His intent was to share the internet costs with other groups in Karagwe. He started his network with a few off-the-shelf wireless access points and at each site used directional antennas to point back to his base station at FADECO. In August of 2007, his network connected three clients: 1) a private secondary school; 2) the local office for the electric company (Tanesco); and 3) a local agricultural development NGO.

8.2 Observations

Sekiku explained the long process of discovery and frustration that he experienced while connecting these customer sites to his network. He toiled slowly, learning piece by piece how to install equipment and debug problems with help from colleagues via email and online chat, and using online references such as the WNDW books and internet forums. Eventually, however, he did persevere.

This case study demonstrates that learning is critical to allow such networks to be installed and supported. Sekiku was not taught, but learned how to build the network by searching for information and through trial-and-error. This learning process did require access to good learning materials, some counsel and reasonable access to equipment, but for the most part it was accomplished through sweat and passion. The process of taking ICT graduates from local universities and developing them into technologists can take considerable time. This process can also be counter-cultural for many, where the norm for young employees is for them to rarely be asked to make decisions on their own. This resistance to self-learning must be broken.

Opportunities for self-learning are further hindered because few of these capable minds have the opportunity to tinker with computers or other gadgets, or break them as do many techies from richer markets. Learning the troubleshooting process is central to becoming technologically minded. This analytical process can take considerable effort but can be done. The many ad-hoc roadside bicycle, car and television repair shops across developing nations are a testament that this ability exists everywhere but that it is not well cultivated by most developing nation schools. ...

In most ways the development of this network defies conventional best-practices, which recommend that ICT projects are planned, people trained, and equipment selected based on design and evaluation before commencing work. Sekiku's approach missed each of these steps, working in a piecemeal fashion with few resources and no formal training. ... and, yet, the network was built and still persists. Thus, it has succeeded in becoming sustainable.

The slow process that Sekiku undertook allowed him to build the needed skills at the same pace as the network's growth - not by design but due to access to equipment and funds. This slow development is contrary to standard practice. Generally, telecentres are built rapidly so that they can be operational as soon as possible. Building quickly is perhaps necessary where rent and salaries are high, and technical competence and equipment abundant. In this case growing slowly was not a problem and is the norm. By building slowly the staff can learn how to support the network as it grows in complexity. This contrasts with many other sites that the author has visited, where local staff members have not appropriated the skills required to support the systems or services provided by the site, resulting in their degradation.

8.2.2 ICT sites that do have readily available technical support should adopt new systems only at a pace at which their staff (or their support network) can competently learn how to use and support them.

In 2004, the author visited the University of Bamako at the behest of USAID, which had sponsored a project to install a wireless network there. Although the system was reasonably well installed by local and foreign contractors, it fell into disrepair within a few months. Funding for continued technical support had ended and local staff had limited knowledge of how to support the system. Thus, many of the sites were completely offline, while the network at large was so overwhelmed by viruses that it was virtually unusable. Staff had been provided training, but most had little prior technical experience and very little experience with networking.

Some believe that a techie can be made by sending someone to a five-week training program. The author has found, however, that the attributes required of techies (such as the ability to persist, self-learn and troubleshoot and profound curiosity about how things work) must already exist as they cannot easily be taught, but generally only fostered. This site reinforced this notion. Even after many weeks of comprehensive training by the implementers, these former administrators were evidently not transformed into technicians.

When the author's team arrived at the university, his team set about a slow process of teaching a few of the staff how to repair these problems themselves. They identified those staff members who possessed techie attributes and gave them responsibilities. Eventually, with a lot of guidance and on-the-job training, they were able to repair the network themselves. A little more than a year later, the university's staff independently and successfully moved several nodes and installed some new sites.

8.2.3 The need to localise expertise and provision for local repairs and within local means becomes more necessary with increasing distance from major urban areas.
The ability of local staff to support their network increases in importance as locations become more remote. In isolated places like Karagwe there are great costs to bring in expertise or equipment from commercial centres such as Dar Es Salaam, Nairobi, or Kampala.

8.2.4 Commercial grade wireless systems are often cheaper once training and long-term support is factored into total costs because of the inaccessibility and lack of local resources in rural developing communities. There is also a paradox in the use of low-cost wireless/ICT systems in the developing world. The factors that make this equipment relatively cheap in the developed world are less relevant in rural developing communities, where affordable equipment is generally of poorer quality and very basic. Low-cost wireless routers are designed to sit in the corner of a climate controlled office and connect a couple of laptops nearby. When these low-cost routers are subjected to the heat, humidity, and/or dust of many developing countries, they quickly fail.

When there is a lack of competent technical staff in rural developing communities, installing poorer grade equipment can raise support and training costs and increase risks of failure. This is often overlooked by western project proponents who see low-cost tools as a way to overcome limited resources and do not consider the costs of supporting such systems - costs which are largely absent in developed world cities. ...

8.3 Financial Analysis

Money flows through in small amounts and seasonally nourishes this business, not unlike the farms and other enterprises that surround it. Appendix one shows the FADECO telecentre's income statement for a typical month in 2007. As the bottom line of this table indicates, this business loses money, but it continues to persist because it is sustained by its operator, Sekiku.

The business model that has emerged for this site is one that generates revenue by providing a variety of ICT services including training, internet use, and wireless internet access to the three customer sites. There is not a formal business plan, nor a business per say, so this assertion is based on facts gathered on-site. The telecentre has also begun a FM radio station which supports itself through announcements, advertising and sponsored programs. Though not an internet service, the radio is an inexpensive way for Sekiku to extend the internet out to the poor, those who cannot read, and/or are not computer literate by reading what they find on the internet over the air.

Typically the telecentre earns about USD 370 per month. Costs can be broken down into operating and staffing costs. Operating costs are paid to service providers and amount to an average of USD 400 per month. Staffing costs amount to almost USD 340 per month. However, this figure indicates only what is paid in ideal circumstances, and staff members are typically only paid when there is sufficient money. Most often, they only take home only a fraction of this amount. Staff members are quasi-volunteers, with no formal status. They could best be described as "casual wage workers," meaning that their wage is not defined strictly, but they are paid according to the resources available to the telecentre.

While this arrangement allows FADECO to continue operating despite little revenue, it means that staff members treat their work as a hobby that they attend to after taking care of family and other personal interests. It limits the professionalism of the business ... [nevertheless] This flexibility in staffing is perhaps why FADECO and many, if not most, businesses can survive in such rural economies with wild variability in incomes due to seasonality and commodity price fluctuation.

Costs are also scaled in other areas, as with telephone use. Because neither the telecentre nor Sekiku have immediate access to credit, expenses are naturally scaled back when there is no cash to buy phone credit. These scalable costs allow the centre to adjust to fluctuations, though they make it quite difficult to plan or keep consistent service levels.

Beyond the telecentre, Sekiku is able to do ICT consulting work based on the expertise he developed through the telecentre. Mostly derived through conferences, consulting is his greatest source of revenue and nearly pure profit. In 2007, he earned about USD 6,000, up from USD 4,000 in 2006. Through these revenues Sekiku subsidises the telecentre, contributing approximately USD 200 per month to pay its staff, buy equipment to expand its services, and repay the three-year loan for the building. This, while the telecentre is a loss-making venture, it does provide Sekiku the opportunity to learn and gain income through consulting work

FADECO

Association for Progressive Communications

AfricaFocus

KENYA PUSHING TECHNOLOGY

2008-09-12T13:01:00.000-04:00

This Article is taken in its entirety from Pambazuka News, which in turn credits the New York Times for first publishing the article on July 20, 2008. The author and location are cited below.

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Kenya: Inside Nairobi, the next Palo Alto?
2008-07-24
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/internet/49685
Printer friendly version

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In the republic of innovation, life is unfair. A relatively small number of places — all in wealthy countries or in China and India — create nearly every important technological advance. Consider Wilfred Mworia, a 22-year-old engineering student and freelance code writer in Nairobi, Kenya. In the four weeks leading up to Apple’s much-anticipated release of a new iPhone on July 11, Mr. Mworia created an application for the phone that shows where events in Nairobi are happening and allows people to add details about them.
Inside Nairobi, the Next Palo Alto?
By G. PASCAL ZACHARY

IN the republic of innovation, life is unfair. A relatively small number of places — all in wealthy countries or in China and India — create nearly every important technological advance.

Other places must be content with technologies made by others. Yet people in these areas are dreaming of more.

Consider Wilfred Mworia, a 22-year-old engineering student and freelance code writer in Nairobi, Kenya. In the four weeks leading up to Apple’s much-anticipated release of a new iPhone on July 11, Mr. Mworia created an application for the phone that shows where events in Nairobi are happening and allows people to add details about them.

Mr. Mworia’s desire to develop an application for the iPhone is not unusual: many designers around the world are writing programs for the device. But his location posed some daunting obstacles: the iPhone doesn’t work in Nairobi, and Mr. Mworia doesn’t even own one. He wrote his program on an iPhone simulator.

“Even if I don’t have an iPhone,” Mr. Mworia says defiantly, “I can still have a world market for my work.”

Nairobi’s challenges are many. Internet use is relatively expensive and slow. Power failures are common. The city also lacks a world-class technical university. Mr. Mworia’s professors don’t offer lessons in the latest computer languages; he must learn them on his own.

Political instability can be a problem, too. Earlier this year, Kenya suffered widespread violence after its disputed national election. For weeks, work in Nairobi came to a halt.

“If you have a bright idea in Nairobi, you can’t just turn it around,” says Laura Frederick, an American working on an online payment system in the city.

Still, Nairobi is home to a digital brew that invites optimism about its chances for creating unusual innovations. The city has relatively few wired phone lines or networked personal computers, so mobile phones are the essential digital tool. Four times as many people have them as have bank accounts. Text messages are far more popular than e-mail. Safaricom, the dominant mobile provider, offers a service called M-pesa that lets customers send money with text messages. Nokia sells brand-new phones here for as little as $33.

While engineers in the United States lavish attention on expensive phones that boast laptoplike features, in Kenya there are 10 million low-end phones. Millions more are used elsewhere in Africa. Enhancements to such basic phones can be experimented with cheaply in Nairobi, and because designers are weaned on narrow bandwidth, they are comfortable writing compact programs suited to puny devices.

“Applications are heavy in America,” says Michael Wakahe, a Nairobi code writer. “Here we have to make them light,” because simpler hardware requires smaller programs. These can have advantages in wireless systems.

The distinctive digital experience in Nairobi inspires confidence in its youthful community of programmers, bloggers and Web enthusiasts. Over the past year, about 600 people in Nairobi — most under 25 — have coalesced into a group called Skunk Works, sharing ideas and encouraging new businesses. In June, it held an all-day workshop that included sessions on using the Android phone operating system from Google, developing applications for digital maps and creating content for mobile phones.

“Possibilities are opening up for us,” says Josiah Mugambi, one of the group’s organizers.

The prospect of marrying low-end mobile phones with the Internet is earning Nairobi notice from outsiders, who wonder whether the city might emerge as a test-bed for tomorrow’s technologies. One intriguing possibility is broadcasting local television programs on mobile phones.

In Nairobi’s highest-profile validation, Google opened a development office here last September. “Africa is a huge long-term market for us,” Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said by e-mail. “We have to start by helping people get online, and the creativity of the people will take care of the rest.”

Google hired seven recent university graduates, who digitally mapped the streets and structures of Nairobi for Google Maps. The company is now doing the same for other African cities. A leading Nairobi television broadcaster, NTV, has made a deal to present whole episodes of its programs on YouTube, a Google property.

Google plans to hire more people in Nairobi and is recruiting staff in half a dozen other African cities. In Nairobi, Google chose a veteran of the city’s Internet-access industry to lead its office. The company assigned two Americans here; like the presidential candidate Barack Obama, each is the child of a Kenyan and an American.

The company’s presence has raised ambitions. “When I interview people for jobs in this office,” explains Chris Kiagiri, a Google technology officer in Nairobi, “I ask them, ‘What would you like to see Google do in this market that it has not attempted anywhere else in the world?’”

“A lot of people assume Google is trying to replicate in Africa what it has done elsewhere,” adds Mr. Kiagiri, who transferred last year from Google’s head office in California. “Sure, we want to bring existing products into this market. But we also want to organize information locally in a way we haven’t done elsewhere.”

To be truly creative in a technological backwater is to defeat geography. Even as powerful a technological force as Google might not succeed. But dreaming of greatness, Kenyans are pushing Google to expand into completely new areas.

One local programmer, Timothy Mbugua, wants Google to enhance its communication backbone so he can use it to build a money-transfer business that would charge lower rates than existing services. While it sounds daunting, Mr. Mbugua explains, “I’m only saying to Google, ‘This is what I need from you in order to execute my idea.’”

* G. Pascal Zachary teaches journalism at Stanford and writes about technology and economic development. E-mail: gzach@nytimes.com

* This article was first publish in the New York Times on 20 July 2008.

ISSN 1753-6839 Fahamu

COMPUTER HUB LAUNCHED IN SOUTH AFRICAN TOWN

2008-08-22T16:57:00.001-04:00

[This article was taken in full from IOL, whose website is listd below]

Computer hub launched in Philippi
July 30 2008 at 03:03PM
By Nomangesi Mbiza

New hope for the jobless in Philippi has come with the launch of a computer hub which will allow people to register for work, create CVs and get information about job opportunities and skills development.

