Yesterday, after John Iruaga had finished his Twitter learning session, I went out to the February networking event of the British African Federation (BAF).  Topics included:investments; Business Safari Missions; low-cost migrant remittances, micro-finance, micro-savings and currency exchange; business match-making and mentoring; a new weapon against mosquitos (and cockroaches); tractors and a trade mission. As a result there are  introductions to make and activities I would like to see happen.

So... how is the Internet actually changing opportunities to learn? Does the phrase "death of distance" really mean anything? Here's a quick example from this afternoon (February 25th) when John Iruaga who was in Nigeria sent his first Tweet, helped via Skype by Andy Broomfield who was in the UK. It was a spontaneous bit of teaching. It happened simply because Andy was sitting next to me, working on his laptop, when I bumped into John Iruaga on Skype.

i knew that John Dada had asked John Iruaga to find out about social networking, so Twitter was on his learning agenda. True tweeters may think the whole thing is totally intuitive - but I, for one, didn't find it so. When I first went to Twitter I had never seen any one else Tweeting and had no idea what to expect. When I logged in (because someone told me I should) I had no clue what I was trying to do or why. I went round in circles a few times and ended up none the wiser. I knew that John Iruaga, like me, would start out as a complete Twitter newbie. 

Sickle Cell Awareness day was created by the United Nations to recognise Sickle Cell Disease as a global health crisis.

Member states were urged to raise awareness of this terrible genetic disease on June 19 each year. 

And John Dada and his team at Fantsuam Foundation have already started to action this call.

At yesterday's weekly UK/Nigeria Dadamac team meeting, John explained that a SCD support meeting had been held at Fantsuam last Saturday .  A  documentary in collaboration with the Abuja SC Support group is being prepared for showing on this year's Global SC Day.
 
Those interested can view my previous blog entry about the daunting task faced by John and his team, who are battling overwhelming need with severely limited resources.

The Fantsuam Sickle Cell Support Group meeting is held on the third Saturday of  every  month. Support groups are usually comprised of people  who have either been affected or are carers. Attendance is growing each month  - with more than 80 people at last Saturday's meeting. 

Due to the vast numbers there is a need to change the venue, so canopies under mango trees at the fishfarm will be used for future meetings.  Attendees came from as far away as Akwanga (about 80km from Kafanchan) and John said he " just felt helpless in face of such need."

The meetings are for networking, with parents and carers sharing information about how they are coping. A nurse councellor answers  questions and gives advice on how to cope with sickling crisies.

At our Wednesday's UK/Nigeria online meeting, as we routinely tackled the business on the agenda sometimes, I forget our geographical and cultural differences so it was helpful to be reminded of them this week.

As Pam and I were shivering here in the UK, with the threat of snow forecasted, the team in Nigeria told us about the fierce heat that they are currently experiencing (as they wait for the 'rains' to come.)

In fact John is sleeping under the stars at night as the temperature outdoors is more comfortable!

How I envy him... I would gladly swap my 15 tog duvet and central heating. For even if it were summer and warm enough, sadly I would not have felt safe sleeping in the back garden of my terrace house in South London. Plus, what with light pollution, I doubt very much if I would have seen many stars!

So In brief...

This week's one hour online meeting included the following items:

Hi Bala

You were asking me about visibility so I will share some thoughts here - in this visible online space. You are interested on behalf of the newly forming Appropriate Power Special Interest Group. I hope what I write here will help not only that group, but also other Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that we may set up later.

Push, pull and park

So, let us look at the Appropriate Power SIG and how we can encourage people to find out about it. For now I am just going to look at some ideas about information flows. Later we should consider what information you have, the kind of people you want to share it with, and what you want them ot do as a result of reading the information. This post is just about visibility and  "pushing","pulling" and "parking" information. 

Visible and invisible

You and I have been emailing about the Appropriate Power SIG for the past week - "pushing" information to each other. Email was a useful and appropriate way to get started - but its disadvantage is that it is invisible to any wider audience. By replying to you through this blog (instead of just sending you an email reply) I am "parking" some information about making the Appropriate Power SIG visible, and I have parked it in a place where other people can easily read it (no need to log in or anything like that).

Once again,Yesterday's online meeting between the UK and Nigeria did not fail to disappoint. As well as addressing the items on the agenda in an informal but business-like way, we had two welcomed treats.

