Re-Energizing the Under 17 Ball Games by Ndhiwa Ministry of Youth

Its been for months now when our under 17 youths participated in ball games training with lots of challenges and with no much support from the expected bodies. Last Friday, 23 March 2012, Ndhiwa District Youth Officer, Mr. Joshua Kaluoch called for a brief meeting of 3 coaches and us to come up with a way forward that could help our young stars nurture their talents to the best.
Ndhiwa Maarifa Centre was given the mandate of capturing evidence of the service delivery by the coaches during the training sessions basing on its previous interests it had shown in supporting the sports.
The three coaches were charged with the mandate of coming up with their training programmes for the quarter and in April 30. This are to be submitted to the Youth office by 28th March 2012 to enable the officer to monitor the progress.

Idea of motivating the coaches and refreshing the youths after each an every training was warmly welcomed by the team and coaches who had lived to see this dream come true.
Amongst other motivations that we managed to release to the various teams were the games kits and the balls that were to be purchased mid this week. First AID kits discussions are still underway and we believe that soon each team will be able to access one.
Remember that we are not just setting up this combined teams for the sports only, but it is laying a platform where they are going and will always remain our major channels of information and skills delivery as they mark the most energetic and productive majority of our population.

ALIN Partners with Practical Action On Knowledge Products

In ongoing efforts to roll out activities in the Knowledge Creation and Empowerment Pillars of the ALIN 3 Strategy, ALIN has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Practical Action under their Practical Answers initiative to disseminate Practical Action’s Knowledge Products through the Kenya-based seven Maarifa centres. This will be mutually beneficial to the two organisations.

For ALIN, it will enable us to meet the information needs of our beneficiaries and add a diverse range of relevant knowledge products to Maarifa centres. On their part, Practical Action will be in a position to track and monitor the usage of its information and the impact it makes on the livelihoods of poor communities. 

The site is great since various information can be accessed now on very practical issues that would have required the intervention of an expert or consultant and furthermore, in a situation where you miss the info that you needed from the site, you have the right to leave a message on the site with some of your necessary details and in a short time (24 hrs - 48 hrs) a feedback will be right there.
Click here to visit the site.

ALIN Wins 2012 UNESCO IPDC Prize

ALIN is the winner of UNESCO International Programme for Development Communication (IPDC) Prize for Rural Communication 2012.

According to a statement released, UNESCO made the decision to award the IPDC Prize jointly to ALIN and Nepal-based Community Radio Support Centre (CRSC), a wing of Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ).

“The Director General of UNESCO, upon recommendation of the Bureau of the International Programme for Development Communication (IPDC), has decided to award the 2012 IPDC Prize for Rural Communication to CRSC/NEFEJ and Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN),” said the statement.

The award ceremony took place on 22 March  at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris during the 28th session of the IPDC Council.

The Prize, which comes with a cash value of US$20,000 and a diploma, is awarded every two years. The two awardees for 2012 will receive US$10,000 each. The award was established in 1985 to recognise meritorious and innovative activities in improving communication in rural communities mainly in developing countries.

Meeting the Kokul-Komino Self Help Group

On the 21st of March 2011, we visited the KK Self Help Group in Nyarongi Division, South Kaganda in Ralang' Village. The group comprises of 30 members (19 F and  11 M) and they practice various agricultural activities ranging from:

• Poultry Keeping
• Brick making
• Bee Keeping
• Horticulture

During the groups meeting, present were the Kilimo Salama Plus team that trained and insured the farmers against drought or excessive rainfall, something that was very positive and most farmers insured their farms at a minimal of KS 600 per production acre, for more details we shall give you the links in our next post, we also had a resource person from KAPPAP, who we had come with us as resource person and he briefed the group of how local poultry had moved people who took it as a business to higher grounds and they too shall be trained on the same with an expectation of them starting with the little number they already have. KAPPAP also agreed to train them on beekeeping and also the procedures involved, later we were to link them with Equity Bank to brief them on loaning too.
Finally ALIN was here to further open the groups eye on other possible areas they had interest on and would like to be trained on and how they could acquire various knowledge from our resource centre and partners without having to sit in a class. We further discussed issues on multimedia content (videos, internet), local farmer to farmer exchange programmes, importance of documentation and the library services. From the talk, the group asked us to help the get training on the following areas:
Farming as a Business

• Water and sanitation
• Farming as a Business
• Tomato production
• Kales Production
• Adult Education
• Tree nursery as an IGA

After analyzing their request, we felt that we would first with farming as a business because it marks the foundation of all this projects and all this project must have the bookkeeping skills.
In terms of adult education, we believe that it is their right to be trained but they first to agree on the dates of the training and give us the number of those who are interested before we approach the Adult Education officer.

Baseline Survey of East Kobwaye, Kobama Division - Block 1

 Today, 20th March 2011, was a chief's baraza in East Kobwaye in Kobama division. We had previously asked the groups contact person Mr. Paul Okello to urge farmer groups who had interest in Beekeeping and local poultry keeping to present themselves or get registered  with them so that we could get the list and their contact from their representatives and also have a one-on-one discussion with those present on the areas that they felt they had information gaps.
We managed to get a list of:

• 39 farmers with interest on local poultry keeping
• 16 farmers in with interest on  beekeeping

Previously we had got a clue from the contact person on their area interests and immediate activities that had be3n going on in the area before. We jointly went with someone from KAPPAP organization who has a specialty on the above areas of interest. KAPPAP will begin the training on the 27th March on the above issues concurrently.
We also realized that there was also a big  information gap on the idea of fish farming and ALIN (Ndhiwa Maarifa Centre) is getting in touch with one consultant from the Rongo Lake Basin Authority and then we shall schedule a date when the 2 days training can take place. 36 farmers showed strong interest on this.

NALEP Stakeholders Forum in Ndhiwa

The idea that was recently created in Ndhiwa District by  Ministry of Agriculture to have a recognized structure and protocol that can enable all the development workers to reach all the stakeholders of interest through an elected divisional and district farmers representative was a long awaited idea that has just come at the right moment. Through this channel farmers now have a platform of bargaining or soliciting for markets and the needed trainings through this office as a team.
In this stakeholders meeting organized by NALEP, it brought in a number of farmer representatives who had benefited from the previous trainings by NALEP and other major development stakeholders.The farmers aired out the areas that they would like NALEP to major on and create demo's come the third phase of NALEP in July 2011.
They further confirmed that the following projects had picked up well in the region during the past trainings even though some of them had a low production level and were still wanting for us to have surplus that can be used on value addition and large markets:

• Beekeeping - Harvesting gears was a challenge and low levels of production for large markets
• Groundnut production - Low levels for an outside market
• Cotton - Has a high production but poor paying market of market KS 45 per Kg from KS 65
• Dairy goats - Doing very well but hasn't spread to all parts
• Tomatoes - At least more than 5 green houses are present in the region

Finally we both agreed that farmers have to begin embracing the irrigated agriculture ideology as an act of climatic change adaptation. The training has begun in some areas in the district and we are going to ensure that it spreads all over the region.

Educational Theater in Kobama Division

When we visited the Kobama Participatory Educational Theater (K-PET) group on the 13th March 2011, we were both excited of their major approach model towards mobilization and education to the public of whom most of them have grown tired of the long speeches experienced in trainings, workshops and other gatherings.
The group is registered as a CBO and has a variant of activities that one can always learn from at any time of visit; table banking, behaviour change communication, poultry, horticulture, tree nursery, tents and plastic chairs for hire, public address system hire and giant puppet for mobilization.
What attracted us most was the idea of how the giant puppet and the their educative skits attracted large masses and kept them concentrating all through.