The third day of the workshop concentrated
on project management. The facilitating
team worked closely together to overcome
the challenges posed by working across
languages. The response from participants
at the end of the workshop was enthusiasm
and great appreciation for the participative
ways of working adopted by the facilitating
team during the three days.
The NGO sector has an important role
to play in tackling poverty in the Yemen
and recent years have seen the rise in
well established NGOs. One such NGO is
SOUL. SOUL was established in 1997 and
aims to achieve a higher quality of life
for women and children in the Yemen. For
such a young organisation, the activities
carried out by SOUL are impressive. These
include studies in education, health and
childcare, HIV/AIDS, dressmaking and computer
training, training of traditional birth
attendants, environment, micro-credit
and campaigns. The micro-credit programme
provides women with the means to start
small businesses in a society where bank
loans are culturally unacceptable for
women. Individual visits are made to carry
out feasibility studies and repayment
rates have so far been 100%.
Another of the NGOs participating in
the workshop was the Al-Aman Organisation
for Blind Women Care, which works with
visually impaired women and children in
Sana'a and surrounding areas. The organisation
was established in 1995. There is now
a hostel for 38 visually impaired girls
and it supports a further 200 young women
in accessing mainstream education and
training. The organisation also runs a
project to translate mainstream curricula
into braille.
For Skillshare International, the visit
has shown how our experience in supporting
NGOs in Africa and India can be shared
with an organisation starting similar
work in a country facing enormous poverty.
This exciting new way of extending the
impact of our work is one that we hope
to build on in the future.
Skillshare International
at the World Summit on Sustainable Development
top
The World Summit on Sustainable
Development (WSSD) was the world's largest
ever international summit. With 60,000
delegates and the full attention of the
world's media, WSSD certainly helped to
get the concept of sustainable development
better known. But many people felt that
this gigantic event was too far removed
from the lives of the ordinary people.
Throughout the last year, Skillshare
International has been building up to
the WSSD, with the overall aim of using
the summit to connect local communities
with the issues discussed in Johannesburg.
In southern Africa and in the UK, we
worked with other NGOs to raise awareness
of the importance of WSSD. For example,
in southern Africa, numerous events were
organised by Skillshare staff across six
countries to encourage local organisations
and people to become involved in WSSD
issues. In many countries, local organisations
working on important issues of sustainable
development lack the capacity to engage
with national and international events.
Skillshare International helped these
organisations to engage with the WSSD
process in their country and to use WSSD
to make people more aware of the work
they carried out.
In Leicester, we worked with a range
of agencies to promote actions that individuals
could take to promote global sustainable
development in the areas of HIV/AIDS,
equitable global trade and renewable energy.
In Johannesburg itself, Skillshare International
took part in the Civil Society Global
Forum - an event for voluntary and campaigning
organisations that ran parallel to the
meeting of government leaders. We were
also able to help a number of our partner
organisations attend the Global Forum.
During the Civil Society Global Forum,
Skillshare International's Director, Dr
Cliff Allum, and Morris Mtsambiwa, Director
of the Swaziland Parks Board (which runs
the country's national parks) gave a presentation
on the future of international volunteering
and sustainable development.
Senelisiwe Ntshangase, Skillshare International's
Country Director in Swaziland, explains:
"Skillshare International and the
Swaziland National Trust Commission have
been working in partnership for many years.
The partnership has involved the placement
of international development workers.
During the last 50 years, international
volunteers, particularly those from the
North, have been a major feature of many
development initiatives in countries in
the South. WSSD and the Civil Society
Forum was an ideal platform for demonstrating
how encouraging people to volunteer internationally
can make a huge contribution to global
sustainable development."
The immediate results of the Johannesburg
summit for Skillshare International were
a large number of increased contacts with
other civil society organisations, particularly
in the southern African region. We were
pleased to have been able to help our
partner organisations make their voices
heard at the event. Our work around WSSD
continues. Many of the new partnerships
we established with other voluntary organisations
will help us develop new initiatives in
the future, particularly in the area of
external relations and advocacy.
Supporters meet
in Leicester and Manchester top
At the beginning of September,
meetings were held in Leicester and Manchester
for supporters, both old and new, based
in or near these two cities. The meeting
provided the supporters with an opportunity
to meet others living in the same area
and to share ideas. Several of those who
attended were returned development workers
or health trainers, some had other experience
of living overseas, and all had a keen
interest in Skillshare International and
development issues in general.
Jos Miller, a Manchester supporter and
former health trainer commented: "It
was really worthwhile to meet up with
other people in the area who are committed
to supporting Skillshare International.