The first treat

 When the team was discussing permaculture and the kitchen garden at Ungwar Masara, the UK were thrilled to be sent a recent video (via Skype chat and from a mobile phone) showing the 850 Jatropa seedlings. These have sinced been moved into the shade to protect them from the current hot conditions that our friends at Fantuam are currently experiencing. The rains are expected in the coming weeks and the seedlings will then be planted so we are hoping that not too many seedlings perish in the interim.

Some of our Nigerian member also shared with the UK, their plans for adopting their own kitchen gardens.

Permaculture, and sustainable local food production is an issue that the Dadamac teams are keen to investigate together.
For additional information about how we plan to do this please read Pam's earlier blog about Kitchen gardens and Jatropha.

The second treat

When we were discussing 'any other business', Bala Bidi (the ZittNet Manager at Fantsuam) shared his interest in exploring how wind energy could be harnessed by installing a small wind turbine on the mast. Cicely, A VSO volunteer, mentioned that she has a friend who is an expert in this field.The outcome of the discussion being that an Appropriate Power Special Interest Group be set up. (This is now currently being established on Dadamac Moodle).

Possible future collaboration

The First Thursday chat on March 4th at 12.00 GMT/UTC will focus on two of our permaculture interests - kitchen gardens and jatropha. The plan is that Marcus Simmons will join the chat as our permaculture adviser. One or more people from the Dadamac team in Nigeria will also chat. They will discuss what has been happening since Marcus's visit a few months ago. It is still very early days, so the discussion will be about first practical steps that have been taken (or are being planned) by the permaculture early adopters, and what else they need to know.

Down to earth

It will be very down to earth. How are the jatropha seedlings getting on? They are being carefully tended during the intense heat of the end of the dry season, waiting for the rains to come to give good conditions for planting out - but are they surviving okay? What of the kitchen garden ideas? What is the feedback on the keyhole gardening? Has anyone done any follow up on setting up a personal kitchen garden? What problems are people facing? What information is it useful to exchange?

It's almost exactly ten years since I was first involved in communication between UK and Nigeria. In those days my friend, the late Peter Adetunji Oyawale, could only phone one person in his entire Oke-Ogun Community Development network. If we made a phone call it was to the landline of Chief Adetola, in the state capital Ibadan. What a contrast now. Today, from rural Ago-Are i got this text: "Mornin ma, my wiv gave birth 2 a bouncin baby boy yesterday afternoon, thanks Fola." 

Not only did Fola send his information to me, via SMS he also went online through is phone and shared his news publicly through a couple of yahoo groups saying "Hi all, God gave my family a healthy,handsome,bouncing baby boy yesterday afternoon and I really wish to say this is God' revelation and manifestation in my new family. Thanks be to Him alone." The two groups be wrote to were LearningFromEachOther (one of the Minciu Sodas groups) and FantsuamSLD - self-directed learners (a group set up to demonstrate yahoo groups to participants on the SDL course in Fantsuam in 2008).

On Tuesday, Pam alerted the Dadamac UK and Nigeria Teams (plus a few of her contacts in Higher Education) that:
"The UK Government's Department for International Development (DfID) is investing up to £3 million a year in a new Development Partnerships in Higher Education programme (DelPHE), which will run for a seven year period, from June 2006 to March 2013. The programme will provide funding to support partnerships between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) working on collaborative activity linked to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)."

Several emails followed; and the next day, at the weekly UK-Nigeria Dadamac meeting, this initiative was top on the agenda.

I have no personal experience of the Universal Learning Centre but I came across it today because I moderate comments at dadamac.net  and someone posted this one:

Haiti, a legitimate cause

Hey, I'm seeking help for the kids of Haiti. I'm doing my part for a non-profit organization in which the main focus is to creating oppurtunities for the children in haiti. If anybody wants to give money then this is the site: Donate to Haiti or Help Haiti They give children in Haiti books and teach them. Yes, they're a real cause. Please help us

I confess my first responses were

• That it was probably a scam
• That people who were donating would already be donating through the channels they know and trust
• That Haiti and disaster relief aren't much related to what Dadamac is focussed on

However, when I when to the site I found that it wasn't disaster relief, but part of an ongoing educational programme. The site says: