Reality Check

Reading and guarding

2011-08-14T14:49:00.001Z

In Eastern Chad night security guards, often quite qualified formally, welcome the chance to have some electricity and to study at night for the courses, often at university level, they attend during the day. They pay for it all themselves despite the miserable salaries they get from the security companies*. In Abidjan I was talking to a guard just now who, like all the others here, never

Slates

2011-01-11T08:08:00.000Z

UNICEF in Chad, like in many other countries gives primary school kits both to Chadian schools and to schools in the camps for refugees from Darfur, Sudan. These kits usually contain slates and because of the fact that the ordering is often centralized the kit may contain slates whether the teachers in the receiving country use them or not. As it happens, Sudanese teachers do not have a

The dangers of tarmacking roads!

2009-11-24T10:37:00.001Z

When life started coming back to Juba in 2005 (I was one of the first to arrive there by road) they said the motor-bike boys were the cause of AIDS. Juba had been totally enclaved and had virtually no AIDS at all. They may have been right. One of the evening roles of motor-bike guys (who are called 'clando-man' here in Chad, motard in Congo. boda-boda boys in most

Found in my old papers! School in a Box

2008-11-29T08:46:00.000Z

Hi friends and colleagues, There has been occasional controversy on the first use of the term and concept of a ‘School in a Box’. I found this old article from Refugees magazine in 1989 and I am copying it for those (the Anthonies, Elisa) who were involved when we created this powerful response to the way displaced schools were treated in Khartoum, often being bulldozed at 5 minutes’

FW: For all you ex- or would be- AIDS activists

2008-11-07T19:09:00.000Z

Reporters interviewing a 104-year-old woman: "And what do you think is the best thing about being 104?" the reporterasked. She simply replied, "No peer pressure." Barry Sesnan

Loath

2008-07-11T06:38:00.001Z

From a report: NGO officials are loath to put a figure on lives potentially saved or additional people helped if the money spent on transportation went to food instead, but one analyst said it could roughly double the number of beneficiaries based on the assumption that 70-80 million people now receive US food aid annually. This must be a record,

A different take ...

2008-06-29T22:03:00.001Z

A different take ... From: Veronika Fuest, Changing roles and opportunities for women in Liberia, in African Affairs 107/427 Many women have had to resort to prostitution to survive and / or support their families. However the question may be asked if all these women are to be viewed as just passive victims, or also as agents with the scope to make choices. While I do not want to

At least for boys ...

2008-02-02T08:42:00.000Z

GLOBAL: Good early nutrition can make you richer Eating nutritious food at an early age will not only ensure a source of income as an adult but also better pay, according to a study published in the current issue of The Lancet, a leading British medical journal. The study, conducted in four villages in Guatemala, found that boys who received atole, a

2008-01-22T17:02:00.002Z

The devil is in the details: Assessment and Certification of Education in Difficult CircumstancesWhen an education system is set up or restored after an emergency, a war or a major population movement, it cannot be long before the twin questions of assessment and certification arise. Assessment may be to establish the quality or the ‘quantity’ of

2007-12-17T08:33:00.000Z

My book 'How to teach English' is still on sale, but difficult to find in an ordinary bookshop it seems. For Teacher’s friend, there is a totally new version coming out. Please contact me for it.

RE: What I wrote once ...

2007-12-05T15:44:00.000Z

In south Sudan, as elsewhere in Africa, the Church is often seen as'civil society, indeed at times to represent it. In Afghanistan, as inSri Lanka it seems, there is much rhetoric about the 're'(?) emergenceof civil society as a way of securing peace. Yet here in most areas ofthe country this means older men whose views are seen to representothers. Some support the Taliban and very few have any

2007-12-05T08:35:00.001Z

Seen on Reliefweb, immediately following an advertisement for a job in people trafficking: Procurement Specialist, South Africa International Centre for Migration Policy Development I wonder which meaning of procurement they actually mean …

What I wrote once ...

2007-12-05T08:35:00.000Z

I am civil society ‘Civil society’ as a phrase has an honourable ancestry in politics. One phase of the evolution of countries post-independence and of the evolution-in-parallel of NGOS and UN bodies has been the gradual emergence of the idea of ‘Civil Society’ as opposed to uncivil society? To military society? To ecclesiastical society? …. Well, that is

FW:

2007-12-02T09:56:00.001Z

Voluntarism Spurred by a UNHCR remark some years ago that: Payment can destroy the sense of responsibility that refugees feel for their welfare. I wrote the following I actually have a fairly jaded attitude to voluntarism in Africa just now, not about work-camps, joint seminars etc. but trying to get labour for free as we often do in refugee camps. It

2007-09-26T06:15:00.000Z

Stayees and the people who have senseAnd then, the realisation that the people who suffered most after a refugee crisis lasting many years were actually those who stayed at home (now after years granted their own bit of jargon: ‘stayees’). In Juba in 2005 the Juba people saw themselves as heroes for having lived through 20 years of hell (and it was truly grim) and the SPLM who believe they should

2007-09-26T06:13:00.000Z

Numbers ending in a lot of zeroes. In Southern Sudan there were six million people in the census in the early eighties (including me). Most people believe that by the mid-nineties only 2 million remained in the south, 2 million had fled and 2 million died who shouldn’t have. This number ‘feels’ right, sounds convenient and is very easy to keep alive in documentation. I have used it myself. Yet

