Working in PHC, or HIV/AIDS or MCH?

How many of you are involved in the care of people at the end of their lives? They may be 80 or 18. They may have cancer or AIDS or pneumonia. You want to help them, and their carers, to make the last months easier. You want them to have a good standard of physical, mental and spiritual care, with pain relief and medication. The name for all of this is Palliative Care . There is a World Association for Palliative Care ( thewpca.org ). Now they are making their resources more available in more languages.

Dear Friends and Colleagues, The Networklearning website has been updated after a long period of behind-the-scenes redevelopment. It is now in a new format , Joomla! . This will allow us to be more up-to-date and interact better. (On the other hand if you find any problems using the new site let us know!)

Recently we talked in a blog about women-friendly spaces. In UNICEF’s report State of the World’s Children (2012) there are examples of NGOs providing teenage-friendly spaces . The report focuses on the fact that more and more children and teenagers are growing up in cities. Think of the difficulties of being poor, female, (males another time) living in an urban slum.

We appreciate it’s not always easy to find everything on our site so here’s a quick guidance: All our manuals (Word and PDF documents) can be found in the Library . Tip: to find a particular title, instead of scrolling through the whole list you can use the ‘Library Themes’ menu which appears at the left of the library page. All our other resources (articles and links to information) are categorized into NGO Fields and NGO Skills . To locate all the info on a specific keyword, it’s quickest to use the searchbox (located at the right on every page). Difficulty downloading from the Library? Depending on your own browser settings, when you click on ‘Download’ the document may open in your browser window instead of being downloaded to your hard disc. If this happens, you can save the PDF to a location of your choice via the browser menu (File > Save As) Does this solve your problems? If not, please contact us.

Chris Laming is in the Networklearning support committee. He has run courses in Australia for men who use domestic violence. The course is available to download from the Networklearning Library. Last summer he had the good chance to visit an NGO working in a programme against Gender Based Violence (GBV) in Mombasa, Kenya. The NGO is Coast Women in Development . He emailed us:

Social Centre for Humanitarian services, Agriculture and Environmental Protection (SCHAEP) development program [ History ] [ Purpose ] [ Objectives ] [ Activities ] [ Partners ] HISTORY OF THE ORGANISATION Liberalization in Cameroon’s economy has led to the abandonment of farmers to unscrupulous market forces – forced to buy expensive farm inputs and sell their produce at giveaway prices. SCHAEP was launched as a capacity-building organization to assist farmers in Kumba to control, manage and benefit from the proceeds of their labour. As members of the community living the experience, the following problems were diagnosed by SCHAEP’s working team: Lack of organization amongst the farmers and hence poor communication. Poor sales of agricultural products due to lack of common markets. High cost of farm inputs as a result of individual purchase as opposed to less costly group purchase. Farmers’ reluctance to modernize traditional farming methods. Inability to resolve boundary problems amicably. Poor management of the farms’ hard-earned proceeds. Lack of knowledge re diversification of resources to generate more income at the end of production season. Rapid population growth due to migration from other villages for fertile lands. Poor hygienic conditions both at home and on the farms. PURPOSE OF THE ORGANIZATION (MISSION) SCHAEP aims to teach, train and organize the farms into common initiative groups through which they can better manage their agricultural products to their benefit. SCHAEP further seeks to empower the farmers physically, morally, and financially so that they can later on solve their own problems. OBJECTIVES To assist communities in the villages by building their capacity on how to live and work in common initiative groups, in order to strengthen their bargaining position over sales of their produce and purchase of farm inputs. Train members of common initiative groups in the need for good governance and accountability. Educate the common initiative groups on individual management of resources. Teach the farmers nutrition and hygiene. Establish a school outreach program on environmental protection through tree planting and formation of clubs. Advocate and lobby for programs that will help the public and members of common initiative groups. Give assistances to widows and their children. Increase farm yields and raise the standard of living. PLANNED ACTIVITIES Create more common initiative groups in the village and neighbouring villages. Inform members of the market trend of their produce. Plant trees in schools. Train farmers on management, leadership and accountability in running and managing a common initiative group. Support widows and their children in vocational institutions. Carry out vision education in the community and schools. COLLABORATION WITH OTHER INSTITUTIONS SCHAEP works with farmers irrespective of race, colour and religion, and with quarter and village heads, which are auxiliary of government. SCHAEP volunteers are available to other organizations for further training. SCHAEP also seeks volunteers to work with its programs.