Blog

Staff training in appropriate technology John gave me great news the other day that two Fantsuam Foundation staff would be going to Oyo State in the south west of Nigeria to receive training in the use and development of appropriate technology to help people with health issues and disabilities. John told me yesterday that the staff have begun the training and will be spending a further 10 days in Ibadan before they return with their newly acquired knowledge. John will let us know once his staff return and they have begun to think how they will use this knowledge in...

Whats Good For Bees and Beekeepers is Good For Nigerian Agriculture A beekeepers stakeholder forum was held on on 19 th June, 2013 with support from Winrock International www.winrock.org . This followed on the heels of the first National Beekeeping Conference was held on May 6-8, 2013, http://www.cebrad.com/first-national-beekeeping-conference-communiqué . The theme for the Stakeholders Forum was “Healthy Bees, Healthy environment, Healthy Human”. In recognition of the interconnectedness of beekeeping to sustainable human development, Winrock had invited a cross-section of stakeholders, including law enforcement agents, regulators, fire service, funding agencies, pastoralists, etc and also commissioned a research on the “Impacts of...

This world reader e-books project looks like a great opportunity. E-books would bring huge benefit to various projects I know about. For a start I would love to tell John Dada, Fola Sunday so they could get these e-books to use in their work with disadvantaged communites in North Central Nigeria and in South West Nigeria. Other people and projects also start to spring to mind. Beware of false hopes However I'm cautious. Often I've seen projects that make my heart leap - but when I dig deeper I find that, for one reason or another, there is no way...

Last week I blogged enthusiastically about the PEI #scienceAfrica UnConference - Appreciating PEI's "Africa's Scientific Independence" Now the highlights are avaliable - excellently done as a Prezi with embedded video clips. I'll copy some of the announcment below to give you the links and a flavour of the day : It was a fantastic day to explore scientific development in Africa, and we were delighted with the mix of people we gathered to share their thoughts. Having looked back through the material, although there were an enormous range of issues discussed, five key themes emerged: Africa needs to own its...

This is what I liked best about the Planet Earth Institute's event " Africa's Scientific Independence; How do we get there? ". Panel + Open Plenary I liked the way the "Panel + Open Plenary" gave us a shared focus. The panel members were impressive, with varied perspectives. They could all have spoken at length. However, all spoke only briefly, thanks to the humourous but firm guidance of the chair beforehand. Because they did speak briefly they gave us some excellent, memorable key points to take forward to the "Table working groups" Table working groups, feedback Arrangements for the groups...