The Umsebenzi Job Opportunities Information hub, which was launched on Tuesday by Western Cape Transport and Public Works MEC Marius Fransman, is situated at Philippi's Tsoga Centre. The hub is one of 30 planned for the Western Cape. The sites are a government initiative to help provide young people, women and the disabled with access to a computer and an opportunity to register on an Internet-based system.

Fransman said they chose to start in Philippi because it was such a disadvantaged area. "Philippi is a community that has been bypassed and sidelined," he said.

The department of transport and public works will also post employment opportunities at the information hubs and will use information loaded there to recruit people.

Fransman said the hubs would also provide an accurate indication of the skills levels among the unemployed.

"This afternoon I am hosting more than 100 business executives to appeal for their support for this initiative," he said.

The hubs each have 30 computers sponsored by Dell Computers. The company's Rubiena Duarte said they had selected the project because of their commitment to skills development, reducing unemployment and empowering people through knowledge.

Lerato Molebatsi, of Sanlam, another of the sponsors, said they were delighted to be involved in the pilot programme. "This is truly a grassroots empowerment initiative."

Ward councillor Monwabisi Mbaliswano said he was happy that Philippi had been chosen because it was one of Cape Town's poorest areas.

Samora Machel resident Zoleka Maso said: "It is really going to help us."

IOL

SOPUDEP - A SCHOOL IN PERIL

2008-08-07T15:04:00.001-04:00

this article was taken from the SOPUDEP website which quotes Kevin Site's "expose" on Yahoo.
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For several months now, a variety of characters have

appeared at the school to demand they vacate the premises. Some falsely stated they were descendants of the original owner but mostly it was an attempt to pressure the school by disrupting its normal operation. On Monday July 28, 2008, the Mayor of Petion-Ville, Lydie Clark Parent, delivered an eight (8) day eviction notice to SOPUDEP to vacate their school premises. This action is NOT legal as SOPUDEP has a 12-year lease on the property that expires in 2012. The school's rights under this contract were ultimately respected by the Mayor's office and the government of Latortue in 2004-2006 and has subsequently been recognized as valid by the Ministry of Education and the Preval administration.

On Tuesday, August 5, 2008, the SOPUDEP school will begin the procedure to file an injunction against Mayor Lydie Clark Parent and ask the court to uphold their binding 12-year lease at their current location. In an effort to show Mayor Parent and the Haitian court the importance of the SOPUDEP school, they ask that all people of goodwill and solidarity please write a letter expressing their support for the school and its more that 450 students. These letters will be critical to showing the wide-spread support SOPUDEP school has throughout the world in the coming days and weeks. Please take five minutes of your time as soon as possible and help save this wonderful resource for Haiti's poorest children in Petion-Ville, Haiti by writing a letter on their behalf today!

Background
Lionel Wooley was an assassin for the regimes of Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier. In exchange for killing opponents of these repressive regimes in Haiti, he was allowed to steal the property of his victims and claim them as his own. In late 2000, Lionel Wooley died in exile in Miami and the government expropriated the properties he had stolen. Most were returned to the surviving members of the original victim’s families but a few had no known descendents. Among these few properties was a dilapidated mansion, burned and pillaged by an angry local community after the departure of Baby Doc. It is situated in the hills of Petion-Ville behind the Montana Hotel .

The property passed through Mayor Sulley Guriere of Petion-Ville, to SOPUDEP whose membership actively participates in the National Literacy Project. Although the literacy campaign is designed for adults 30-60, SOPUDEP was deeply affected by the number of school age children who attended classes as well. They were mostly children of the poor whose parents could not afford to send them to school and could not find a place for them in the over crowded classrooms of the already overwhelmed public schools system. For this reason SOPUDEP made a decision to turn the property into a school for the most vulnerable and poor children of Petion-Ville. The SOPUDEP team hired a lawyer and began the legal process for acquiring a long term lease of the property in 2000 as well as restructuring their organization to meet the requirements of the Haitian government to operate the school. SOPUDEP was given a 12-year lease on the property that expires in 2012 and was provided accreditation by the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Education to conduct a school at the facility.

Their initial enrollment totaled 160 but has now grown to over 480 as of the 2007/08 school year. It stands as a beautiful example of transforming a gruesome legacy of the past into a symbol of hope for the future.

Since its founding, the school also added a government funded hot lunch program to supplement the diet of their students and staff. For many it was their only meal of the day. When President Aristide was ousted in 2004, funding for the program ceased. That same year the school suffered threats of attack from militia groups and unelected officials. Thankfully, no harm was inflicted on them. SOPUDEP struggles each month to pay its staff and continue the hot lunch program that was reinstated in March of 2008. SOPUDEP is a wonderful example of a community initiative founded more on courage and love than money. They try not turn down any poor child of the community for lack of funds.

For further information about SOPUDEP school please visit:

-Kevin Site's expose of the school for Hotzones on Yahoo:
http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs4095

SOPUDEP

AFROAMERICA XXI

2008-08-06T12:28:00.000-04:00

This article is reproduced entirely from the AfroAmerica XXI Newsletter #2
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In response to the continued lack of investment, economic marginalization and human rights violations, leaders of African descendant communities from Latin America have created AFROAMERICA XXI (AAXXI). This is a coalition with chapters in thirteen (13) countries in the Americas and partnerships in Africa, the Caribbean, the United States and Europe.

Of the approximately 540 million people in the Latin America, 150 million are Afro Latinos. Similar to others of African descent, Afro Latinos have suffered the ravages and devastation of slavery and continue to suffer from persistent acts of racism. Politically and economically isolated, most Afro-descendants throughout Latin America do not have legal protection, political representation, land rights, human rights or access to quality healthcare.

Brazil (52%) and Colombia (26%) are the countries with the largest Black populations in South America. Fortunately, Brazil and Colombia have both recently developed the most extensive anti-discrimination legislation for African descendants in Latin America.

AFROAMERICA XXI (AAXXI) is a coalition of African Descendant organizations designed to provide solutions to the various issues plaguing African descendant populations in their respective localities and on the international level through which African descendants from the Americas [a] have defined their goals for this century [b] have an Action Plan to attain these results [c] collectively fight the problems of racial discrimination, marginalization and exclusion [d] advocate for their interests nationally and internationally and [e] form links worldwide with the African Diaspora and support one another.

With our acquired experience and focus on accomplishing our action plan (1998-2021), we continue to strengthen our organizations and build new and innovative programs to improve the living conditions of African descendants from Latin America. We hope, with your support, to continue this work.

WHAT WE DO

*Bring visibility to African descendants on the local and international levels.

*Strengthen African descendants' human resources, raise levels of self-esteem, improve community organizational capacities and increase participation in the democratic process of governance, improve the administrative, financial and programming abilities for the development of Afro-descendants' Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) and interconnect the Black organizations and communities in this hemisphere.

*Find support for projects of the African descendants' civil society organizations that target solutions to the high-priority problems that African descendants from Latin America face.

*Obtain support from the governments of the region and international agencies for programs that are a high-priority for African descendant populations, such as those that work toward the reduction of poverty.

PROGRAMS IN LATIN AMERICA

Democratic Participation: Our programs look to enhance the roles of Afro-Latino representatives and organizations and to advocate for government responsiveness to the needs of their communities. We work to promote local political participation of Afro-Latino organizations and leaders. We build roundtables with representatives of the government to collect feedback from representatives of the Afro-Latino community on the greatest challenges they face in their respective countries. Even though these goals are important, only a few Afro-Latino organizations have experience in working towards achieving them. We have identified experts that travel to different countries on behalf of AAXXI and meet with local organizations to develop training methodology that is participatory, dynamic and based on the realities of the particular communities. Also, we work with legislators and other leaders to introduce legislative proposals.

Education: AAXXI is lobbying on the local and national levels to re-design school curriculums and incorporate Afro-Latino historical content that is appropriate for the different levels of the educational system. We are also working to increase access to middle, secondary and higher education, particularly for the rural, and low-income urban sectors. We are promoting and establishing scholarship funds for Afro-Latino students from low income families.

Health: AAXXI has designed and implemented effective campaigns and programs in the areas of preventive, reproductive and sexual health care among young people and adults. There are special programs for the prevention of AIDS, a disease that has had an alarming increase in the Afro-Latino population in the past 10 years. We are also working to recover and use natural medicines and traditional medicinal practices of Afro-Latino culture. Equally important is the effort to advocate for the improvement of physical infrastructure and professional staff at the health centers in Black communities.

Economic Empowerment: AAXXI is building methodologies to foster the creation of new micro-enterprises and to strengthen those already existing among African descendants in Latin America. This will be done by providing technical support, lobbying and advisory services. The principal characteristics of this effort are: respect for the culture and increasing the participation of the communities in these initiatives. With the help of our different tourist programs, we are also supporting Black businesses and stimulating the growth of markets.

Human Rights: AAXXI is promoting the defense of human rights in the Afro-Latino community by developing and trainings groups of Afro-Latino lawyers and leaders. These groups are helping with issues of land protection, identifying cases and victims of racial discrimination and racially motivated police harassment.

We are also developing materials to distribute in the community and among Afro-Latino organizations. These materials include, "Compendio Normativo de Acciones Afirmativas a Favor de las Comunidades Afrolatioamericanas" and "Los afrodescendientes y los mecanismos de protección nacional y regional contra actos de discriminación racial, racismo, xenofobia e intolerancia." The first of these books contains all of the legislation supporting the rights of African Descendant peoples in Latin America, as well as international agreements on this subject. The second book is a hand book addressed to leaders in Latin America to help them identify cases of racial discrimination and police harassment and to know the legal action to take in those cases.

AAXXI is advocating for Afro-Latino issues at the Organization of America States (OAS). We are also registered at the OAS.

Media: AAXXI is producing a TV program in Colombia called "Sello Negro La Voz de los AfroColomianos." The TV program encourages discussing and educating the public on Afro-Colombian issues and racial discrimination. AAXXI is preparing to expand its website to include information about AAXXI activities, educational materials, and training methodologies. Finally, AAXXI is preparing a series of articles and reports on human rights and AAXXI's activities for Afro-Latino publications throughout the hemisphere. For this last initiative, we are calling on African-American organizations and international agencies to help us disseminate this information by requesting our published material and including it in their organizations' literature.

In all programs, we ensure the participation of women and youth. We also conduct focus groups in order to promote their ideas and activities.

PROGRAMS IN THE USA

Our office in the USA is integrated by an active group of Afro-Latinos and African-Americans. We are creating new ways to bring visibility to the Afro-Latino population, exchange experiences and solutions between Afro-Latino and African-American communities and to identify consortium organizations and promote and facilitate joint ventures.

Tourist Program: We have developed a program where US citizens can come and discover the Black Communities of Latin America through trips. You can learn about the Afro-Latino history, culture and the work that is taking place in Black community organizations. At the same time, you will be supporting Afro-Latino businesses, and enjoying traditional festivals, food, beautiful beaches, music and dance of African descendants in Central and South America.

Youth professional attachment: This program will begin in 2008, through which young Afro-Latino members from an organization in Latin America serve for three (3) months as temporary staff interns at Afroamerica XXI - USA, acquiring knowledge in English, while learning about international agencies, and lobbying. Also, these youths will be building links with African-American youth and universities.

Forums/Conferences: AAXXI prepares and conducts educational presentations during each year about the conditions of the African Diaspora from Latin America. This presentations help to build a dialogue with the international community, organizations and agencies in the USA.

WAYS TO HELP
Individuals and/or organizations can:

Volunteer to translate articles or proposals from Spanish to English.

Support new or existing programs and conferences developed by Afroamerica XXI.

Sponsor or support the visit of an Afro-Latino leader to your country or another country.

Participate in our educational rours to African descendant communities of Latin America.

Give a donation and help us to combat racial discrimination, exclusion and marginalization in the Americas.

Contact us with your suggestions or comments to improve our work.

AFROAMERICA XXI - USA
P.O. Box 3072
Washington DC 20010
www.afroamerica21.org
international@afroamerica21.org
aa21international@yahoo.com
Phone: 202-460-6446 / 202-269-1586

IPC PROMOTES FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

2008-05-02T20:10:00.002-04:00

The following statements were taken from the IPC web site and quoted without editing. There is much more informaion on the IPC web site, and I have only quoted it in part to illustrate some of the points that I consider to be significant.

What is Food Sovereignty ?

"Food Sovereignty is the RIGHT of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own agricultural, labour, fishing, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies."

What is IPC ?

"The IPC is a global network of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Social Movements concerned with food sovereignty issues and programs. It includes social organizations representing small-scale farmers, fisher folk, indigenous peoples, pastoralists, agricultural workers' trade unions; sub-regional/regional CSOs which act as regional focal points; CSOs and networks with particular expertise in lobbying and advocacy which act as thematic focal points.

"The IPC serves as a facilitation mechanism for the dialogue between Social movements/CSOs and the UN agencies dealing with food and agriculture. In particular, the IPC facilitated the participation of CSOs to the World Food Summit, the World Food Summit: five years later and the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development"

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WHO WE ARE

"The International NGO/CSO Planning Committee - IPC is a global network of NGOs/CSOs concerned with food sovereignty issues and programs. It includes social organizations representing small farmers, fisher folk, indigenous peoples, agricultural workers' trade unions; sub-regional/regional NGOs/CSOs which act as regional focal points; and NGO networks with particular expertise and a long history of lobbying and action and advocacy on issues related to food sovereignty and agriculture, which act as thematic focal points.

