Seeking Flemish or Dutch Academic to collaborate in South Africa.

[Chris Burman]

Dear All

I continue to try and push the Competency approach here in S Africa.

I am now involved with a Belgium funded project that is 5 yrs in duration. It is research with a practical side to it and my title is:

Limpopo Meets the Future: what would a community look like if it were to be a ‘Competent Community in the Context of Global Change'?

It turns out that I have to identify a Flemish academic to work with and so I’d like to know if you know of anybody who might fit the bill. Ideally, I'm looking for somebody who has some experience of the Constellation's approach but they must be based with a Flemish university.

Also - SANPAD (see http://www.sanpad.org.za/portal/index.php?option=com_content&ta... ) have a call out that we could apply for if it had a research component. Does anyone know of know of Dutch academics that might be interested?

Any thoughts for either?

Chris.

[Jean-Louis Lamboray]

Chris,

Please contact Ludo Welffens on this platform. He is in touch with KUL (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)

Cheers

JL

[Laurence Gilliot]

Dear Chris,

You can contact Silvie Daniels (silviedaniels[@]hotmail.com) and Camille Collin (camillecollin[@]hotmail.com). I don't think that they are with Flamish Universities but they are both flamish and have a lot of interest with the AIDS Competence Process.

Good luck,

Laurence

[ludo welffens]

saluts Chris,
I suggest we set up a telephone date at my son's Frank in Annandale VA, near DC, where I will be for 6 weeks;
tel [phone] ;
I am flemish, not an academic - in the university sense of the term - in Belgium you need a Doctorate to be considered an academic - but yes I do know quite o few of them in fields that are relevant to the Constellation's concepts and work-processes;
that said my background (see welffens.net) might be of some interest to your project dynamics - and to contribute in creating an interface between your work and academia (and possibly government) to influence policy in both of them;
[ pls note that "belgium funded" in your message is a bit "wide"...: government, non-governmental,... ? this might need to be made a bit more clear)
look forward to your feedback, and then we can set up a time that suits both of us;
best,
ludo
Laurence et JL, when Chris tells us a bit more about him and the project, we can network further - remember the evaluation we did with Ace Europe (for CordAid, Hivos,... , Dutch Parliament-funded projects against AIDS) in 2006... with fieldvisits to projects in Capetown, Durban and Johannesburg,...;

[Chris Burman]

OK - thx. The next few days are busy but next week is clear for a call. Re the project: the person must be working for a Belgium University. If I cannot find somebody then the Project Management Team will do so which could be disastrous. The chosen academic will support me. The duration of the project is minimum 5 yrs and a maximum of 17 years. It is funded by an initiative called VLIR. I'm not precisely sure of where the money originates but it is most definately a university to university relationship. The academic who is chosen will have all expenses covered for flights here to SA. I am a cluster leader and we will be focusing on early childhood development, non-communicable diseases and HIV. It is possible a guy will join the cluster to work on MDR. All of this will be framed through the Competency approach. So - what I need is somebody with a CV that reflects experience of the Compency approach who is firmly situated in the academic world of Belgium. This is a non-negotiable component of the terms of reference. My vision is to link this directly into the National Directorate HIV/AIDS and STIs because they have written the Competency approach into their strategy till 2011 and we need to use this window of opportunity to embed it. further - the community where we will start consists of 80,000 people and we have WHO stats for the area for the past 11 years. The Professor who has compiled the stats for WHO is part of the team. All of the team members are very, very excited about this so I believe that it will be a dynamic opportunity for an academic in Belgium. Many thx.

[Chris Burman]

Hi - Just spoke to the project coordinator. We have a preparatory workshop next week (Tuesday-Thursday). The flemsih coordinator will be here and he is a very technical academic / medic who is not keen on the 'social, wishy washy stuff'. He wants laboratory research as a priority. We - on the other hand are of the view (as are the ToR for this project) that delivery / energising change on the ground is now critical. It will help me enormously if you could give me email addresses of people to talk to now and I will cc our coordinator into the discussions so that we have clarity. My email address is [e-mail] and the coordinator is Lindsay Neil, email address [e-mail]. If we can make a more concrete start on this now it will help to secure the correct academic. After that the person can request a second non-academic person to work with us with all costs covered [as I understand it]. Keeping Lindsay in the loop on discussions will help enormously.

[Chris Burman]

Hi to everyone -

VLIR [Belgium partners] have agreed that the Competency approach is the focus of a 75 million euro, ten year project here in South Africa.

This is a massive opportunity to get yr work embedded here in South Africa. However - I desperately need a Flemish academic to partner with who is interested to work with me on this. I cannot overstate the importance of this. Please will any of you who think you might know of somebody in yr network who might be willing to assist email / phone them and ask them to contact me direct at [e-mail] .

We will be working on a whole range of issues and we need to collaborate because if you need research work doing then we may be able to incorporate it into our work. I will be in Brussels in early March to discuss further.

For now - pls mobilize yr networks to help find a suitable academic that i can work with.

Many thx -

Chris

[Camille Collin]

Dear Chris,

My name is Camille. I was contacted by Gaston Schmitz, he informed me about your search for an academic and I also see on your wall that Laurence referred to me. I am Flemish and I have experience with the Competency process, but unfortenately I am not an academic. I will send this link to Anne Walreat, who is a professor working at a Flemish university and specialized in Sub Saharan Africa. She might be able to help you with finding a Flemish academic for your research projects. She is also familiar with VLIR.

Good luck!
Camille

[Chris Burman]

Camille -

Thank you. It will really be a big plus if we can find somebody who has some ideas about what I m trying to do and and why it is important. Many thx.

[Chris Burman]

The more I think about this the more I'm beginning to realise that an academic with experience of development in sub-Saharan Africa and community participation would add value. So - I think we should throw the net slightly wider than I originally requested.

Thx again for thee support.