Education Base
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Thursday, January 19, 2017
Who do we work for?
Youth
Those
who find it difficult to get education
Civil
servants, NGO employees, Self-employed
Teachers
Education
Base Languages
Recent studies
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
South Sudanese Refugees in North Uganda
Education Base is a small organisation in Uganda which is dedicated to helping youth who can't stay in school, usually because they have to work to help their families.
We do this by running local drop-in centres (Echo Bravo centres) which provide a place to learn, often in the evening, a place to be (when home is overcrowded and has no space or light), a place to improve skills, a place to charge a phone or consult the internet and the support to study in breaks during the working day with distance education manuals and on their smartphones.
Sometimes this level of support is enough to discourage migration to Europe by providing some hope of a better footer at home. We are starting such centres in Mali, Central African Republic and D R Congo where we have local and competent members.
The current problem: There is a massive influx of refugees into Northern Uganda from the renewed civil war in South Sudan. Our recent study there shows that the refugee youth need exactly this kind of support so they can use this time in exile profitably, even if they have no work to do.
The centres, having libraries and copying equipment, also serve to support the teachers (often volunteers) and new schools to avoid each school having to be fully stocked at first.
In the second phase, not covered by this plea, we want teachers to have laptops / tablets with all the support they need to teach the curriculum.
We want to set up as many as 11 centres in the camps one of which, the Mother Centre will be more advanced and complex and will supply the others with materials and a rotating teaching staff.
The money will be used to provide two rooms and a small office (with solar power and small generator) in each centre (often situated in a school or admin centre), a mother centre of four rooms with wi-fi and a stock of books, charts and materials. There will be a stipend for a local teacher or senior youth to look after the centre.
This is an urgent need with the new year, and because the centres can roll out easily one by one the funds can be put to good use quite quickly. With three thousand pounds we can do a small centre and run it for six months. We would need 9000 pounds for the mother centre. A field motorbike would be required at approx approximately 2000 pounds.
This is very important to us because we have done it successfully before; indeed some of the older centres set up during the last crisis (but in a slightly different area) are still open. The current refugees are often the families of those who benefitted from the system in the 90s and they wholeheartedly support us setting up these new ones. In those days the centres were the only connection for the refugees to the outside world and served as post office, community centre, home for clubs and sports and training centres.
During the start up phase we will be hoping to get further funding to supplement funds hopefully raised by this phase.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/12/26/fleeing-war-south-sudanese-create-booming-camps-in-uganda.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fworld+(Internal+-+World+Latest+-+Text)
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Friday, August 10, 2012
FW: ethical question
In the recent kidnapping incident in Dadaab, where I am based just now, a driver was killed and another driver and staff member were shot, one seriously.
The four expatriate hostages, our colleagues from here, Nairobi and Oslo, were eventually rescued by a combination of the Kenya army and Somali warlords after a walk of three nights into Somalia. One was injured; another developed a badly infected foot.
In a recent incident involving a CARE team visiting a camp, five policemen in the escort car were blown up. Two lost their legs. Again they were there to protect agency staff.
Kenyan colleagues say (almost openly) that we put them in danger if we are on missions with them.
The police become victims for us also.
In this context, since I am not allowed to visit the camps just now for security reasons, and have to stay permanently within the secure compound, I am not expecting to be here beyond the end, in September, of the current short contract.
It remains to be seen if I will be deployed elsewhere.
Barry Sesnan
Uganda +256 757 219 288
Kenya +254 734 338 434
Skype: barryechobravo
Friday, June 29, 2012
FW: NRC Dadaab
Hi all
I am here in Dadaab, Kenya doing an interim manager position for NRC; I came just eight days ago.
This morning there was a high level NRC delegation from Nairobi and Oslo. They were in three cars visiting projects in the camps, and they were ambushed at the gate of the NRC new compound in Ifo 2 camp.
One dead, two injured and four kidnapped. The kidnapped are all expatriate colleagues (Norwegian, US-Pakistani, Canadian, Philippino; we all had breakfast together this morning). They are assumed to have been taken into Somalia (just 100km from here). The Kenya army is in pursuit with helicopters.
I am safe as I had not joined the delegation going to the camps, since they were to visit my project in Dadaab town on their return.
More later
Barry Sesnan
Uganda +256 757 219 288
Kenya +254 734 338 434
Skype: barryechobravo
http://barrysbook.blogspot.com/
Monday, June 11, 2012
Mandate for protection
"UNISFA, the Ethiopian peacekeepers [in Abyei], have a mandate for civilian protection but they do not have a mandate for cattle protection".
Reminds me of the Banyoro in Kasenyi who wanted UN to convey all their cattle for them back to Uganda. When I suggested that they could sell one to hire a barge of a lorry, I was regarded as crazy.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Reading and guarding
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Slates
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 culture of using slates in their teaching. However, as a colleague showed me, the slates do not go to waste. Four slates laid flat side by side make an excellent table top and these tables are beginning to be found in the small restaurants in the camps, and doubtless in homes.
In this there is a throwback to the donation of cloth number and alphabet charts by UNESCO-PEER amongst others in the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa.
They made excellent tablecloths and curtains.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The dangers of tarmacking roads!
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 other places) is to bring the guy to the gal or the gal to the guy. We used them as peer educators in Goma and told them to carry condoms to give/sell (and let's face it, use).
Motorcycle-Related Trauma in South Sudan: a cross sectional observational study.