"Many of these civil society actors have been engaged in global networking on these issues since the time of the NGO Forum organized in parallel to the World Food Summit (WFS) of 1996. The WFS was the most important international conference on the '90s focusing specifically on food security and, as such, it gave expression to one of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), which now provide a basis for the international community's development agenda.

"Thanks to a process which has developed over the past seven years, these NGOs/CSOs have increasingly achieved an effective presence in the work of relevant international organizations on a platform of food sovereignty, right to food, and food sovereignty. The two NGO/CSO Fora organized in Rome in 1996 and 2002 in parallel to the WFS and the WFS:fyl, based on the principles of civil society self-organization and autonomy, have made a particularly important contribution to strengthening civil society networking and impact.

"The process of organization for the 2002 Forum, which benefited from the support of the FAO, involved thematic reflection and decentralized discussions at national and regional levels over a period of two and a half years. It has led to the development of an innovative mechanism for interaction on issues of food sovereignty between the NGOs/CSOs and social movements, on the one hand, and, on the other, governments and international institutions. Particular attention has been given to FAO initially. This was due to need to mobilize for the WFS:fyl and in view of FAO's role within the UN system as focal point for food sovereignty in the follow-up to the WFS and the implementation of the MDGs.

"Other international organizations targeted in the recommendations of the 2002 NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty include IFAD, WFP, the World Bank and the WTO. At the same time, the decentralized process of debate over many months which culminated in the Forum helped NGOs/CSOs to engage - often for the first time - in debate on food sovereignty issues with their governments at national, sub-regional and regional levels.

"The IPC is not a centralized structure claiming to represent its members. Instead, its legitimacy is based on its ability to bring to the attention of its interlocutors the concerns and the battles which a broad diversity of civil society organizations are conducting daily in their field work and their advocacy at local, regional and global levels. It serves as a mechanism for diffusion of information and training on issues regarding food sovereignty and food sovereignty. It promotes fora in which NGOs/CSOs and social movements involved in food and agriculture issues can debate, articulate their positions and build their relationships at national, regional and global levels. It reinforces the effectiveness of civil society lobbying by strengthening their capacities for analysis and alliances. It facilitates dialogue and debate between civil society actors, governments and other stakeholders at all levels."

Visit the IPC site for more information.

CENTRE SONGHAI - Help For The Farmers

2008-03-11T19:11:00.001-04:00

While the contents of this post was lifted in its entirety from the web site of Songhai Centere it was taken from different pages in the web site to give the reader a broad scope of the organization's activities in a very short space.

In the early 1980's, a small group of people led by Father Godfrey Nzamujo determined that the level of development in Africa was grossly insufficient and sought to restore dignity to the African people. The result was the creation of the Songhai Center. Named after the famed 15th-century Malian empire,

Songhai is a center for training, for production, research and development of sustainable agricultural practices. The movement seeks to augment the standard of living of Africa's populations using the following methods for the creation of viable agricultural enterprises:

Through the use of local resources, traditional and modern methods;
Through the hybridization of traditional and modern agricultural practices;
Through the instruction and implementation of effective management;
Through the encouragement of individual and communal responsibility and initiatives;
Through the inclusion of diverse opinions.

The ambition of Songhai is to foster an environment of creativity and innovation and as a result, reestablish a stable African society. Songhai draws inspiration from "the Timbuctu effect" - Pride, progress and effective result-, by clearly emphasizing all the advantages Africa offers. Citizens can therefore benefit from globalization rather than be excluded from it or solely bear the weight of its effects.

RESSOURCES

Funds are collected from the sale of Songhai's own products as well as grants from various partners. Most of Songhai's resources are used to finance production activities while a small portion is allocated to administrative expenses. The ongoing objective is to attain 100% financial independence.
Songhai is an institution which seeks to exist via its own efforts and which finances its programs primarily from revenues generated by its own activities. In addition to the internally generated funds, several partners support many of Songhai's investment projects. They include the following organizations:

USAID (United States Agency for International Development) - principal partner
Songhai Support Group (California)

UNDP , HCR, (United Nations Agencies)

RABOBANK Foundation ( The Netherlands)

Accion Verapaz (Spain)

SID (Society for International Development)

IDRC (International Development Research Centre)

Coopération Française (France)

CCFD (Comité Catholique contre la Faim et pour le Développement - Catholic Commission against Hunger and for Development) (France)

Electriciens du Monde (France),

OXFAM Quebec

Songhai France, bringing together several support associations in France (Solidarité Songhai, Songhai-Chasselay, Collecte pour les jeunes installés -Collection for young farmers -, the Parish of Froissy-St, André...) and the governments of Benin

SONGHAI SOME FACTS AND FIGURES

More than 400 students in training in the centers located in Porto Novo, Savalou, Parakou, and Kinwedji for an 18-month training period.

More than 250 farms established in all the regions and managed by the young people trained in Benin; they are brought together under a Network involving local coordinating units.

More than 300 participants from various countries and from all walks of life take part each year in short-term training programs

More than 150 permanent staff, facilitators, technicians and administrators

More than 4,000 visitors every year.

More than 40 partners from public and private institutions, NGOs, associations, universities, and international institutions like USAID and UNDP.

TRAINING PRODUCTION RESEARCH MECHANIZATION TELECENTER PRODUCTS & SERVICES

For agriculture to become a viable force of development, it must be extensive and holistic, going beyond purely agricultural knowledge (integrated production - animal husbandry, fish farming, appropriate technologies) and include education in management, organization, and planning.
In pursuing these goals, Songhai is involved in various activities, highlighting sectors leading up to and resulting from agricultural production.
Its principal activities are completely inter-related. They are as follows:

The objectives of the agricultural production are as follows:

Promote the integrated system of agricultural production (diversification).

Manage the production units with a goal of making them profitable as well as remaining conscious of the environment.

Improve the productivity of production units (training given by Songhai cannot be credible if it is not validated on the field via profitability and research).

Supervise the student farmers and trainees.

Provide agricultural services for the installed farmers and the Songhai centers (ex. production of seeds and materials).

BIOGAS

To put the finishing touches on the practice of integration and bring together all the sectors, a biogas production system was established. Methane is produced from animal excrement, plant wastes, and sewage water (from showers and toilets). This is used as a source of energy. Today, the methane from the system feeds the kitchens of the student farmers' canteen and the center's restaurants.

THE GREEN METHOD OF WATER PURIFICATION
As a method for refining polluted water, the green method of purification
consists of purifying water by planting aquatic plants such as water hyacinth, water lettuce, and a fern called azolla. These plants have the tendency to absorb organic materials, which are suspended in water. After running through a certain number of basins where the plants are cultivated, the water, which is now sufficiently filtered, can be used again for fish farming

Centre Songhai

Action Aid – Maintaining Focus

2008-03-06T12:32:00.002-05:00

While much of the world has been fixated on the violence that followed flawed elections in Keny’s presidential elections in December of 2007, hard working NGOs have been able to keep a focus on other problems in the country as well.

Below is a report published by ActionAid on February 29, 2008 trying to raise awareness about a drought that is threatening lives in of people as well as livestock in Kenya.

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Kenya’s pastoralist communities in crisis

29 February 2008

Drought threatens North Eastern Province and areas of the southern Coast region.

“Pastoralist people are facing crisis in Kenya’s North Eastern Province (bordering Somalia) and in some neighbouring districts of Coast province, because of drought and the consequent pressure on grazing land warns ActionAid.

Enrico Eminae, ActionAid’s coordinator in North Eastern Province warned that 35,000 pastoralists in Takaba district are already at risk.

He said: "People in over 28 trading centres in Takaba are relying on water delivered in trucks because shallow wells and water pans have dried up.

"For pastoralist communities in particular, lack of water signals hunger because their livestock, their only source of food and income, are at much greater risk. “It also triggers conflict over resources as different clans crisscross each other’s territory in search of pasture and water."

Current flashpoints

In Sericho, the Ewaso Ngiro flood plains have dried up with the river receding to about 100km upstream. Communities have to rely on shallow wells dug into the now dry riverbed.

The situation in Takaba is even more fragile as pastoralists congregate around Takaba town with their livestock in search of water.• Conflict has occurred in the villages of Darwed, Didkuro and Wangaidahan as pastoralists move in search of alternative livelihoods.

In Tana River and Ganze (Coast Region), pastoralists are also on the move. Grazing and water areas are diminishing fast and resources are overstretched.

Enrico Eminae concluded: "Animals' health is deteriorating fast. If the long rains fail in March there could well be a crisis. Even if rain falls, the pastoralists' situation is now so fragile, that flash floods could easily compromise the survival of their animals."
http://www.actionaid.org.uk/100002/about_us.html
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No one would argue that the post election violence in Kenya was not an extremely news story and it deserved the degree of attention that it received from the global media. Unfortunately, much of the media attention contained elements of distortion that placed an unwarranted amount of blame for the violence in the early days on ethnic strife. Now that the sensational “photo ops” are no longer in abundance, many of the journalists who were hanging on every new development in that story have left Kenya in search of newer sensational stories.

This pattern of behavior by the major press outlets in the western world make it difficult for organizations like ActionAid to educate the world about other problems that need to be addressed as well; and they are reduced to releasing their own statements about matters of life and death that don’t make it to the major newspapers and television broadcasts.
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ACTIONAID

Who They Are:
In their own words: "ActionAid is a unique partnership of people who are fighting for a world without poverty, in which every person can exercise their right to a life of dignity. We work with poor and marginalised people to help eradicate poverty by overcoming the injustice and inequity that cause it."

How They work
“We work with poor and marginalised communities to help them recognise, promote and secure their basic rights, and control their own development.”

Their Strategy
“In 2005, ActionAid agreed a new international strategy, Rights to end poverty, which sets clear and ambitious priorities to guide our staff and partners over the next five years. Our strategy tackles head-on the unacceptable truth that poverty and injustice remain deeply entrenched in many parts of the globe.

If we are to fulfil our mission to eradicate poverty and injustice, we must take sides with poor and excluded people and communities and help them to secure their rights.

Women’s rights and gender equality offer the key to poverty reduction and achieving them is a central focus of our strategy.

We will bring greater focus and depth while continuing to work on the areas of education, food and HIV and AIDS.

To these we have added new priorities, developing our policy and programme work on human security in situations of violent conflict and emergencies, and on democracy and governance.

Strategic priorities:

women’s rights
the right to education
the right to food
the right to human security in conflict and emergencies
the right to life and dignity in the face of HIV and AIDS
the right to just and democratic governance
The strategy provides clear direction for organising and governing the growing ActionAid family and its relationships with the outside world. It sets out how we will make ourselves more accountable, both to the poor and excluded people with whom we work and to our supporters and funders.”

ACTIONAID

Top 10 Open Source Tools for eActivism

2008-02-06T00:04:00.015-05:00

This article is a bit dated, but the information is still valuable. Open source software is a valuable tool for the aware NGO manager. This article was found at the “Designing for Civil Society Blog” which reported the article from : “Steven Clift's excellent “Democracies Online Newswire”.”

Top 10 Open Source Tools for eActivism
by Dan Bashaw & Mike Gifford Jan 7, 2004

People have been trying to use the web to create change from its conception. Along with the rest of the Internet community, activist focus has moved away from producing static content to building on- line communities. There are a number of Application Service Providers (ASPs) providing external eActivist applications that can be integrated with the look and feel of an organization's existing web site, but we will not be evaluating ASPs in this article. Instead, we want to discuss eActivist applications that can be run from the same server as the organization's existing website. Furthermore, we will be looking at Free Software applications that can be downloaded, modified, and distributed by the users of the software.

Broadly speaking, the eActivist applications described below can be categorized as either informational, aiding in efficiently spreading your message, or actionable, allowing your users to act on their information and understanding of issues. Although the distinction can be useful in deciding which tool to use, many applications have now evolved to include elements of both.

The first five applications examined are primarily informational: four are tools for building web sites, and have considerable overlap in core features, though each has different strengths, weaknesses, and appropriate uses. The fifth focuses on eNewsletters.

We have provided just a brief sketch of the functionality of each application. Describing the type of interaction they allow and with whom. Outlining their key strengths and weaknesses as we see them. Providing some activists tips for their use and providing an example.