2007-09-26T06:03:00.000Z

I am civil society ‘Civil society’ as a phrase has an honourable ancestry in politics. One phase of the evolution of countries post-independence and of the evolution-in-parallel of NGOS and UN bodies has been the gradual emergence of the idea of ‘Civil Society’ ... as opposed to uncivil society? To military society? To ecclesiastical society? …. Well, that is another question. This is just to

2007-09-26T05:52:00.000Z

Coordination Coordination is rarely in the interest of the beneficiaries, and not always in the interest of agencies. Discuss. When there were four refugee camps around the town of Yei in Southern Sudan, managed by four different NGOs there was an interesting ‘market’ for the refugees. It was not long before opinions were clear, while education might be better in camp A, health care was

2007-09-26T05:41:00.000Z

Not joined up UNICEF, like many other international agencies does procurement for all its activities in Copenhagen or Dubai, because it is cheaper. No account is taken of the huge number of small enterprises everywhere in Africa which folded – or never grew -- because of this decision, and the massive unemployment which followed. UNICEF says it is because it is a humanitarian agency, not really

2007-09-26T05:34:00.000Z

A bright idea in the 1980s in S Sudan An NGO, I think it was Oxfam (usually known as Oxfarm, which seemed more logical on agriculture projects), had set up a good project among the Acholis of Sudan building on the system, widespread in the region, of ‘brigade’ farming. In this system a group of young farmers worked together to cultivate their land. The practical number was around 20 and they

2007-04-19T09:38:00.000Z

The following article from a refugee magazine is notable for the fact that it can't actually prove anything. In fact it says clearly that it doesn't know the real facts but still makes strong assertions.Please note the highlights which all deal with speculation or what 'must be true'.This style is far too common! It seems that rape is exempt from normal rigour in proof. Yet I know the researcher

2007-02-01T09:40:00.000Z

And the Chicken played the ChoraleThe businessman is having his shoes shined by a cheerful teenage boy by the roadside. The mobile phone rings. The big man searches his suit pockets and briefcase but it is the boy who whips his phone out of his back pocket and, without missing a brush stroke, makes an appointment later in the day to shine his caller’s shoes.This advertisement on Uganda television

2007-01-25T22:48:00.000Z

Some photos that illustrate some points. The first one is on the edge of a displaced camp in Northern Uganda. If you look carefully you can see five sets of latrines. Fair enough, but they seem to be from five different generations or at least five different NGOs ... subtly different styles and no doubt incorporated into annual reports. Makes you wonder doesn't it? What exactly are the

2007-01-25T22:40:00.000Z

Looking back a little on the issue of resource centres and what we thought they could do for youth:A Day in the Life of Education BaseIn a refugee settlement in East Africa there is a complex of buildings which can be reached on foot by most of the people of the settlements. It is situated near the refugees' self-help secondary school and next to two primary schools. The centre is also 'home' in

2007-01-15T14:48:00.000Z

A note I wrote to UNICEF in New York after seeing that UNICEF claimed to have invented the School in a Box in 1994 - in Tanzania!I have just recently seen the News Note: UNICEF celebrates 60 years for children where the following sentence occurs:‘Returning hundreds of thousands of children affected by armed conflict and natural disaster to school, thanks to the invention of UNICEF’s school in a

2007-01-09T12:51:00.000Z

On a 2001 visit to Kalemie on Lake Tanganyika with the Norwegian Refugee Council we met the Provincial Education officer, in this part of Katanga separated from the rest by the cease-fire line. We went through the usual questions about school statistics and drop-out and when we came to the question of girls’ drop-out in upper primary, the official told us that it was all because of the phosphorus

2006-09-20T10:17:00.000Z

So, after a couple of complaints from friends that I am not keeping the blog up to date, I resume with some comments I wrote to Gill Scharer one of the three (the others being George Clark and myself, who came to Southern Sudan under British Council auspices in 1981. (two others, Paul Fanning - now in Reading, his marvellous wife Eleanor died four years ago) and Mark Todd were already there at

2006-05-23T13:42:00.000Z

After being a secondary school teacher in East and West Africa for 11 years, and completing my Masters in Edinburgh University, in 1981 I applied for a British Council job in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and, as an afterthought, for another in Juba, Southern Sudan. Arbitrarily, it seemed to me, simply because I had no school-age dependents and another candidate did, I was offered the job in Juba,

2006-03-26T17:56:00.000Z

This site is about working in the 'aid world'After being a secondary school teacher in East and West Africa for 11 years, and completing my Masters in Edinburgh University, in 1981 I applied for a British Council job in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and, as an afterthought, for another in Juba, Southern Sudan. Arbitrarily, it seemed to me, simply because I had no school-age dependents and another

2005-01-07T10:28:00.000Z

An aarticle I wrote has been published and may be relevant at this time ... http://www.odihpn.org/report.asp?ID=2679

2005-01-03T16:12:00.000Z

Just to say that I have an article published in the Humanitarian Practice Network Journal. Check it out on www.odihpn.org - the latest edition.

2002-12-02T08:52:00.000Z

It's linked with my specifically Africa travel and language site:

2002-12-02T08:41:00.000Z

Just building this site, started on 2nd December 2002 in Swakopmund, Namibia.