Learning about OUTREACH network participants What OUTREACH participants have told us     In News and Views, you will find news about, from, and for OUTREACH Network participants. For News and Views to be effective, send us details about: the work you are doing the achievements of your organization the problems you are facing and the help you need. Readers will learn from your ideas, and hopefully respond to your needs and requests. We also want to you to tell us what you think of OUTREACH. Click Contact Us . Learning about OUTREACH network participants We would like people and groups in the OUTREACH Network to learn more about each other. So here’s some information about a few Network participants. Some of these groups have belonged to the OUTREACH Network for several years. Others are new members. If you want to learn more about—or help—a specific group, write to the organization directly: Cameroon Media Environment Sensitization Group, an NGO based in Kumbo, Cameroon, has been quite active over the past two years or so. It has organized a series of 14 seminars and 12 workshops on environmental issues; conducted 15 screening sessions for schools, colleges and communities, produced 48,000 seedlings of endangered species, and worked on water catchment projects. Contact: Media Environment Sensitization Group, P.O. Box 11, Shisong, BUI Division, N.W. Province, Cameroon. Ghana The Suntaa-Nuntaa Rural Development Programme is a local nonprofit non-governmental organization (NGO) working in the Upper West Region of Ghana. The group is an ardent promoter of organic farming technologies, and has just started using the mucuna bean to weed off ‘spear grass’, and multipliers of four “genetically” improved cassava varieties (1) Afisiafi (2) Gblemo Duade, (3) Abasafitaa and (4) Tekbankye of IITA origin 1988. The group is looking to develop cottage industries as a solution to ensuring food security. Suntaa-Nuntaa, which won the 1999 United Nations “Saving the Drylands” award, wants to join the Network in order to enhance its extension education activities with rural farmers, women’s groups, schools and traditional rulers in the Upper West Region of Ghana. It hopes to use the OUTREACH Genetic Diversity materials in workshops and drama sessions. Contact: Robert Loggah, Director, Suntaa-Nuntaa Rural Development Programme, P.O. Box 207, Wa UWR, Ghana, West Africa. Ethiopia The Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) is a nongovernmental organization based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It was born out of a workshop held in 1995 in Mekelle. The workshop was looking into ways to involve local people in controlling their own affairs with regard to natural resources. The Institute was initiated to investigate possible strategies to improve rural productivity on a sustainable basis. The ISD’s environmental activities with youth aims to increase appreciation of indigenous biodiversity and knowledge for sustainable livelihoods and a brightening future. To this end, ISD has started organically-based agro-biodiversity activities in some schools in Ethiopia. Contact: Institute for Sustainable Development, P.O. Box 30231, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Malaysia The Sabah Nature Club of Malaysia, reaches over 2,000 students through its environmental education programmes in the field and through its centre. Like many NGOs in the developing world, the Nature Club has very little information available, especially educational materials that develop students’ problem-solving skills and that support environmental improvement projects. The staff uses the OUTREACH materials when teaching students directly, and in the production of its programme brochures. Contact: Sabah Nature Club, P.O. Box 11623, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah 88817. Malaysia. Philippines The Don Bosco Training Centres - Luzon, Philippines, provides vocational and technical skills training to out-of-school youth from poor families. The centres run programmes on integrated farming for youth (and adults) in rural areas. Students learn how to increase the quality and quantity of food production for home consumption. Course activities include growing fruit trees, horticulture, small farm animals, fisheries and food technology. The training centres would welcome links with other organizations that have a similar purpose. Contact: Luigi Parolin, Executive Director, Don Bosco Training Centres - Luzon, Don Basco Technical Institute, Pasong Tamo St, cor. Don Basco Road, 1200 Makati City, Philippines. What OUTREACH participants have told us Here's what a few Network participants have told us: Cameroon We are very impressed at the content and quality of material included in the [OUTREACH] packs. As a result, they have been circulated extensively, both internally in the [Mount Cameroon] Project and externally to other ‘multipliers’, such as teachers, journalists and community workers. One of the main barriers to effective communication of the environment message in Cameroon is lack of resources and factual information, especially in teaching. Therefore the potential use of the OUTREACH packs in Cameroon is very exciting!” So writes Jill Gasson, Environmental Education Officer for the Mount Cameroon Project (MCP) in Limbe, Cameroon. The mission of the MCP is to maintain the richness of plants and animals in the Mount Cameroon region by helping people and institutions to manage forests wisely, so that they can continue to provide benefits forever. Eritrea OUTREACH does not normally disseminate OUTREACH publications to individual teachers, but when the school is the largest one in Eritrea with nearly 3,500 students, and a very active geography department, then we are willing to make an exception! One geography teacher from St. George’s Senior Secondary School in Mendefera, Eritrea, writes: “The Geography Department of the school has six teachers. Every teacher has more than two classes, and the classes are large-sized. We meet once a month to share our experiences on the teaching-learning process. The main problem we face was lack of efficient teaching aids. As a member of the core team, I introduced the OUTREACH packs to my colleagues. We found the materials very useful. The topics we found difficult to explain, are clearly explained with simple examples in the packs. We’ve got new ideas of project works and teaching methods. We have decided to enlarge the posters, and make use of the packs by all possible means. Now we are confident of making the subject matter more interesting...We will try our level best to make effective teaching aids, and recommend to the curriculum development institute to prepare textbooks based on OUTREACH materials. India Dr. Neelima Jerath, the Principal Scientific Officer (environment) for the Pubjab State Council for Science and Technology writes:“The information [in the OUTREACH Genetic Diversity packs] is extremely useful and has reached us at a time when we needed it the most as we are in the process of preparing a State Strategy and Action Plan for biodiversity conservation in the State of Punjab. This would, subsequently, provide input to the National Strategy and Action Plan. My organization has also initiated a project on “Study of biodiversity in the Shivalik Ecosystem of Punjab. The [OUTREACH packs] would provide a guideline for reaching out to the public for both these projects. Nigeria We use OUTREACH materials to organize conservation clubs in schools, and there is a high demand by teachers and trainers for other OUTREACH materials. Send them.” Afam Efuna Chiekwe, Programme Director of Bio Earth International, an NGO in Nigeria. Uganda Elizabeth O'Malley, Country Director of the Peace Corps in Uganda writes, "We are planning to use the Outreach material in two ways: first, the genetic diversity exercises serve as techniques which add more content to typical community entry activities such as village mapping, events calendars, etc. I have been concerned as to how to get local educators up to speed in understanding what they are seeing in the rural agricultural villages in which they will be living for two years. The Outreach materials are a great addition. Second, these are activities which can be shared with other teachers and can be used directly in primary schools as well, so they are concrete innovative learning activities which get the students into (and valuing) the communities, which our trainees will be practicing during training, and which will then be passed on, 'multipied' to Ugandan teacher trainers and primary teachers. . . . I must add -- I am an ecological anthropologist, and the approach taken here which values the humans, their experience and their knowledge, is like a warm bath."

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