We feature one example, but have also listed alternatives which are worth considering.
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1. ActionApps (On-line Magazine/Content Sharing) “http://www.apc.org/actionapps/”
Interaction: Minimal interaction between visitors & content authors
Strength: Publishing Control & Extensive Cross Site/Server Publishing Permissions. A good publishing tool.
Weaknesses: Often too big & cumbersome for organizations that don't need this type of control.
Activist Tips: Some organizations may want to share content between other related organizations. Set up within the Association of Progressive Computing, this model made a lot of sense to member organizations which already had close associations. Some coalitions are using this type of permission based content sharing to maintain an issue related site which is fed by a number of member organizations.
Example: http://www.rabble.ca/
Alternatives: slashForums, Blogs, Back-End and Active (below) can all provide content non-interactive content publishing.
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2. PostNuke (Slash Forums/Portals) “http://www.postnuke.com/”
Interaction: Plenty of opportunities for users to submit stories, links, & comments for publishing on the site. Dialogue is usually shaped through a response to an article posted by the editorial team.
Strengths: Lots of add on modules, often installed with a web hosts default control panel.
Weaknesses: Many slash sites are hard to modify to look like anything but a slash site. Content becomes stale very quickly and daily posts are almost required.
Activist Tips: Selecting the right modules for your site is the key to using any of the 'slash' content management systems. Pick the features (i.e. polls, surveys, galleries, calendars, forums, etc.) that your site needs, and keep it simple by not offering those that don't forward your goals. It is also important to watch the activity in different modules to see which ones are being used.
In terms of keeping your site fresh, the authoring environment is key to creating a site that is easily maintained. Look for authoring tools that will allow your authors to style their own text easily and quickly. A system that is too obscure or complex will not be used.
Example: http://www.canadiandemocraticmovement.ca/
Alternatives: The listings in the left hand sidebar at Open Source CMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/) link to demos of many portal systems, including postNuke (http://www.postnuke.com/) , and Plone (http://www.plone.org/).
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3. Drupal (Blogs) “http://drupal.org/”
Interaction: Lots of user interaction & interaction between related Drupal sites. Extensive use of RSS feed publishing & aggregating.
Strengths: Informal, newsy, often personal. There are a lot of folks who are bloggers or participate in blog culture.
Weaknesses: Like other news focused sites, if it isn't updated regularly, it becomes stale very quickly.
Activist Tips: For activist organizations, the blog format can be a great way to humanize messages on an ongoing topic or a developing campaign. Because *blog=personal* to the reader, campaign blogs have a 'note from a friend' feel to them -- much more personal than the same information presented in a web news or magazine framework. When using blogs, consider having a single 'voice' or a small group of voices do all posts, to reinforce the personal flavour of the blog.
As well consider displaying the blog's 'RSS feed' (Headline, annotation and link of each blog entry) into the sidebar of your organizational web site and your email campaigns, to extend this personal voice further.
Example: http://www.blogforamerica.com/ (likely not using drupal)
Alternatives: Also consider Geeklog (http://www.geeklog.net/index.php), and the various blogs listed under the 'Blogs' heading in the left hand sidebar at Open Source CMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/).
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4. Active (News Posting) “http://www.active.org.au/doc/”
Interaction: Terrific news contributions.
Strengths: It is a great way to gather news from an event or a community. One of the best tools for posting/displaying multi-media.
Weaknesses: Like other news sites, they can grow stale quickly. As well, due to the open publishing nature of Active, editorial control over the Newswire is weak. It is almost impossible to totally control the content of the site.
Activist Tips: Indymedia sites running Active first came into prominence during the Seattle anti-globalization protests in 1999, where the ability to post news rapidly from the streets to the web was critical to getting the story out. Active is ideal for an action-oriented situation, where information is posted in real-time and contextualized on-the- fly by volunteer editors.
However -- it is not as good an ongoing publishing system choice for an activist organization with a controlled editorial workflow. Because Active allows any member of the public to post directly to an unmoderated Newswire, it can leave an organization open to potential legal and 'staying on message' problems if the Newswire is not closely monitored. If tighter editorial and user control are important to your organization ActiveApps, postNuke and Drupal (all noted above) are alternatives.
Example: http://www.indymedia.org/ (The umbrella site for over 80 Indymedia sites) and http://portland.indymedia.org/ (A typical Active site showing the Newswire in the righthand sidebar).
Alternatives: Variations on the PHP-based Active (http://www.active.org.au/doc/) include MiR (http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Devel/MiR), a Java implemetation, and IMCSlash (http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Devel/ImcSlash), written in Perl.
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5. phpList (eNewsletters) “http://www.phplist.com/”
Interaction: It's entirely one way, but it gives the user the opportunity to indicate what they want to subscribe to. It also provides an opportunity to gather other information about your site's visitors.
Strengths: It is easy to set up and provides an easy way to encourage other participants to come back to your site. Users can provide their interests & geographic location to allow users to get more targeted eNewsletters.
Weaknesses: There are a lot of options and it may take a bit of time to learn how to use it, particularly if you are only sending out eNewsletters every couple of months.
Tips: Plan to write a eNewsletter once every month or two, more if your campaign is very active. Make sure that you write the eNewsletter to be short and easy to scan. Provide a title, short abstract an a link to an article on your website with the full story. Text is generally preferred by users and easier to be forwarded on in email & included in other forums. Always ask your subscribers to forward this message on to their friends. When referring to a URL, make sure to include the "http://"
Example: http://www.learningpartnership.org/phplist/?p=subscribe&id=4
Alternatives: Mailman (http://www.list.org/), Sympa (http://www.sympa.org/) and other mailing list managers also allow one-way 'broadcast' lists. Also consider LetterIT (http://otterware.net/index.php?id=scripte&sid=letteritm)
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The remaining five eActivist applications examined below are broadly 'actionables' involving peer-to-peer (Forums, eCards, Wikis), peer-to-Pol (ePetitions), and peer-to-pole (eLeaflets/ePosters) communications.
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6. phpBB (Forums) “http://www.phpBB.com/”
Interaction: It's all interaction. Discussions take place in forums and users contribute all of the content.
Strengths: It's a commonly understood format so it is easy for new people to start participating. The ability to have restricted forums is also useful for some organizations.
Weaknesses: It may need to be moderated, or at least monitored so that you are familiar with what is being posted. Also, it may take some time to get people using/posting to the forum.
Activist Tips: Bulletin boards or on-line forums predate the Internet and are one of the most understood forms of web dialogues, and training time for most is minimal. It is a good environment for brainstorming or allowing folks to vent their concerns. Many forums allow for moderation so that inappropriate posts can be adjusted, but this takes time as does building an active, constructive climate for exchanging ideas.
If a forum is little-used, consider replacing it with either a mailing list like Mailman (http://www.list.org/), or a simpler bulletin board system like wwwBoard (http://www.scriptarchive.com/wwwboard.html) which shows all posts in a 'tree view' on a single page. Both of these alternatives will encourage more participation in low-traffic situations.
Example: http://www.gwbush.com/forum/ (Not using phpBB)
Alternatives: Also consider the forums listed under the 'Forums' heading in the left hand sidebar at Open Source CMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/).
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7. WebCards (eCards/email2friends) “http://webcards.sourceforge.net/”
Interaction: Limited opportunity to send a message to a friend. Essentially an advanced email2friend form.
Strengths: By using innovative images you can encourage folks to spread the word more about your campaign. Like blogs, people that use webcards will use them a lot and come back when they can.
Weaknesses: When was the last time you were really influenced by a postcard?
Activist Tips: eCards are a 'semi-viral' marketing technique -- they cannot escape and circulate independently of your organization, as an email can, so you maintain control over the organizational image projected by your eCards.
* Humour will often work well with eCards, as more users will be likely to pass along a humorous message than a less evocative one.
* In order to keep your activist message clear for for the recipient of the eCard, you can include your headline and other key text directly into the eCard image.
Example: http://www.savebiogems.org/postcard.asp (not using webcards)
Alternatives: Website Gizmos http://www.bitesizeinc.net/index.php/gizmos.html, Send Card http://www.sendcard.org/ or see http://www.hotscripts.com/
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8. TWiki (Wiki/Group Documentation) “http://www.twiki.org/”
Interaction: Total, but focused on creating more static documentation by the community
Strengths: It's a great web based collaboration platform. The ability to create common documents & review changes makes this application quite powerful for community groups.
Weaknesses: Wiki markup isn't consistent, it takes a bit of training for folks to get used to, editorial rights can be abused.
Activist Tips: Wiki webs are great tools for collaborative writing when your goal is to ultimately have a static or slowly-evolving document for internal use or public display: policy and procedures, grant proposals, reports can all be built effectively in a Wiki, with each contributor working in their own time on the single live document. As Wikis support roll-back to previous versions of pages, editorial control can be maintained while allowing freedom to each contributor.
Wikis can also serve as a shared brainstorming and notebook tool for activist groups -- though the fact that wiki information is not 'pushed' to users desktops requires that users building a project must intentionally visit and contribute to the Wiki. Twiki, which supports RSS feeds, can push notification of page changes to users, encouraging participation.
New users will need to be given a brief introduction to using Wiki, to give them familiarity with adding pages, editing content, and basic text styling, to ensure that they are comfortable in the Wiki environment.
As an example of how far groups can go in using Wiki as a writing tool, look at the multi-lingual Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org).
Example: http://thor.acedragon.co.uk/biconwiki/ (not using twiki)
Alternatives: Also consider the forums listed under the 'Wiki' heading in the left hand sidebar at Open Source CMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/).
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9. Back-End (eActions/ePetitions) “http://www.back-end.org/”
Interaction: It's a focused level of interaction, but asks permission to contact folks in the future.
Strengths: People are comfortable giving a minor level of support to an organizations cause through Petitions & eActions.
Weaknesses: They are most useful if there are multiple campaigns or opportunities for people to start becoming more educated & aware. The flexibility of Back-End makes it more time consuming to customize.
Activist Tips: Keep the text of the ePetition or eAction short & easy to read. Make sure to have links to other information about the campaign on your site that people can read up on if they are interested. Make sure that you ask for permission from your supporters to contact them. People like seeing other people's comments, so if possible display the and the number of signatories.
Example: http://www.fairvotecanada.org/petition.php/
Alternatives: simpetition ~PostNuke module http://sourceforge.net/projects/simpetition/
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10. FPDF (eLeaflets/ePosters) (Dynamic PDF/Graphic Generation) “http://www.fpdf.org/”
Interaction: Simple off the web interaction. Allowing folks to download & print off posters, petitions, stickers and brochures customized online for their local campaigns.
Strengths: Good control over printed output, not dependent on the user's browser capabilities or Operating System.
Weaknesses: Introduces an additional server-side technology to accomplish PDF generation, which could have server performance impacts.
Activist Tips: If you want to be able to take your message to the streets and extend your brand to support local activists. Target specific communities on the fly with a customized pamphlet.
Example: http://www.afgha.com/?af=article&sid=37844
Alternatives: For some applications, CSS2 stylesheets (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/goingtoprint/) can be used to print simple dynamic content such as handbills. R&OS have produced a PDF class (http://www.ros.co.nz/pdf/) and there are a number of other graphic/pdf modification tools which are being developed.
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Of course, in the rapidly evolving world of eActivism, any list of 10 anythings will have at least 11 members by the time it is completed! Emerging technologies that might be applied to eActivism include: RSS feeds, Friendster, cellphone texting, cam-phones, and audio blogs. Any of these may inspire or connect to Open Source applications. Older technologies such as chat and Internet telephony may also spring back onto the stage as activist solutions.
As well, the convergence of existing tools often leads to new solutions. We've selected TikiWiki, a tool that blends Wiki and Portal features, to round out our list of ten eActivist applications with its eleventh member.
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11. TikiWiki “http://www.tikiwiki.org/”
Interaction: TikiWiki is a content management system for writers. It supports wikiwiki web pages, blogs, CMS news article publishing, discussion forums, a directory of links, a calendar, RSS newsfeeds, user-designed databases for tracking contacts/events, and many other things as lots of people added code to the product over the last year.
Strengths: A 'swiss army knife' tool with a massive feature set!
Weaknesses: make sure to use the latest version of TikiWiki (1.1.1 or higher)for improved speed over earlier, slower builds. TikiWiki shares the relatively rigid 'portal' look of phpNuke and other slashForum applications.
Activist Tips: Use the collaborative capabilities of TikiWiki to work with a dispersed group of authors on keeping the site's formal content fresh. Use the built-in blogs, chat forums and image galleries to build community interaction. The combination plays to TikiWiki's strengths as a multifunction tool for building a site that is both informational and actionable.
Example: http://www.greens-in.org/
Alternatives: Other general content management frameworks, such as Geeklog (http://www.geeklog.net/index.php) and Typo3 (http://www.typo3.org) also take the fusion approach -- but none include the Wiki capabilities of TikiWiki.
Dan & Mike would like to thank David Newman his contribution to this section.
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Sorting them out
There are a number of ways to compare eActivist applications as an aid in deciding which to consider for your organization.
We have plotted these tools on the Surman-o-graph, (an emerging standard in analyzing civil society communications) clustering them in the Formal/Centralized and Informal/Distributed quadrants:
http://www.openconcept.ca/images/surman-o-graph_web.gif
In deciding which specific tool to apply to your eActivist problems, consider the following questions:
* Does the tool do what I need 'out-of-the-box', or will it need to be customized?
* Is the user interface simple for the people who will be working with the application?
* Is there reasonable documentation and support? Does the support forum handle newbie questions well?
* Does the tool use technologies and languages we are already familiar with?
* Is there an on-line demo my users can play around with to see if the tool 'feels right' to them?
* Is the tool's programming team actively developing and maintaining the tool?
* Is the tool one of the more popular ones in it's category?
A yes to a majority of these questions is a sign that you've may have the right application for your eActivist job.

There are a lot of Open Source tools out there which you can employ for your campaigns. We have tried to list some of the ones which we feel are the most useful in the fall of 2003. Like the Internet as a whole, Open Source projects tend to evolve quickly and new initiatives are popping up all of the time. The challenge for anyone putting together an activist web site will be in blending these and other tools into a seamless user interface. Customizing and adapting any software to meet your needs can be time consuming, but often the development communities behind these Open Source projects can help point you in the right direction. Most Open Source projects also have web developers who can be hired to modify the code that they have developed. Any customized code can be brought back into the core of the project so that it can benefit the whole community.

