Africa Tutor Mentor Connection

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Comment by Daniel Bassill on October 1, 2009 at 6:06pm

There will be a free, on-line course titled Introduction to Emerging Technologies addressing the concerns and opportunities around the use of technologies for learning in Africa. I encourage you all to visit this web site and subscribe to attend.

Comment by Daniel Bassill on September 3, 2009 at 12:40pm

How many of you write your own blogs? Can you write an article telling about why you are part of this ning site, providing a link to the site? If you do, post the link to your blog story here so we can build a list of blogs written by each of you about what you do.

Comment by Ben Parkinson on August 29, 2009 at 5:03am

Dan Bassill has suggested that the Africa group gets together, with a view to perhaps setting up some joint learning collective. Problems throughout Africa are clearly different, but there will be some commonality that we can share. Perhaps we could start by sharing details of the programmes that include mentoring and perhaps I can set the ball rolling.

We are looking for a couple more mentors, if there are any here, who feel they could contribute, then mail me at bencreates@aol.com.

The Butterfly Project (more info at www.socialenterpriseafrica.org) is working with mentors from overseas, who have experience in social enterprise, with a view to developing the young people on the project into the social entrepreneurs of the future. We have eleven young people on the project, who have been selected to have the type of characteristics that are needed to fulfil this vision.

Comment by Daniel Bassill on August 27, 2009 at 11:37am

Several people from Africa joined the Tutor/Mentor Connection site recently. I encourage you to join this group, and work together to build attention and resources for the work each of you are trying to do in different places.

Comment by Daniel Bassill on August 12, 2009 at 9:22am

John, it's good to see you in this group. For others reading this, I first connected with John in the Ned on-line group.

John, here's a set of links to training for mentors. If you draw from this information you will have a framework of ideas to guide you.

In the Tutor/Mentor Connection, I focus on the infrastructure that would support multiple mentor/mentee pairs in a structured, on-going program. Such programs need one or two people with a deep commitment to the kids, who will coach the mentors and mentees, and constantly bring new ideas, and new resources, so the program continues to meet the needs of the young people as they grow older.

If we can build strong support systems that keep volunteers involved, many of those volunteers will reach into their networks and bring more volunteers, and donors, to support the continued growth of programs.

If we can build support for this idea through our networking on this forum and in others, perhaps we can attract more of the donor support needed to help put this infrastructure in place.

Comment by John Powers on August 11, 2009 at 4:08pm

Hello,

Introducing myself is something that's hard for some reason, but I'll give it a try.

I was fairly late to the Internet, but once I got online I got hooked. At the beginning news and instant messaging got my attention. I found myself talking with people all over the world, except people in Africa. The news from Africa made me despair.

It's important that I am naive. Robert Rodale of Organic Gardening fame wrote a book published just before his death in 1991, "Save Three Lives: A Guide to Famine Prevention." Rodale's approach was very much along the lines of "Small Is Beautiful." He felt that the solutions are to be found locally, and so Americans interested in helping to prevent famine must make connections with a community focus.

I looked online for pen pals and began corresponding with a young man working at a school in the Iganga region of Uganda named Nathan Magumba. Nathan reminded me the other day that we've been in contact for almost ten years.

In ten years, I've learned just how little I know. It's a process.

What brings me here is I've signed up to mentor a student in Kampala through a program I discovered at Ned.com. I'm very keen to share. First of all to be transparent so that dumb moves from ignorance can be spotted and corrected. And second so if together with Ivan we do something good, it can be shared with others.

It's lovely to find this space and I look forward to participating here.

Comment by Daniel Bassill on April 6, 2009 at 11:24am

Thanks Jen. This is the type of discussion I hope we can stimulate on the Tutor/Mentor Connection site. I encourage you and others to browse the main T/MC site to see how we're collecting information about existing tutor/mentor programs in Chicago, and others around the country, as well as information these programs can use to sustain and constantly improve.

Building a list of organizations in Africa, and breaking it down by country, and type of service, is your first challenge. This can be partially done by people self-identifying themselves via this forum. At some point it would help you to have a web portal like the T/MC site where people can build a library of links. This could be built by volunteers in the US, UK or Africa if we're able to attract such people to this forum.

Comment by Jen on April 6, 2009 at 4:11am

Hello everyone. I wanted to introduce myself and possibly start some good good conversations about learning/mentoring clubs. I live in Mozambique and am currently helping to develop an anti-corruption strategy for schools. In conjunction with this, some of us are also thinking of starting up some after-school learning clubs to both reinforce our moral education and anti-corruption messages in schools but also provide a space to help students catch up in literacy and numeracy. To my knowledge nothing like this exists here, and I'm trying to find information on similar programs elsewhere in Africa. So far all of my internet searches on tutoring and mentoring have turned up a wealth of information for the US and UK but nothing for Africa (or other developing countries for that matter). I hope this group will be a good place to connect with others who either may be working with similar projects or who can direct me to those who might be. Thanks!

Comment by Daniel Bassill on March 3, 2009 at 6:09pm

Here's a web site of a US Football player who seems to support youth in Africa. http://israelidonije.org/

Comment by Lucy Lamunu on February 25, 2009 at 2:37pm

Hullo everyone. Iam a very new member but I have liked the site for the discussions that go on here. Iam Lucy Lamunu, based in Uganda in Africa and the founder of a community based organisation known as Rock of Ages Center for Hope (ROACH).

Rock of Ages Center for Hope (ROACH) is a project started first by me on a personal ground, helping orphans and vulnerable children and later joined by other members to set up a formal orphan’s home, with the intension of giving these unfortunate children (particularly those from the war affected nothern part of Uganda) another chance to live a meaningful and hopeful life.
ROACH's main objective is to bring up the children (Orphans of war and other vulnerable children) whose numbers increase daily because of being exposed to the war and other natural calamities and even those who are just a result of the cruelty of this world. This project intends to work alongside other organizations already concerting efforts, individuals and well wishers to help in rehabilitating these neglected children who will be relocated to their new home (The Center) where they can experience a lovely home, enjoy the experience of childhood, attain the basic needs of life like; shelter, accommodation, education, parental guidance and love, sports and culture and to give them hope for the future.

For details about the project visit;

http://lucysheart.blogspot.com/ OR;

http://beta.razoo.com/causes/rock_of_ages_center_for_hope OR;

http://www.ned.com/group/lia-global/ws/rock_of_ages_small_grants_application/

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