Dadamac Meeting – November 19th 2008

Weekly Dadamac UK-Nigeria meeting

The Dadamac team (in UK and Nigeria) meets online for approximately one hour each Wednesday morning. Although these meetings rely on typing, not speech, we manage to get through a good deal of work. These notes about today's meeting give a flavour of what we cover. They are not minutes, just my jottings for the blog. We don't need minutes as we always have the chat archives for reference.

Fantsuam Children's Parliament

The Fantsuam Children's Parliament will be inaugurated on December 6th. Children are getting trained on rudiments of parliamentary procedure and issues they want to raise. They want the roads fixed, electricity, school fees etc.

Teachers Talking (TT) 4th anniversary

We are planning for the Teachers Talking 4th anniversary celebration on November 29th . This will include participants from any Dadamac Learning Groups, not just TT.

• The celebration is to include a UK – Nigeria link up. (Time 10:00 - 11:00 GMT, 11:00 - 12:00 Nigeria time, 13:00 - 14:00 East Africa time.)
• The inclusion of Dadamac Kenya teachers and teacher-trainers as well is a possibility, but depends on their current connectivity.
• One of the original TT participants may be bringing along some ginger farmers.
• Newcomers to Dadamac team asked for more information about the connection with ginger farmers. Ginger farming is something we have touched on with a previous Dadamac Learning Group - I will blog on that separately.

Video update

Information was shared on:

• Current skill levels
• Recent videos from Nigeria
• How soon UK will see these videos
• Sending videos to UK just as they are now or waiting until they are edited

Attachab Eco-village

Progress reports from Attachab Eco-village on fish ponds, irrigation, vegetable growing , and a new compressed earth block building which is to be used for storage and security.
Marcus Simmons of co-Shelter is introducing new contacts to the project, following the visit we arranged for him last September. He has mentioned two specialists (one in architecture and the other in permaculture).

Photographic record

The Dadamac Learning Group (photography) participants have been out at Attachab Eco-Village recording details of developments.

Dadamac Learning Group

The Dadamac Learning Group at the Knowledge Resource Centre is gradually growing and so are its interests. We have a new mini learning group (of two learners and a learning leader) tackling English and maths.

People

There were details of various new volunteers, visitors and contacts - more about them in future blogs as their work develops.

Conclusion

Looking back on it - a good one hour meeting.