Bios
Dan Bashaw - dbashaw@telus.net
Dan works as a web developer for TM Newmedia, a Victoria BC eLearning and web development company, is an activist with the Victoria Independent Media Center, and is working on a project to to create CommunityPipe, a free and easily replicated open source hosting service for small-scale community and activist web sites.

Mike Gifford - mike@openconcept.ca / “http://www.openconcept.ca”
Mike is the president of OpenConcept Consulting, Open Source Web Applications for Social Change. OpenConcept is the lead developer of Back-End.org CMS.
* Many of these applications will run on both proprietary & non-priorietary Operating Systems, however, you will have to check with your web host to determine if you have the software which is required.

Steven L. Clift - W: http://www.publicus.net Minneapolis - - - E: clift@publicus.net Minnesota - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - - M: +1.612.203.5181
Join my Democracies Online Newswire: http://e-democracy.org/do My blogging experiment: http://travelscoops.com
*** Past Messages, Discussion “http://e-democracy.org/do”
To subscribe, e-mail: listserv@tc.umn.edu Message body: SUB DO-WIRE
To UNSUBSCRIBE instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE
Please send submissions to: clift@publicus.net
Update
Dot Org media offer a very useful evaluation of “Using Open Source Software in your Nonprofit Organisation”.

A Resources For Strengthing NGOs

2008-01-29T13:54:00.000-05:00

The organization featured here, Africa Media Online, is a commercial enterprise, but their website points out many aspects that are important to having a presence in the digital age. Even though NGOs may think that they do not have a “product” for sale; nonetheless, they have the task of selling themselves as a responsible organization with valid and important goals. Because of this, they need to have access to images and they should be able to ensure that the images that they produce get the widest possible dissimination.

Too many NGOs are languishing in the “backwaters” of cyberspace, getting too few “hits” or no hits at all. Professional assistance, such as that provided by a company such as African Media Online can help to get an NGO’s message out to the broader world and create and foster a more professional appearance. This is not and advertisement for Africa Media Online, but an illustration of what type of resources are available to help grow NGOs as organizations.

Below is the text of Africa Media Online’s “About Us” webpage on its website

Africa Media Online is a technological bridge enabling you to get your collections to a global audience. We provide online media library systems, professional digitisation services, digital imaging training for professionals, and access to a worldwide audience.

What type of organisation is Africa Media Online and who owns it?

Africa Media Online Pty. (Ltd.) is a private company registered in South Africa. As such it is required to undergo an independent audit on an annual basis. Africa Media Online is also 100% African owned. The company’s majority shareholding is controlled by a black empowerment company, Kabusha Technology Investments Pty. (Ltd.). Minor shares are also owned by the Larsen Family Trust and Dr Rouen Bruni. In view of its shareholding Africa Media Online is considered by the South African Department of Trade and Industry to be a black owned company and an HDI.

A brief history of Africa Media Online

Africa Media Online was founded in March 2000 by journalist and photographer, David Larsen, with designer and internet entrepreneur, Paul De Villiers. Africa Media Online was a Joint Venture between their respective closed corporations, The Media Bank and The Blue Box respectively. In 2002 Africa Media Online became a more formal entity when it became a closed corporation.

Initially Africa Media Online was a technology company developing an online media library system called MEMAT as well as a picture library which matured with the launch of africanpictures.net in 2004. In October 2004 David Larsen left freelance journalism and photography to concentrate full time on Africa Media Online. In 2005 africanpictures.net joined the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies (BAPLA) and later that year launched a high end scanning operation and a professional keywording service, as well as professional training in digital imaging with Graeme Cookson.

In 2006 Larsen bought De Villiers’ shares and became sole owner. In 2007 he managed to attract investment from Dr Rouen Bruni and Kabusha Technology Investments Pty. (Ltd.) and the closed corporation was transformed into a limited company. The directors of the company are now Executive Chairman, Sandile Swana, and Director, David Larsen. In 2006 Africa Media Online initiated the founding of the Digitise Africa Trust to assist with digitisation projects and training initiatives that require initial funding to get going.

Our vision is to enable Africans to tell Africa’s story. In the "Information Society," if we are to create some semblance of global information democracy, it is important that Africans are heard from their perspective. We work with media organisations, media professionals, corporates and business entities, museums, archives, libraries, galleries, government institutions and others to enable Africans to:

1. Digitise their media collections,
2. Retain ownership of their media collections,
3. Grant secure, efficient and cost effective access to those collections,
4. Where appropriate, to present those collections to a global audience, and
5. Where appropriate, to earn an income from the sale of use rights to those collections.

What we do toward this end is:

Training: Africa Media Online runs masterclasses specifically geared at working professionals so that you can compete in the global information economy and build collections that will last for generations. We draw on leading digital imaging consultants from around the world giving African institutions exposure to the cutting edge of the global industry. more…

Scanning: With a specific focus on whole collections, Africa Media Online’s Digitisation Service has developed systems to efficiently digitize large numbers of pictures, moving images, sound, documents, illustrations and objects at archival quality and relatively low cost. more…

Retouching: While preservation concerns are prime when digitising, there will be a certain number of images that will be needed for promotional materials, use in exhibits, and used by publishing markets. These should be cleaned and colour corrected. Africa Media Online’s ImagePerfect service brings the best out of your images using experienced staff and the right tools. more…

Metadata Capture: Capturing quality metadata about an object is as vital as digitising the object in the first place. Africa Media Online’s MetadataCapture service enables the capture of comprehensive metadata in conformity with world standards such as Dublin Core. Our online systems enable subject experts to contribute and act as editors. more…

Keywording: Keywording is the essential ingredient for granting access to your collections by the public, researchers, and your own staff. Africa Media Online’s professional KeywordingService will ensure consistent quality across your collection. The service uses a controlled vocabulary specifically designed for the keywording of collections allowing for intelligent search functionality. more…

Archiving: In spite of being digitized, the original object retains its status as the original, and needs to be preserved for many reasons. After scanning Africa Media Online works with your collection managers to store your collection in archival quality preservation materials.

Storing: Digital files can be lost far more easily than they are created. Africa Media Online’s expertise in this area is available to museums and archives that have work digitised by us. In addition Africa Media Online’s online system serves as a secure backup for your valuable files.

Hosting: Secure online access to your collections in a “virtual museum” is not only valuable to your staff and colleagues, but also to a global audience. Africa Media Online’s Media Management Technology (MEMAT) makes this a reality on your own web site. You can load images remotely, search your collections, create slide shows, and even manage the sale of use rights. more…

Marketing: Having secure online access to your collections has potential to greatly increase the number of visitors coming through your doors. Africa Media Online’s MEMAT online collection management system can capture and manage both actual and virtual visitors to your institution and can send graphically rich emails directly off the site to interested persons around the world. In addition there is the opportunity for appropriate parts of your collections to be represented on africanpictures.net, where our staff actively market them to appropriate publishing markets around the world. more…

Selling: In the information economy, media collections are gaining commercial value for media markets. Whether material is needed for a television documentary or for a book, institutions safeguarding public and private heritage assets need the capability to manage and sell use rights without losing control. Calculating usage rates, taking payments, and delivering invoices and legally binding contracts which limit use, is all automated on your MEMAT system. And if your work is represented on africanpictures.net, our sales and accounting staff handle africanpictures.net sales to select markets for you.

A Great Read by AfricaFiles’ “At Issue Ezine”

2008-01-15T22:06:00.000-05:00

Most of the readers of this blog are probably familiar with AfricaFiles . And for those of you who are not, “AfricaFiles” as it states on its own website, “is a network of volunteers committed to promoting African perspectives and alternative analyses for human rights and economic justice in Africa.”

One of AfricaFiles’s projects is the “At Issue Ezine .” The purpose of At Issue it “to publish well-researched, provocative and insightful original articles on important current themes in sub-Saharan Africa.” While At Issue was launched in February 2005 it has “roots” that go back through other publications for several years. The At Issue Editorial Committee of AfricaFiles, was the core group that got the ball rolling in 2005.

The Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa ’s newsletter entitled the “TCLSAC Report ” that was published from 1977 to 1984 was the oldest of the publications from which At Issue began to evolve. In 1985, and for the following 15 years, TCLSAC published the “Southern Africa Report” (SAR) that was a full hard copy magazine, which replaced the TCLSAC Report. When TCLSAC published its last issue of SAR in October of 2000 it was replaced with the AfricaFiles website.

In May of 2003 “At Issue Forum ” a section of AfricaFiles began publishing original timely articles and formed an electronically based bridge back to the previous publications such as SAR. The editors of At Issue Ezine operate as a collective of volunteers and they have no paid staff. In 2004, the editors began work to launch a “proper ezine” and At Issue Ezine rolled out in 2005. “

In its seventh volume, At Issue Ezine is focusing on the ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF AFRICAN WOMEN and the volume will be published from January through April of 2008. The first article, an editorial by Anene Ejikeme Anene Ejikeme: "LET THE WOMEN SPEAK! AND LISTEN" is already posted and can be found at: http://www.africafiles.org/atissueezine.asp . This blogger thinks that "LET THE WOMEN SPEAK! AND LISTEN" is a well thought out and well written editorial that deserves widespread readership. And if it is an indication of things to come, Volume Seven of At Issue Ezine will provide a good deal of worthwhile reading this winter and into the coming spring. In fact, you may wish to browse the archives of AfricaFiles and At Issue Ezine for other very informative articles as well.

EDITORIAL: "LET THE WOMEN SPEAK! AND LISTEN"

At Issue Ezine

AfricaFiles

RED AFRO-VENEZUELA

2008-01-08T19:57:00.000-05:00

I apologize for any errors in translating a portion of the text below from Spanish to English and I welcome and corrections that might be suggested.

The words below were taken from the web site of "Red Afro-Venezuela" and state the nature of the organization and its objectives. The link for Red Afro-Venezuela is posted at the end of this article.

The Bolivarian constitution of Venezuela has sought to introduce a process of restructuring the Republic through deep social transformations that will establish a democratic, sovereign, responsible, multi-ethnic and pluricultural society, comprised of men and women who have a strong interest of their national community while maintaining humanistic values as well as national identity ".

It is indeed in this framework of institutional transformation that the Afro organizations began several years ago to look for recognition in cultural, social, legal, educational and agricultural spheres to stimulate the social inclusion of the Afro-Venezuelan populations and to eradicate their systemic exclusion that was the norm in years past.

For this it was necessary, as one of the essential elements, to organize a network of organizations of the different Afro-Venezuelans communities being considered the following ones:

OBJECTIVES

- To be included in the processes of participation in the different local, regional and national plans as it establishes the national constitution.

- To promote through activism the allocation of investment resources in the respective communities.

- To contribute to the protection of the Cultural and Natural Patrimony of the Afro-Venezuelan communities in the form of sustainable development.

- To foment the local, regional and national organization of the Afro-Venezuelan communities for their inclusion in national programs and projects in accordance with Articles 185 and 182 of the Bolivarian Constitution and referred as the Councils of Public Planning.

- To fight openly against any form of racial discrimination and to put in practice the plan of action of the World-wide Conference Against the Racism (Surafrica 2001) signed by our country

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Below is a letter to African American Organizations from the Afro Venezuelan Network that is a shining example of how members of the African Diaspora should call upon one another to solve our common problems. The letter was delivered to TransAfrica Forum and is posted at their web site.

Communications such as this should be circulated throughout the African communities so that they can strengthen our solidarity.

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July 2004

Afro Venezuelan Network Letter to African American Organizations

In the name of the Afro Venezuelan Network, a group of thirty community-based organizations from eight Venezuelan states, we call on you, our sister organizations of African Americans, to ask that you stand in solidarity with us so that we can end the climate of violence perpetuated against the Venezuelan democratic process. This violence is being provoked by anti-democratic sectors in our country that actively participated in the coup d'etat of April 11, 2002. A number of these coup leaders, supporters and endorsers have been financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which receives your tax dollars from the United States Congress. Even today, the NED is being used as a channel to fund those who participated in, or endorsed the coup, as well as the oil manager's strike that paralyzed our national economy shortly thereafter.

As citizens of the United States you are in a position to demand that your country not intervene in Venezuela's political process. This is why we ask that you do all you can to ensure that Members of Congress (including our Afro-American brothers and sisters in that body) maintain a heightened scrutiny of how the NED uses its money.

Since 1999, the most socially and ethnically marginalized sectors of Venezuela-- the poor, the indigenous and peoples of African descent have been able to actively participate in the country's social transformation, working together to create public policies that are eradicating the fatal cycle of poverty, and leading to redistribution of land, the elimination of illiteracy and increased access to healthcare. As well, there has been a solidifying of the struggle against racism and racial discrimination.

This has been possible through the process of participatory democracy that began in 1999, and which has suffered an ongoing threat from anti-constitutional sectors that do not respect the rules of democratic participation. Instead they promote ongoing violence using the national and international mass media.

African American brothers and sisters, Afro Latinos and Afro Latinas, Venezuela is at a crucial moment in our democratic history. Venezuela (and its process of participatory democracy) represents--even with its faults--a model of progress for thousands of those living without hope. Though it is up to those of us in Venezuela to decide our future and our fate, you can enter into this struggle with us, by doing what you can do in your country, to ensure that Venezuela's right to determine its political direction is respected without any U.S. interference, or intervention directly or indirectly. This is a right that is due to any and all sovereign peoples.