It also gave us the opportunity to think
about what we want from our relationship
with Skillshare as supporters."
It is hoped that second meetings will
soon be held in Leicester and Manchester
which will be used to plan supporter events
and activities for 2003. First meetings
will also be held in Bristol and London
early next year.
For more information about future meetings,
please contact Victoria Edge-Baron, Supporter
Development Officer, on 0116 257 6615
or email: victoria.edge-baron@skillshare.org
Skillshare International
develops skills of medical students top
September saw the beginning of
a new initiative for Skillshare International.
We are working in partnership with Leicester
University medical school on a new course
called "The Health and Development
Special Study Module". The course
has been designed for third year undergraduate
medical students and gives them the opportunity
to learn about health in developing countries
and to acquire some of the skills and
knowledge they will need as doctors working
in an increasingly globalised world.
The course builds on Skillshare International's
work in supporting community level health
care in Africa and India. For example,
in recent weeks, students have been learning
about the work of MASS, one of our partner
organisations based in the Indian state
of Orissa. This has helped to increase
their understanding of how rural people
in Orissa receive health services and
some of the main health problems they
face. The course particularly aims to
encourage the students to think about
some of the many connections between poverty
and ill-health, at the national, community
and individual level.
David Weatherall, Skillshare International's
Policy and Development Awareness Officer,
said: "The thinking behind the new
course is that tomorrow's doctors - whether
or not they ever work abroad - need a
much better understanding of global health.
Diseases are now globalised and virtually
all UK doctors treat patients from diverse
ethnic and cultural backgrounds."
We are relying on returned development
workers and health trainers to teach much
of the course. The course has been co-covened
by Dr Adrian Hastings a lecturer at Leicester
University who was a development worker
in Mozambique in the 1980s. The external
examiner for the course, Professor Sandy
Cairncross from the London School of Hygiene
and Tropical Medicine, is one of our supporters
and was a development worker in Lesotho.
Update
from India top
When the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office and the British High Commission
relaxed travel advice in late July, the
situation for Skillshare International's
health trainers was reviewed. The decision
was taken to reinstate the health trainers
in their respective placements at the
end of July. Emergency evacuation plans
remain in place.
0.7%
Campaign Update top
Earlier this year, supporters of Skillshare
International were invited to join the
0.7% campaign (newsletter 17) to put pressure
on the UK government to commit this percentage
of GNP to aid assistance. We would like
to thank all those who added their voices
by sending e-postcards and letters to
Gordon Brown MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Along with other members of BOND (British
Overseas NGOs for Development), Skillshare
International welcomes the increase in
aid announced in the comprehensive spending
review of 15 July: a rise from the current
0.32% of GNP per year to 0.4% by 2006.
However, there is still a need for the
UK government to commit to the UN aid
target of 0.7% agreed in 1970 and to address
the issue of how additional aid is spent.
Skillshare International's Director,
Cliff Allum explains: "Following
recent attempts to link aid to other political
agendas, it's imperative that any additional
aid resources is not syphoned-off and
spent on foreign policy, security or anti-immigration
policies. Effective aid is targeted at
tackling poverty and promoting sustainable
development. The tendency for development
co-operation to become dwarfed by other
priorities is an ever present threat.
0.4% is a great start but there is still
a long way to go."
For further information and links to
press releases throughout this campaign,
please visit, www.bond.org.uk/advocacy
Obituaries
top
Sadly, Me 'Mahopolang Letsie
passed away in June. Me 'Mahopolang started
working at our office in Lesotho in June
1989 and over the years has made an enormous
contribution to the organisation. She
will be missed by all of us.
On 25 September, Mr Ibraimo Issufo, Chair
of the Programme Advisory Committee (PAC)
in Mozambique, sadly passed away in Nampula.
Mr Issufo was invited to join the PAC
by the former director, Alvaro Casimiro,
when we first began our policy of localisation
in Mozambique in the late 1980s. Skillshare
worked with Mr Issufo to strengthen our
links in the community. We would like
to offer our condolences to his family,
friends and colleagues.
On 19 October, Mr. Amaro Nunes sadly
passed away in Maputo. Mr Nunes had been
a Portuguese language teacher for our
development workers since 1996 and was
a friend of the country office staff and
all the development workers in Mozambique.
Staff
comings and goings top
In October, Brian Wakley joined
the organisation as the International
Project Officer. Elaine Stevenson starts
her maternity leave in November and Mukami
Rimberia begins the role of International
Programme Officer for the next 12 months.
In November, Adele Hicks begins as the
new Administrative Officer and Rosemary
Hardy starts as the new Administrative
Assistant.
