The short game: HIV and food security

Community development in Sub-Sahara Africa has been clouded by the emergency response mentality, which was exhibited in the knee jerk reaction of many countries in the initial response to the HIV pandemic. This has resulted in governments and community leaders concentrating all their efforts on combating the disease’s impact rather than designing strategic interventions that will close the tap of new infections.

Efforts to combat the…

Since mid-May 2012, I was more in Sekadau. It’s about 7 hours trip by car from Pontianak, my hometown.



Last year, I chatted with a Pak Rasyid, 56 yo. He was an officer at the district Bappeda (Development Planning Board Office). At December Pak Rasyid was retired, so at 2-3 months before December, he was more often doing business at home that has been lived since 20 years ago. He and his wife are a wedding organizer. He had a warm personality; I used to talk and chit-chat with…

I had, in my last blog, reported about my meeting with the Organisation, BEYOND of Singapore and shared my interview with the team, Gerard, Chris and Cheryl. 

Later on in the day, I visited a couple of team-mates working with the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre (NVPC), Singapore (www.nvpc.org.sg) and directly associated with SGCares (www.sgcares.org), They are involved in community development. I…

I might sound philosophical when I share a story that I heard in my younger days.

A disciple asked a sage which religion was the right one to know God. The sage walked silently by a tree in the heat of a sunny morning with the disciple. He then pointed to the reflections of the sunlight on the ground beneath the…

“How’s the weather inside your head today?” This was the introductory question during the ‘Taste of SALT’ workshop in Amsterdam in March 2013. The weather in my head? I was expecting to introduce myself by telling everyone where I’m from, my profession, passions and maybe, if everyone else did, my age too. This is how we are used to describe ourselves, or maybe even define ourselves. It creates certain angles how people can typify others.…

During a recent visit to Singapore, I met Gerard, Chris and Cheryl and recorded an interview with them.

Gerard heads the organisation, BEYOND, that works with the community in Singapore. Chris and Cheryl work with him. These girls were at the Global Learning Festival held in Y2012 in India.

Thanks to Rituu B Nanda's reference, I connected with Gerard and reconnected with the two girls when I visited them at their office. What started as an informal conversation turned…

Institute of Applied Manpower Research (IAMR), a government institute, Delhi, India invited me to facilitate a session on strength-based approach and evaluation. IAMR is conducting a three month course on Monitoring and Evaluation for international students.

Strength-based approaches believe that in every environment there are individuals,…

I met Chris Bennett and Sue James, AI Practitioners from Melbourne, at the Appreciative Inquiry Conference at Ghent, Belgium in April, 2012.

In a recent visit to Australia, I met up with them when they took me and my husband on a day-long drive to the lovely countryside in Warburton, Melbourne.

I recorded an interview with them…

I have an experience to share from Molvum village, Nagaland where the involvement of local leaders has increased leading to concrete action on HIV issues. The story was shared by Jacinta, I noted it and Geoff Parcell edited. Thanks to Jacinta and Geoff!

 …

The practice of SALT takes courage: this is probably what stuck most in our minds when Rebecca and Joel, Gaston and Laurence, Nathalie and her son Thibault, Rebecca’s friend Eerin and I were privileged to meet in Chiang Mai over the weekend of February 9 and 10.

It takes courage to start a formal meeting with introductions as humans

It takes courage to include a SALT visit in a workshop program, when everyone thinks they already know what communities need

It takes courage to…

When Sue and I came up with our AQ-KQ framework several years ago we included a section on the theme of creativity.

And under the theme of creativity we agreed there were three essential elements;

• imagination

• discovery

• fun &…

Here is the dream from India competence Skype meeting held on  19^th January 2012

Participants: Anthony, Indumathi, M L Prabakar, Mukesh Bhachawat, Prabhakar Sinha, Vicky, Rituu B  Nanda

Could not join due to connectivity and other issues- Bobby Ramakant,…

Connections happen when individuals or a group make the effort to get connected with each other.

In the Community I’m working with, one resident reached out to two neighbours.  She (Mdm. A) helped looked after a couple’s baby. At first I thought that she was doing a baby-sitting job, but Mdm.  A told me that the couple always fight and the baby is left crying, so she decided to look after the baby whenever the need arises.

Mdm. A also looks after two boys whose parents are…

CARE India, through SAKSHAM Grant Supplement project works with 42 Community Based Organizations (CBOs)/  NGOs implementing HIV Prevention programme with FSWs and MSMs in 7 districts of Andhra Pradesh with goal of enhancing community response to HIV. SAKSHAM has been successful in promoting development of CBOs through a blended approach of Community-to-Community learning based on SALT as a way of working and thinking.

Sixty Community Resource Pool from the…

Chers amis, est-ce qu'il y aurait déjà une grille d'autoévaluation dans les communautés à propos des Violences Basées sur le Genre? Sinon, pourriez-vous m'aider à améliorer cette proposition que j'ai adaptée à partir d'une autre grille?

Autoevaluation.doc 

Ne pouvant pas coller toute la grille ici, je recopie juste les pratiques:



1: Reconnaissance et…

Caribs is one of the nine indigenous tribes in Guyana and live Baramita Village located in the Barima / Waini Region 1 of Guyana. Baramita has approximately 3000 carib indigenous people living in 23 satellite settlements and speak mainly carib language. The Village Council is new having been elected in April 2012 but is committed to confronting the many challenges of governance and development of Baramita. In pursuit of this commitment the Council sought to develop a plan of what it would…

I was in grade XII…My favourite subject was ‘Public administration and Management’.  I was the teacher’s pet and wanted to excel the subject.

For me mastering the subject meant that I gave my best and stood first in the class. However, I had no rivalry with others and always compared myself with my own performance in the  examination. I always topped but what happened in Class XII examination had a deep impact on me. I found that I had stood second in the class. I was…

I went with some local NGO people as well as members of the Constellation to three villages in Karnataka in India in order to talk with young women in the villages.  The Bill Gates Foundation was supporting work with vulnerable young women and their response to HIV and AIDS. The villages were Nagenhalli, Morigeri and Sushilnagar. Local NGOs had already done much work in the…