With the pride of our Afro Venezuelan heritage, and the guidance of our ancestors,

Jorge Veloz
Coordinator General

Nirva Camacho
Coordinator of Institutional Relations

Jesus Chucho Garcia
Coordinator of International Relations

This letter may be seen at its original TransAfrica Forum site .

The RED AFRO-VENEZUELA web site is in Spanish, but it can be translated using " Bable Fish" or some other Translation program.

UNITED NATIONS ONLINE VOLUNTEERING SERVICE

2008-01-02T10:36:00.000-05:00

Many NGOs are constantly looking for assistance to help them carry out the numerous and varied tasks necessary to accomplish their charitable goals. Quite often skilled volunteer help can not be found nearby – particularly in rural areas. One answer to this dilemma is to enlist the aid of Online Volunteers. I have written about online volunteering in the past and now I would like to pass along some tips from the United Nations Online Volunteering service that can help NGO decide if the United Nations Online Volunteering service is for them. The United Nations Online Volunteering service can be found at the end of this post.
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O nline Volunteers undertake a variety of assignments for development organizations through this Online Volunteering service: translations, research, web design, data analysis, database construction, proposal writing, editing articles, online mentoring, publication design, moderating an online discussion group, or any other services that can be done through computer networks.

Online Volunteering provides development organizations with new volunteers, new and additional talent and skills, and a more diverse volunteer-base. It can also help promote your organization and its mission to a much broader audience. United Nations Online Volunteering service See the benefits of online volunteering .

This Online Volunteering service is unique in that it provides not only the largest database of Online Volunteering opportunities, but is also the only web site and matching service devoted to Online Volunteering to support the work of development organizations worldwide.

Who can host Online Volunteers via this service?
Any non-profit organizations actively working in or for developing countries. The first step is that you will need to join and then register your organization as a Group. Once your organization has been approved, you will be able to post Online Volunteering assignments.

Before you start posting assignments, make sure you are ready to host an Online Volunteer!
There are lots of preparations to make before you begin recruiting Online Volunteers. Make sure your organization is Ready to Host Online Volunteers. This evaluation can help you put the systems in place to get Online Volunteers in action for your organization right away!

Examples of Assignments
What can Online Volunteers do for your organization? Find ideas on the Examples of Assignments page, or by browsing through the list of currently open Online Volunteering opportunities posted by other organizations.

Basics: Recruiting and Involving an Online Volunteer
After your organization has registered, what's next? We offer complete details on how your organization can create Online Volunteering assignments, how your organization will receive applications, how to respond to candidates, how to orient new Online Volunteers into your organization, and the role the UN Volunteers program plays after you recruit an Online Volunteer.

How do you manage Online Volunteers?
There are many simple things you can do to ensure success in your involvement of Online Volunteers. Our service offers a growing list of suggestions and guidelines to help.

What about security and privacy?
We offer tips on how to ensure security and privacy in your interactions with Online Volunteers, for both your organization and individual volunteers. Also, be aware that there are fixed regulations about handling personal data, anti-virus software, etc., that both you and your Online Volunteer have to agree upon.

United Nations Online Volunteering service information for Hosting Organizations

FORGE – ANOTHER TESTIMENT TO WHAT COMMITTED YOUTH CAN DO

2007-12-28T12:55:00.000-05:00

Here is another of my favorite stories. I like this type of story because it concerns young people taking the lead and taking charge in making the world a better place.

FORGE Founder & Executive Director Kjerstin Erickson grew up working in community service. She has worked as a peer educator, a mentor for troubled youth, a liaison for the deaf, a representative of the California Youth Council, a Chair of her County’s Youth Volunteer Corps, and a program participant of Tomorrow’s Leaders Today.

As a junior in high school, Kjerstin traveled with her family to Kenya for a photo safari. The glaring lack of basic resources inspired Kjerstin to focus her humanitarian efforts on Africa.

In 2001, Kjerstin entered Stanford and began pursuit of a degree in Public Policy and African Studies.

In July of 2003, FORGE Founder and Executive Director Kjerstin Erickson was one of eleven Stanford University students to travel to Botswana to work in the Dukwi Refugee Camp as a pilot project for the World Refugee Academy. Touched and inspired by the refugees she met from all across the African continent, Kjerstin came to see refugees as a neglected solution to many of the issues that plague sub-Saharan Africa.

Immediately following her summer as a leader of the World Refugee Academy Pilot project, Kjerstin embarked on the SS Universe Explorer to circumnavigate the globe through the study abroad program, Semester at Sea. Tanzania was one of the nine countries on the Semester at Sea Fall 2003 itinerary and, after developing a passion for refugee issues in Botswana, Kjerstin wanted to provide an opportunity for other Semester at Sea students to do the same. Since safaris were the only trip options offered by Semester at Sea, Kjerstin organized a trip for students to visit a refugee camp. Under her leadership, a group of 18 students traveled to the town of Kigoma on the western boarder of Tanzania. There, they met with refugees, orphans, health officials, and local aid workers in an attempt to understand the capacity of non-governmental institutions to affect change in a foreign environment.

When they returned to the ship, this group of 18 students committed themselves to raising awareness about refugee issues. Soon, the shipboard community was abuzz and inspired. Their passion and desire to contribute was palpable. Not wanting to see such incredible energy to go waste, Kjerstin set out to create a mechanism to harness this potential. Given her previous experience working in refugee camps, Kjerstin recognized that a similar organization could be created on a much larger scale.

Thus, the idea for FORGE began to develop. Applications were put out, and, after a lengthy interview and decision process, the pioneering 25 members of the first FORGE team were selected.

It soon became clear that FORGE was something special. After creating their own micro-service projects, raising over $80,000 USD, and meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Rudd Lubbers, it was obvious that the FORGE team members were more than average college students - they were ambassadors to the world.

As FORGE grew in numbers, so it grew in impact. Now going into its fourth year of operation, FORGE has brought 100 ‘Project Facilitators’ to Africa, served communities of over 70,000 refugees, and implemented more than 60 community development projects. And FORGE is still young.

In 2008, FORGE is embarking on a new project model that transfers Project Facilitator responsibilities directly into the hands of refugee leaders within the communities where FORGE works. From 2008 forwards, all FORGE projects will be designed and implemented by the communities themselves. FORGE is confident that this model will bring a new level of impact and provide an even stronger foundation for the future prosperity of the African continent.

Forge also has a Newsletter and you can subscribe here .

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One of FORGE’s program is a very successful microfinance program. Below is how FORGE describes how this program got started.

The FORGE Micro-Finance Program

The FORGE Micro-Finance Program represents FORGE’s Microfinance division. In its first year of existence, it has provided loans to 112 individuals, allowing them to transform their lives through economic self-sufficiency.

The FORGE Micro-Finance Program is very different from traditional microfinance initiatives. Instead of simply giving and recollecting loans, the FORGE Micro-Finance Program ensures that all of its loan recipients are fully prepared to start a small business. Before receiving their loan, all loan recipients must go through a two month training process. The educational curriculum was developed in conjunction with highly experienced academics and is taught by FORGE’s exceptionally talented and well-trained refugee staff. The curriculum focuses on entrepreneurship, business principles, accounting skills, all specially-tailored to the African refugee small business setting.

With hundreds of new loans in the works for 2007, the positive impact of the FORGE Micro-Finance Program is expanding quickly. The FORGE Micro-Finance Program, led by International Relations Director Esther Chou (FORGE Meheba ’05), Communications Director Nayeli Vivanco (FORGE Meheba ’06), and Operations Director Pete D’Aleo (FORGE Meheba ’06), is on the rise.

The FORGE Micro-Finance Program began when Esther Chou, a FORGE Meheba 2005 veteran, returned to Zambia in late 2005 in order to investigate the best ways to implement an entrepreneurship & micro-finance initiative in Meheba. From Zambia, Esther worked closely with Nayeli Vivanco and Pete D’Aleo to design business skills curriculum and a loan model that best suited the community of Meheba. Their work was guided by the expertise and support of Northeastern University Executive Professor Dennis Shaughnessy.

Upon arriving in Meheba, Nayeli & Pete immediately got to work with Esther, to build a the FORGE Micro-Finance Program office and select a staff. Over the next few weeks, the three directors carefully trained the staff and opened the institute to enrollment.

The FORGE Micro-Finance Program’s students and loan-seekers proved to be a huge success. The FORGE Micro-Finance Program’s loan repayment rate stands at 94%.

Currently, all three FORGE Micro-Finance Program directors are refining the FORGE Micro-Finance Program model, marketing the program, and raising the funds necessary to expand classes and loans further into the future. For more information on the FORGE Micro-Finance Program please click here .

Hopefully, FORGE’s story will inspire all of those who have an interest in making the world a better place.

FORGE

Liberia’s Digital Bridge Project benefited from Members of the Nigeria Diaspora

2007-12-26T12:28:00.000-05:00

This article is taken from the a press release dated April 27, 2007 issued by Sockets Works Global and can be found at: this link . The Digital Bridge Project is a wonderful example of how Africans can utilize each other and their resources to benefit one another.

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“The Digital Bridge Project, which aims to close the digital divide in Liberian universities, made its public debut on Friday, April 27th at the main campus of the University of Liberia when President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf inaugurated the state-of-the-art SocketWorks Limited (SocketWorks) computer laboratory.

Said President Johnson Sirleaf, ‘The digital center is as a result of hard work, partnership and dedication on the part of a lot of people. It is my belief that ICT can help Liberia leap frog in its efforts of poverty reduction and accelerate our transition into a prosperous nation.’

Completed in less than four months, the laboratory includes 200 computers with access to a university intranet, research databases, and a VSAT internet connection. SocketWorks’ CEO Aloy Chife unveiled the facility and demonstrated its capabilities as students amassed outside waiting for entrance. He detailed how students can now register for courses, get assignments, and pay fees online, as well as have access to the same libraries and research facilities as students in the United States. Previously, University of Liberia students had a small library of books over 20years old; now they have instant access to the digital archives of the Library of Congress and MIT. Research databases now housed within the University include some 3 million volumes.

“Our aim for the multi-media PC laboratory at the University of Liberia (the “Liberia DigitalBridge” project) is to partner with Liberia to accelerate its transition to a knowledge-based society in which the currency of exchange is information,” Chife said of the project. “And while some would argue that improvements in higher education should not outweigh more basic development needs like roads, water, and infrastructure, the University of Liberia students have higher expectations of themselves and their government,” continued Chife. The launch demonstration was completed with two live lectures delivered from the University of Maryland in the United States. This “distance learning” capability is a key part of building the capacity of the University of Liberia, and is facilitated by WorldSpace. When Chife told the guests that Liberian students would now have access to the same quality of education as students at MIT, the room broke out in spontaneous applause.

SocketWorks was founded by Dr. Aloy Chife in 2002 upon his disengagement from Apple Computers, Inc, where he was a Director and Business Chief Information Officer. SocketWorks Limited is a software and outsourcing company that aims to provide packaged ICT solutions to its clients. In the education market, it has developed proprietary software (trademarked CollegePortal) which helps universities automate their processes (e.g. student admissions and registration, course selection, course management, exam management, and facility management)that are currently done manually, and also provides internet access that would not otherwise be available. Dr. Chife, like many of SocketWorks’ officers, is part of the Nigerian Diaspora. SocketWorks utilizes a business model to transform universities in developing countries and does this through student subscription fees. Universities stuck in a paper age are brought into the21st century through IT, hardware, software and at times, infrastructure solutions. Administrators are connected to teachers, teachers to students, students to information, and parents to the universities. The program costs the participating universities nothing to implement and the schools get an on-going revenue stream to upgrade their ICT program from the student subscription fees. The program started in Nigeria and now has contracts at 52 Nigerian universities. In Nigeria, students pay as little at $25.00 per year. The first successful export of the model was to Sierra Leone. These services are making an enormous difference in Nigeria and across Africa in countries that otherwise have no ICT systems. From a one-man shop, SocketWorks has grown to become an employer of over 300 people in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Uganda, and its products impact the lives of thousands of African Students. It is also expanding operations in Asia and is expected to be up and running in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka by April. Its institutional investors and shareholders include the World Bank (IFC) and Zenith Bank Plc (the largest Bank in Nigeria). In post-conflict Liberia, where students cannot absorb a fee increase for education, SocketWorks is self-funding the initial investment and seeking support from the World Bank to subsidize the student subscription fees. This is the first time SocketWorks is changing its business model to accommodate donor subsidies. SocketWorks has trained a local staff to manage the Liberian facility and administer the data, drawing their personnel from students in the University of Liberia system. And although four months seems a short time to reconstruct and renovate the building for computer facility(including a generator, air conditioning, and a VSAT link), design and install the hardware and software package, train the staff, and digitize the records of all 19,000 University of Liberia students, faculty, and staff, SocketWorks felt that the short time frame for implementation proves their commitment to providing world-class solutions to institutions of higher education in Africa. When the official inauguration of the facility was completed by President Sirleaf, she left the facility and spoke with the hundreds of students waiting to gain access. “This facility is for you,” she said. “Be sure that you take care of it, and protect it, because it is your education and your future.” The computer lab was then flooded with eager students

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More information on both the Digital Bridge Institute and SocketWorks can be found at the links below.

DIGITAL BRIDGE INSTITUTE

SOCKETWORKS

A new Green Revolution for Africa?

2007-12-19T16:09:00.000-05:00

article is taken from the web site of GRAIN an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local knowledge. It is a long read, but the information is well worth knowing. The footnotes may be found at the original site, whose link is at the end of this post.

