The Regional AIDS Training Network, (RATN) can keep you informed in Eastern and Southern Africa. Get your NGO onto their regular emailing list.
Contact: P.O. Box 16035, 00100 GPO, Nairobi, Kenya; Wireless: Tel: +254-020-2635929/ 254-020-2635938; Mobile (Office): +254-734 999975, 724 255849 Fax: 254-20-3872270; Email: ratn@ratn.org Website: www.ratn.org
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!)
Hesperian have informed us that a number of their manuals are now translated into Arabic. They cover both health and disability and include “Where Women Have No Doctor”. “Where there is no Doctor” “Where Women have no Doctor” ”Where there is no Dentist” ”Special Education” ”Disabled Village Children” For the above titles, contact Ghanem Bibi Arab Resource Collective (ARC) Beirut email: arcleb@mawared.org web: www.mawared.org “Helping Health Workers Learn” Contact Abd Ilah Hussein Institute for Arab Research P.O. Box 13-5057 (Chouran) Beirut, LEBANON Tel: 810055/6 “Helping Children Who Are Blind” Contact Ashraf Mahrous, Compubraille, P.O. Box 156 , 76th Street #12 , El Mukattam, Cairo, 11571 EGYPT Tel: 00202 25084152 email: compubraille@link.net
Our newest manual, Making a Research Plan , is now available for download. A Research Project is a good way to extend your career, keep yourself from losing your sanity, and enhance your job prospects. After research training, your attitude to everything you do in life will change. To be of maximum benefit to your career it is best if your research is directly related to an essential part of your work. Others have done it – so can you! This booklet explains how to set about it in easy steps.
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.
A Canadian, Daniel Kish, who was born blind, felt that his mobility – using a long white stick – was too limiting. He set about finding out how to improve on it and has now developed a mission to facilitate the self-directed achievement of blind people everywhere. A key component is echo-location, which involves blind people making noises to bounce off objects nearer and further away; they can be trained to become much more aware of the sounds around them, to become more confident and to move more freely. Graduates use bicycles to travel around. A full explanation of World Access for the Blind’s ‘Perception Based’ approach can be read at www. worldaccessfortheblind .org/node/120
New titles for familiar issues is a problem for me. I have to learn the new titles and abbreviations – and often it feels as if someone thought them up to be on the inside and make me feel an outsider. But it is important to keep up and take part in the debate. We must not be overawed by jargon. And we can let each other know when a new term becomes important. I saw “mHealth” in several places and googled it. It means health care and public health programmes supported by mobile electronic gear such as mobile phones. ~ MM