Andrew Allan, University of Birmingham. AXA615@bham.ac.uk
Abstract
Motorcycle related trauma is a major cause of morbidity in those of working age in the developing world1. One
hundred and sixteen patients involved in motorcycle related accidents were identified over four weeks at the Juba
Teaching Hospital in South Sudan. Of these 84% were male with an average age of 26.7 years. Most male
injuries involved drivers, whereas the majority of female injuries were to pedestrians. The commonest injuries
were lacerations, abrasions and fractures, and the commonest regions injured were the lower and upper limbs
and the head and face.
Forty-four patients were admitted to the ward. Forty six percent of men interviewed did not hold a license,
96.5% of drivers and 91.3% of passengers were not wearing a helmet and 24.6% of drivers were under the
influence of alcohol at the time of injury.
The vast majority of accidents occurred on surfaced roads within Central Juba. This study highlights the need
for tighter regulation of motorcycle ownership, usage and personal safety in addition to wider infrastructural
development. In doing this it might be possible to reduce morbidity and the socioeconomic impact on those
involved in motorcycle related accidents and the families who depend on them.
Significant injuries to the head and face were recorded, but no enquiries were made about cognitive impairment.
Organised rehabilitation of those injured needs serious consideration by the Ministry of Health.
Background
A recent influx of petrochemical and charitable
organizations has turned Juba into a crowded
overpopulated city and brought a new wave of
inexperienced motorists. Many young men are
using their motorcycles as makeshift taxis, often
without licences or personal protection. This
coupled with poor road conditions has created a
perfect environment for motorcycle related trauma
(MRT).
The aim of this study was to determine:
1. The extent of the problem of MRT in Juba
2. The demographics of those involved
3. The method and extent of injury and
4. Contributing risk factors.
These data might help to develop a strategy to
reduce MRT and its serious impact on those
involved.
Method
The study took place over four weeks (15th April –
10th May 2009) at Juba Teaching Hospital at the
emergency surgical outpatient department and the
trauma and surgical wards.
To assess how representative these patients were of
the overall road traffic-related trauma caseload,
clinical details of all patients admitted following
road traffic accidents to the surgical and emergency
wards between April 2008 and April 2009 were
examined.
Results
A total of 116 patients were identified over the 4-
week period and 44 (38%) were admitted. All
recorded cases took place between 7.45 and 22.00
hours with a peak time between 12.00 and 16.00
hours. The percent of the accidents occurring at
different locations were:
main paved roads in central Juba 70.2%
outskirts of the city on unpaved road 8.8%
within 10 miles of Juba 10.6%
The remainder occurred over 10 miles from the
hospital.
Characteristics of patients
Of the 116 patients:
97 (84%) were males and 19 (16%) were
females.
The average age was 27.4 years for males and
24.1 years for females
23 were children (<16 years) and 21 were
unemployed. The remainder were students (≥16
years in full time education) or in paid
employment of which 10 were military
personnel.
58 were drivers (all males), 23 were passengers,
and 35 were pedestrians.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Found in my old papers! School in a Box
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’ notice. The concept was to have everything in a box – but also, sadly to be able to pack the school back into the box and carry it away to a safe place. Being displaced in Khartoum then, as now, was a very precarious existence. (Anthony Sebit, Anthony Wani and I wrote the study ‘Creating a Future’ at this time describing the state of education for southerners both in the north and in Juba).
The School-in-a-box was accompanied by the ‘Teacher Assistance Course’, for untrained ‘volunteer’ teachers which was written by SOLU (which at that time also initiated the Foundation course for over-age southerners, a modular self-help course, which was widely used and trialled in JRS evening education centres).
This was an ancestor of the current ‘Bon Enseignant’ and ‘Be Better Teacher’ (written in UNESCO-PEER in Hargeisa) courses.
The SOLU integrated package was carried to Somalia by UNESCO-PEER in 1990. This then with further development became TEP, which was one of the responses to the Rwanda emergency and has now been widely used and developed for example by NRC, with strong emphasis on the training side.
Of course I have oversimplified and there were many valuable contributions to its development, though in some cases it also lost its flexibility and became fossilised.
It developed further in Zambia as the Spark/Zedukit Community Schools project, which is still running.
There have been so many subkits (teacher’s kit, pupils’ kit, school kit, sports kit, science kit – the latter goes back a long way with Michael Brophy now of the Africa Educational Trust being an expert).
I am in the process of writing all this up and I wonder if anyone can push the dates back earlier and/or fill in more details.
In SOLU we would never claim to have originated the idea of a school kit, but we did claim the name! As they say there are sometimes ‘many fathers’, but at least one agency’s strange claim in their 60th anniversary publicity to have invented it in Tanzania in 1994 is forgetful of their own important role in developing the concept earlier than that!
Barry
From: Barry Sesnan [mailto:bsesnan@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 9:29 PM
To: 'Vance Culbert'; dabla toure; 'Eldrid Kvamen Midttun'; Solveig Borgenvik Voll
Cc: 'Eva Ahlen'; Tim Brown (brownunhcr@yahoo.com)
Subject: Found in my old papers!
The photos were not provided by me.
Friday, November 07, 2008
FW: For all you ex- or would be- AIDS activists
"And what do you think is the best thing about being 104?" the reporter
asked.
She simply replied, "No peer pressure."
Barry Sesnan
Friday, July 11, 2008
Loath
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, as NGOs are wont to slap a figure usually with a lot of zeroes onto anything that moves (and doesn’t!). But we know we are still in familiar territory with ‘roughly double’ and then the estimated figure in millions which means that they were not really loath after all.