For some time now, there's been talk of a new Green Revolution for Africa – because "Africa missed the first Green Revolution" or because "the first Green Revolution missed Africa". Now a new project, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), is trying to put the concept into operation. This paper aims to describe what a Green Revolution really signifies, why such projects haven't worked before and why AGRA won't work either, in order to help people trying to take positions at the local, national and regional levels.

Proponents of the Green Revolution call it a strategy to fight hunger in the world – bringing together international scientific research and the widespread dissemination of so called improved plant varieties in developing countries. The model was put forward in the 1950s by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations as a way to thwart the menace of the "red revolution": the expansion of communism in poor countries. Starting in Mexico, the Philippines and India, the new varieties of wheat, rice and maize quickly spread through the tropics to replace farmers' varieties. But these varieties only produced the desired 'high yielding' results if there was irrigation, mechanisation, and plenty of chemical fertilisers (the real key) and pesticides.

The consequence of this effort has indeed been an increase in yields for specific crops and in specific countries – at least for their irrigated, fertile and flat land areas. For example, under the programme, India increased its wheat production ten-fold and its rice production three-fold. Norman Borlaug, regarded as one of the fathers of the Green Revolution, went on to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his contributions.

But beyond the yield gains, there were many costs – economic, agricultural and social. The use of large amounts of water, fertilisers and chemical pesticides impoverished soils, leaving them less fertile and highly polluted. Local biodiversity was drastically reduced, bringing farmers under the dependence of pesticide manufacturers and outside seed suppliers. The profound cultural and economic changes wrought by the Green Revolution produced a massive rural exodus, and, with it, a profound loss of traditional knowledge and skills. For most farmers, any early profits were soon converted into debts, with many farmers, unable to repay their debts, taking their own lives.

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Why was the first Green Revolution ignored by the Africans?

Between 1960 and 1970, Africa was busy managing its newly acquired independence, and had not been incorporated into the design of the initial Green Revolution projects. Family farming was still the norm in Africa, and formal research was carried out by the agricultural research systems of the colonial powers. In French-speaking African countries, the French agricultural research institutes, such as IRAT, ORSTOM and CIRAD[2] were very active. These institutions gave priority to cash crops for export to the North: coffee and cocoa in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire; cotton in the north of Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad; groundnuts in Senegal; and palm oil in southern Benin. Often, the colonial powers had to use force to eject the farmers off their land and impose their varieties and agricultural systems. Even after independence, local food crops continued to be marginalised by scientific research for a decade or so.

Then, research institutes such as the IITA (International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria) and ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics, Mali) parachuted into Africa to develop Green Revolution-style programmes for some of the continent's food crops. But they did not take into account the realities on the ground and few of these "improved varieties" were accepted by African farmers and consumers. The Green Revolution is based on a scientific reductionism, which has resulted in monocultures, the use of chemical inputs (such as fertilisers and pesticides) and inappropriate mechanisation. This is alien to Africa's peasant farming systems which pursues a more holistic approach to agriculture in which crops are combined with livestock, organic manure is used, soils are looked after, and there is a deep respect for the wider environment.

The CGIAR has spent a good half of its budget on Africa in the last few decades, but the Green Revolution has never taken root. Now, with an influx of dollars from Bill Gates, Rockefeller and other United States donors, many of the same organisations that led the first effort are going to try again. They are calling themselves the 'Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa', AGRA for short, and they are in the process of putting their new plan into motion.

AGRA: training for what?

AGRA says its main objective is to help Africa to increase productivity for a number of major food crops – much like what was envisioned with the initial Green Revolution programmes.[3] And once again, this is supposed to be done through Western-style plant breeding at the national agricultural research institutes. The difference being that this time a new crop of plant breeders will be trained in Africa itself, as opposed to being trained at universities in the North – though Cornell University, the central institution of the early Green Revolution programmes, will be there to oversee the training.

In January 2008, a first set of agricultural breeders in West and Central Africa will start their training at the University of Ghana, where the new the West African Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) will be based. Students will work on maize, cassava, sorghum, millet, tomatoes, cowpeas and other plants important to the African diet. This project is funded to the tune of US$ 4.9 million (more than 24 billion CFA francs) from AGRA. It seeks to train 40 students for a period of 5 years, starting in January 2008, with 8 students enrolled each year. Likewise, the University of Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa, home to the Rockefeller Foundation's African Centre for Crop Improvement (ACCI), will train 120 breeders over the next ten years through an AGRA grant of US$ 8.1 million.

Not only will the plant breeders be trained in technology, but they will also be taught to lobby. At a recent meeting of maize breeders from Southern and Eastern Africa, governments were urged to fast-track permits for growing new varieties of crops. Or in the words of Jane Ininda, programme officer with AGRA, "To be able to make new improved varieties available to farmers to increase their yields and improve their standards of living, countries must put in place regulatory systems that can quickly test and allow an influx of new commercial varieties."[4] AGRA is using its considerable political power to convince African governments to put in place policies and systems that will ensure the smooth running of agribusiness.[5] The consequences of fast tracking seeds on to the market mean that plants are not adequately tested in local conditions. The farmer is therefore taking the all risks of crop failure whereas the company is assured of a quick financial return.

Agro-dealers: the shortest route to the farmers

In addition to training, another bottleneck to the successful establishment of the Green Revolution, as perceived by AGRA, is getting the new seeds to farmers. The solution proposed by AGRA is to build an infrastructure that facilitates the development of private seed companies. This is something that the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Bank have been trying to do for some time now, with little success.

One of AGRA's first steps is therefore to set up networks of "agro-dealers", to sell seeds, pesticides and fertilisers. AGRA has already hired a US NGO called Citizens' Network for Foreign Affairs to carry out this work in Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi. So far this US NGO has received around $14 million in grants – by far the largest recipient of AGRA funds to date. To supply the dealers, AGRA's donors are also funding private seed companies. The Rockefeller Foundation is a leading investor in African Agricultural Capital, a venture capital investment fund that invests in and partly controls several small African seed companies, which are also supported by AGRA.[6] AGRA will certainly try to help develop markets with small farmers, which have so far been limited by the stubborn resilience of traditional seed systems that have always supplied African farmers with high-quality, affordable, locally adapted and culturally acceptable seeds.

Meanwhile, in French-speaking Africa, AGRA is funding national agricultural research in Mali through research activities conducted at the Institute of Rural Economy (IER) on maize, sorghum and rice. An amount of US$ 555,000 (nearly three billion CFA francs) has been awarded to IER from 2007 to 2010, and a sum of US$ 208,000 (more than a billion CFA francs) has been awarded to the Faso Kaba organisation for the dissemination of improved varieties[7].

The logic here is staggering. The idea is to fund public breeders to develop new varieties (as the private sector does not want to do this), to fund private companies to sell these to farmers, and to provide credit to farmers for the purchase of these seeds (because otherwise they cannot pay for them). AGRA is all about creating an effective demand for its own product, prescribing a model of development that is not able to survive on its own.

Kenya – AGRA in practice.

Farmers in Western Kenya have been receiving 6000 Kenyan shillings (Sh), US$ 92, in vouchers from the government which enables them to buy seeds, fertiliser, and pesticides. The government also provides extension services to oversee the correct use of these inputs. The money has come from AGRA who have provided US$ 4.5 million (Sh 294 million). A group called Agricultural Market Development Trust (Agmark), is implementing the programme and the plan is to expand it to 30 districts in Kenya.[8] The Sasakawa Global 2000 programme, a precurser to AGRA, initially worked with individual farmers. Farmers however were not very consistent in paying back loans or acquiring inputs and it is estimated that 60% of new agro-dealer businesses did not survive. To solve this problem and create group pressure, it was decided to only work with farmers as groups, and this approach is now common for these programmes. In each village there is a programme coordinator who is paid five bags of maize by each farmer and the coordinator collectively sells the bags and uses the money to buy inputs for the next season.[9] According to AGRA this makes the project sustainable. But in reality the only sustainable part of this project is that it ensures the agrodealer has a consistent market. [10]

Meanwhile, the farmer has little choice. This system gives farmers little freedom to decide what they want to plant and when they want to plant it, they cannot use the knowledge they have accumulated over years, they cannot respond to weather changes and other changes in their environment. Once the donors stop subsidising, farmers will be left with an impoverished soil and no seed. The old Green Revolution game continues.

Towards the industrialisation of Africa's agriculture

Whether it is the new Green Revolution or the old, the first losers are farmers, especially small farmers. AGRA sets out to replace the seeds that African farmers have carefully developed for their farms and cultures, with varieties suited to industrial monocultures. Such seeds will pave the way for the industrialisation of African food crops, opening the door to large agribusiness to come in and dominate.

IITA, for instance, one of AGRA's main partners, has already changed the focus of its work from peasant farming to the development of the industrial production and processing of cassava, perhaps the region's most important staple crop. Speaking to one of Nigeria's daily newspapers, IITA's Director of Research and Development explained that "there is a need to encourage farmers to go on large-scale farming instead of subsistence agriculture."[11]

The problem, at least for the IITA, is that their varieties have never really been suited to small-scale farming. IITA may have always portrayed its development of varieties resistant to Cassava Mosaic Virus (CMD) as a big success, but in practice farmers have generally preferred their local varieties. One recent survey of Ugandan farmers, found that more than three-quarters of those surveyed who were growing IITA varieties said that they were not superior to local varieties.[12] Another study of farmers in Ghana said that farmers there were not growing IITA varieties because they were prioritising "agronomic considerations" – meaning yield, eating quality, etc. In Benin, where farmers grow over 350 local varieties of cassava, only 13% of farmers grow IITA varieties. In Kenya and Tanzania, few farmers grow IITA varieties, despite the heavily-funded USAID programmes to promote them, and Tanzanian farmers report that they don't see any difference in CMD resistance between the local and IITA varieties. Even in IITA's home base of Nigeria, the local varieties dominate.[13]

What is most disturbing about IITA's new push to industrial cassava production and processing – funded by the Nigerian government, Shell Oil, USAID, the Rockefeller Foundation, and certainly AGRA in the near future – is that its success depends on reducing the market price for cassava, which is currently seen as too high to make it attractive as an export crop for transnational food and agrofuel corporations. In other words, the current cassava market works quite well – farmers get paid a decent price for supplying high-quality cassava to local food markets, where the need is greatest. It only doesn't work for big agribusiness, which, as far as farming goes, can't compete with the small-scale farmers, and, as far as the markets go, can't access cheap cassava because it refuses to pay the price that Nigerian consumers will. Here is a stark example of what African farmers can expect from the new Green Revolution.

Co-opting NGOs and farmers organisations

AGRA and its partners are creating other problems for Africa as well, by co-opting NGOs to help create the markets it needs. The money enticement is very real and the public relations is effective and deceptive. The potential is there for AGRA to generate divisions between NGOs, CSOs and farmers groups all working for sustainable agriculture, as the level of analysis of the impact of such a top-down agenda differs. For example, in Africa most NGOs that promote agriculture that is sustainable and farmer-led, have taken a stand against GM crops because of its obvious negative impact on farmers in Africa. Yet AGRA is as big a threat to farmers as are GM crops. But AGRA's approach is more insidious and the pot of money is very large. Therefore there is a risk that organisations working with farmers that previously stood united against GMOs, may now work with AGRA. Such NGO collaboration has already started happening. In Kenya, for example, SACRED Africa, a member of the sustainable agriculture network, is managing field trials for AGRA.[14] In another example in Kenya, StrigAway maize, a variety patented by BASF, one of the biggest agrochemical companies in the world is brought to farmers by an impressive marketing system, which co-opts public institutions, NGOs and farmer associations. StrigAway maize, a herbicide resistant seed created by mutagenesis breeding, holds many risks for farmers. To ensure compliance, farmers have to be trained and closely monitored and this is done by NGOs. The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) negotiates with the seed companies and public institutions on behalf of BASF, initially providing free seed to open up markets. It works through a network of 12 NGOs and 4 farmer associations to market the technology on behalf of BASF and to train and monitor farmers. [15]

No GMOs?

At the launch of AGRA, its promoters were quick to point out that AGRA would not use genetically modified (GM) crops. Well, for now. At the third general meeting of collaborators of AGRA's programme on “Biotech, Breeding and Seed systems for African Crops”, a number of presentations of research and trials of GM crops were included.[16] It is therefore difficult to take seriously the claim that AGRA is not about GM seeds. Every single funder behind AGRA, Rockefeller and Gates included, are already pushing GM technology into Africa. But they have realised that the AGRA initiative would be easier to promote without including GM crops or seeds. The strategy is undoubtedly to bring it in later, once the programme is established and farmers have already switched to new seeds. Furthermore, most countries in Africa still do not have biosafety legislation in place, so it does not make sense to focus on GM crops now, but rather on harmonising policies, making sure approval times for crops are faster and building the infrastructure to ensure the rapid introduction of GM crops.

Undermining food sovereignty

The vast majority of Africans consume what they produce, despite international trade. Africa is characterised by its cultural diversity, which makes up its wealth. By ignoring the first Green Revolution, Africans have demonstrated to the world that they have understood that this revolution would kill their cultural diversity and their agriculture. In view of all that has been said, there are large contradictions between the model promoted by AGRA and the vision of food sovereignty for Africa. Over time, the African farmers have created a rich and dynamic agriculture which was gravely wounded by the continent's history over the last few centuries and, now, by the domineering multinationals and their allies to extract the remaining resources and knowledge. Programmes such as AGRA, and other so-called "technical" programmes, that ignore the social, economic and political realities of Africa, are unable to make a positive contribution. If African farmers are organised, if they rediscover and value their cultures and their knowledge, this is where Africa will have its real strength for change.

