On 16 January, the voter registration process started in the Togdheer region, Somaliland. From 6am, women and men began to arrive at polling centres in large numbers to register for the presidential and parliamentary elections, which are expected to be held in March 2017. The process will take six months to cover all six regions, and will make Somaliland the first country in the world to use iris-recognition software.
Written by Bernie Morgan
Like all great ideas, Live Below The Line is simple to understand. Spend £1 a day on food for five consecutive days. Then donate the money you would have spent to a participating charity. Get yourself some sponsors to increase the donation. Job done.
At the first drug prevention fair that we ran at a school in Catacamas, national volunteer Emilia asked the children, aged between 5 and 10, to draw pictures of any drugs and alcohol that they know. We watched incredulously as the kids set to work without hesitation, drawing an array of different drugs and many including diagrams of how you take them.
Team Catacamas have had a busy week. Our involvement in the community has stepped up a notch.
Team Malawi is made up of three placement groups: Ungweru (translated as ‘Light – Jesus’ Light Shining on the Community’), WESM (Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi) and COWLHA (Coalition of Women [and girls] Living with HIV and AIDS). However, for the sake of this blog – we are, collaboratively, Team Malawi!
Over the past week, as part of our in-country orientation, we have received a thought provoking cultural workshop covering topics ranging from etiquette for men and women within the home to gender roles at a funeral, birth, marriage and other cultural rituals.
Progressio International Citizen Service (ICS) volunteers have been involved in encouraging participation in youths’ entrepreneurial activities within the Ungweru catchment area. This has been one way of teaching and encouraging Malawian youths how to fish. .
OIBM officer and ICS volunteers delivering a session to the youth.
The sessions have been organized by Ungweru (a Malawian host partner organisation of Progressio) in collaboration with the Opportunity International Bank of Malawi (OIBM).
From my varied experiences in Honduras, working both in rural communities and the capital city, working with 3 charitable organisations focusing on diverse issues including youth participation and women’s rights, and from general travelling and observing through living there, it feels to me that to be a woman in Honduras is a world away from being a woman in the UK.
Lizzette Robleto reports from Haiti where she accompanied Lord Griffiths, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Haiti, and Rick Nimmo and Dominique Rees from the British Group Inter-Parliamentary Union (BG-IPU).
Every time I go to Haiti I leave with a mixture of exhilaration and sadness. I always learn something new. This time, I learnt the saying ‘Men anpil, chay pa lou’ meaning ‘many hands make light work’. The proverb takes on great significance when you consider the incredible challenges the Haitian people face.
Of all the things I thought I would get up to in the land of lions and nsima, directing a film wasn’t one of them.
However, on Thursday, that’s exactly what we did.
Man Cannot Live on Nsima Alone
Malnutrition is an ugly word.