With climate change and the advance of the desert on the continent, it is appropriate to think about food sovereignty. Diverse agro-ecological practices exist in all African countries, but are not always known due to the oral nature of the cultures, which is common across the continent. To provide an alternative to AGRA, it is important to promote these local agro-ecological practices, and to work with farmers to improve them, at the local, national and regional level. At stake is the survival of future generations.

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BOX: The other AGRA: Sasakawa Global 2000

Sasakawa Global (SG) 2000, is a project funded by the Nippon Foundation and led by Norman Borlaug and has been operational since the 1990s. It mainly works through governments, using government extension services and by influencing policies. SG 2000 assists with credit for hybrid seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. The project has been praised for higher yields in good rainfall years (as long as the credit is made available) but this industrialisation of agriculture has also been deeply criticised for creating dependency on foreign imports of seed and fertiliser, its reliance on mechanisation which requires land consolidation. In Africa, as in Asia, the Green Revolution has forced many farmers off the land as it has a high social, environmental and financial cost.[17] .

Ethiopia: feeding the hungry?

In the 1990s, Norman Borlaug and Jimmy Carter visited Ethiopia and convinced the government to support the introduction of hybrid seeds and fertilisers, and to liberalise the markets. This was done with the support of Sasakawa Global 2000, and there followed a decade of global initiatives supporting agricultural production, though this was coupled with the withdrawal of state support for agriculture. Under pressure from international lenders and aid donors, the government deregulated the seed sector and grain markets and left it to the private sector. With the bumper harvest in 2001, the markets could not cope and prices collapsed.[18] Ethiopia was dumped into yet another famine despite increasing national agricultural production and farmers were left in debt and many lost their land.

Ghana: forcing farmers into bankruptcy

The SG 2000 project in Ghana also proved not to be sustainable. At the beginning, the Ghanaian government provided the services of its extension officers to manage the delivery of inputs, pesticides and seeds and they also collected loans from the farmers. The credit was provided by SG 2000. Yields went up, in some cases three times the national average, but maize yields only increased by 26%. Of course farmers had to forego their own seed and cropping systems.

Supporting this approach of privatisation of agricultural inputs and markets, structural reforms were implemented in Ghana in the 1980’s and in 1989 the parastatal Ghana Seed Company was closed and national seed policy called for the development of a private seed sector. Markets and credit were liberalised with interest rates going up to 40%. The SG 2000 project was ready to take off. However, as soon as the project was scaled-up (it moved beyond just being a demonstration project) only 44% of the farmers were able to repay their loans. The Ghana Development Bank was then persuaded to give loans to 20 000 farmers. Still the recovery of loans from farmers was only 45%. After this, it was decided that government extension officers should not be responsible for loan recovery or input distribution. SG 2000 initiated the development of a network of private seed producers and input dealers and scaled down the project. Monsanto became involved in promoting conservation tillage and of course Roundup Ready use.

The next strategy in this experiment was to use social pressure and a new credit scheme was designed, working with farmers associations, rather than individual farmers. An evaluation of the project concludes that the focus was too narrow, focusing only on maize, and the project was unable to adjust to changing markets and government policies. For example farmers were not presented with a range of options and the recommended use of fertiliser was the same for everyone. Another common problem with this kind of approach to farming is that farmers produce a glut of one crop, in this case maize, which they cannot sell or have to sell below cost. When conservation tillage was introduced by Monsanto, the use of herbicide pushed the costs of inputs up to US$ 120 per hectare, forcing farmers to borrow with an interest rate of 30 - 40%. [19] Once SG 2000 stopped providing credit, the use of fertilisers by farmers dropped, and the project ceased. The evaluation concludes that the project was insensitive to "smallholders' resource endowment and risk capacity". SG 2000 spent US$20 million over 17 years in Ghana. The project in Ghana ended in 2003 but the focus is now on Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mali and Uganda.

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A new Green Revolution for Africa?

GRAIN

AFROAMERICA XXI - Helping Afro-Latinos

2007-12-17T20:20:00.000-05:00

It is a shame that even in this day and age many people, including members of the African Diaspora, are unaware of the Afro-Latinos that have lived in Mexico, Central and South America for centuries. AfroAmerica XXI is trying to change that.

According to its web site:

“Afroamerica XXI has increased the visibility of the African Diaspora from Latin America when there were only a few organizations who worked in favor of this population. Never the less, we continue to generate great changes in our communities.

“With more that 180 Afro-Latin American organizations and politician members, and with its partners in North America and Europe. Afroamerica XXI, recognize itself as a Black Nation, with an important roll to Africa and its Diaspora regardless of one’s religion, language origin place and gender.

“With our acquired experience, the continuous strengthening of our leaders, and the creation of new and innovative programs, we hope to improve the lives of Afro-Latin Americans with your continue support.”

With regard to improving the lives of Afro-Latinos, Afroamerica XXI’s web site continues:

“Afroamerica XXI is a participatory, non-hierarchical coalition/process through which African descendant communities [a] have defined their goals for the next century, [b] have a Action Plan (Plan de Acción) to attain these results [c] collectively fight the problems of racial discrimination, marginalization and exclusion [d] advocate for their interests nationally and internationally and, [e] form links and support one another.”

And:

“In response to the continued lack of investment, economic marginalization and human rights violations, Afro-Latin American leaders in Spanish speaking countries have developed AFROAMERICA XXI. This is a regional process existing in thirteen (13) countries in Latin America. AFROAMERICA XXI began in 1995 as a result of a study in nine countries (Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) conducted by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The study found that African Descendants from Latin America (Afro-Latinos) are faced with racism, tend to live in isolated, extremely poor communities, receive the least governmental services and are functionally ‘invisible’. This is because few of their countrymen – and even fewer people around the world – acknowledge their existence.

Every leader present began an Afroamerica XXI in their respective countries. As a result you can see different chapters of Afroamerica XXI around Latin America. Every chapter is independent with different structures but a shared mission.

Afroamerica XXI is forged by NGOs and politically elected Afro-Latin American leaders represent their communities. The specificity of this strategy is based on its cultural roots. The action plan by the next generation [1998 – 2021] is tailored to suit the present circumstances, cultural strengths, the assets, and current limitations of Afro-Latin Americans.”

Afroamerica XXI is a participatory, non-hierarchical coalition/process through which African descendant communities:

[a] have defined their goals for the next century,
[b] have a Action Plan (Plan de Acción) to attain these results
[c] collectively fight the problems of racial discrimination, marginalization and exclusion [d] advocate for their interests nationally and internationally and, [e] form links and support one another.

You can go to the Afroamerica XXI web site and see what all that they do at Afroamerica XXI, but I have posted just one piece of information that illustrates what can be found there. The following is an excerpt from the information that can be found on Afro-Venezuelans at the Afroamerica XXI web site.

“The following information was taken from the Poverty Alleviation Program for Minority Communities in Latin America: Communities of African Ancestry in Latin America-History, Population, Contributions, & Social Attitudes, Social and Economic Conditions. This was realized by members of and organizations of AFROAMERICA XXI

Approximate Total Population 22,803,000
Total Ethnic Groups 4
Approximate Afro-Peruvian Population 2,280,300
Location -Maracaibo
-Zulia State
-Distrito Federal
Languages Spanish

SOCIOECONOMIC PROFILE

Population and its distribution

Venezuelan racial ideology is layered in a series of myths about the racial make-up of the country as well as the nature of race relations. Venezuela's domestic and international image is of a country living in racial harmony, made up of mostly Mestizos (Indigenous/European mix) whose culture also includes influences from Africa.

In the mid-1800's, nearly 70 percent of the population of Venezuela was "Pardo", or "persons of African descent". This fact was recognized by Simón Bolivar in the Congress of Angostura in 1819:

Tengamos presente que nuestro pueblo no es europeo, ni el americano del norte; que más bién es un compuesto de Africa y América que una emanación de la Europa.

Economic Profile

The urban Afro-Venezuelans who completed a secondary and technical or university education are employed in the formal sector and constitute a small middle class (in terms of values, but in economic terms they are in the lower income segments). They tend to choose the professions more favorably disposed to hiring Blacks. Skilled jobs held by Blacks are typically in government services such as teaching and nursing or social work, all of which employ an important number of Blacks, women in particular.

Nevertheless, Blacks appear to be excluded from management positions. They are not represented in equal proportions in the upper echelons. Such is the case with the teaching profession, in which the majority of teachers in the unions are Black, but there are very few Black professionals in the upper ranks of the Ministry of Education. Blacks are not represented in the upper ranks of the military services, diplomatic corps, or the Catholic church. Among the majority of Blacks, unemployment is reportedly very high, particularly among adolescents.

Where image is important, such as in banks, in reception areas or in airplanes as flight attendants, Black women do not find employment opportunities. According to Dr. Juan de Dios Martinez of Zulia University, there are perhaps between 7 and 15 Black secretaries in the State of Zulia, where he estimates that 66 percent of the total population is Black.

Rural economies which depend upon agriculture or fishing are depressed. Difficulties in land titling and access to credit exacerbate circumstances, and many Blacks move into the cities to find work. The informal sector economy among Afro-Venezuelans consists of production and sale of foodstuffs, particularly traditional sweets and sweet breads, and casual day labour. A new presence in Venezuela's workforce are undocumented Black immigrants from Caribbean nations as Trinidad and Tobago, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. In Caracas, there is a strong presence of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Colombia.

T[o]urism and its Impact on Barlovento

Blacks from the area say they have a difficult time benefiting from job opportunities in the industry. By the end of 1980, many tourism projects were completed in Miranda, around the city of Higuerote, and towards the other coastal areas. With the establishment of resorts, a variety of artificial waterways were created, diverting water from several rivers and causing stagnation in some natural bodies of water. Water treatment plants have not kept pace with tourism, which resulted in several beaches being contaminated with waste.

Tourism is seen by Black townships as a threat to their way of life because there are no economic benefits from servicing tourists, who use very little local food supplies or other local commodities. Local residents do suffer from its negative impact: housing has become scarcer in Higuerote and more expensive for local residents; there is a greater flow of drugs; delinquency has increased; teenage pregnancy rose; there is growing prostitution by both sexes; and an increase in sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. Youths are lured into these activities by the promise of easy money.

There is a pressing need for the Afro-Venezuelan community to develop its own tourism options. The pattern of tourism promoted for Barlovento by the Chambers of Commerce consists of packaged tours for foreigners, who are taken to condominium-style facilities and to specific locations for entertainment and shopping. This leaves very little opportunity for small businesses to access the tourist and creates very few spin-offs for the local economy.

Health

The national health delivery system reaches the Black Communities in the same manner as other rural communities in the most prosperous states. Those that are closest to the largest cities or are parish capitals have a small hospital or clinic or are the site for a health ambulatory service. At least one doctor is on hand. Often these doctors are doing their required period of social service, and there is also a nurse. Villages that are more distant appear to have a dispensary operated by a nurse with a supply line to the nearest parish hospital.

The entire health system suffers from supply problems, the distant villages and the housing groups in rural areas being more severely affected. The most disadvantaged population groups are the caserios (small settlements) which are too small to have services and are located in areas of difficult access.
Residents must attend hospital facilities in Caracas. Health workers rarely want to enter these barrios, particularly those known to have gang shoot-outs. All of them have some Black populations.

Children suffer from fevers, diarrhea, and other common diseases. Among adults, high blood pressure and its attendant complications are the biggest health threat, but most of those diagnosed are under regular treatment. The rural folk we met were older than the national life expectancy age. The self-profiles of the Black Communities described their situation as healthier than the national average.

Relative poverty

Venezuela's most recent poverty map is based on the census of 1990. Poverty rankings are based on unsatisfied basic needs and were made for the states and for municipalities. The methodology employed was designed by ECLAC. This methodology measures structural poverty but does not measure changes in the income levels of the homes, thus it does not capture the new poor or the depth of chronic poverty caused by a recessive economy.

The observations made by the mission and the information gathered from communities, although insufficient, suggest that while small rural towns do not show evidence of as much structural poverty, the drop in purchasing power of the bolivar and the lack of economic opportunities has deepened the level of poverty of Black families in the last five years. Comments made by informants also lead to the observation that they have reached the end of their reserves, and that communal assistance to each other will no longer be a possibility. The custom of giving away produce from the conuco and later receiving an equivalent when in need will soon be a thing of the past. According to rural residents in Zulia, what little there is will have to be used or sold in order to meet household's basic cash needs.

NATIONAL LAWS, POLITICAL REPRESENTATION AND GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS

Political representation

Until the 1980s, Blacks have undertaken no political development as a group because of the prevailing societal and political attitudes that there are no separate racial or ethnic groups in Venezuela. Consequently, no pressure groups have evolved to advocate for Black interests. Afro-Venezuelans vote, join political parties, risk their lives in political debate and disturbances, and participate in the political process as part of groups representing trade unions, farmers, and educators, rather than as a separate group focused on Black interests. As a result, there is little evidence of a strong Black presence in Venezuelan politics.

Afroamerica XXI is in Spanish and English.