Teacher Training Students; Rabia Nawaz, Hajra BiBi, Sobia Hashim, Hashim Hussain, Alamdar Khan (Tutor), Yasir Thind, Farhan Akthar, Waqas Arif.

Alamdar has conducted two face-to-face workshops in Pakistan this weekend, me and Emma (also tutors for the course) tried to participate by Skype but missed out because of the time difference. Today Alamdar is leaving for Afghanistan to meet up with Hamid and Gola. Here is Alamdar’s report from the Islamabad workshop.

“Following are some pictures I will upload more later because on Islamabad airport internet speed is not very good. My flight has been delayed for 3 hours due to weather conditions.

The workshop started bit late because the students group coming from Layyah faced difficulties with their car and reached late.

- We started by 10.30 with coffee and I gave them presentation about our end to end eLearning concept and CAP project. And after this we started question answer session, it continued till lunch and then I gave them presentation on iLife and iWork and its potential use. I also gave them hand on training with the help of Apple team. Apple dealer deployed 2 guys for back up support and technical help.

-We gave them hand on training for how to use Mac operating system.
- Configuration of MAC with different tools, dailup, mobile phone, wireless, and broadband
- Bambuser, how to use it for social media
- GPRS, EDGE, use and potential benefits
-Everybody created their Jabber, Skype accounts and shared with each other.
-Formed a team to work for community action plan
-certificates, laptops, Community action plan contents, project leader guide distribution
-photo Session”.

The sprawling slum area of Nafadji- on the capital’s outskirts- is largely agricultural but has been increasingly taken over by urban growth, exacerbating its social and economic problems, according to local NGOs. School attendance is low and unemployment high. The closest health centre is 3km away.
“Hygiene standards in the Nafadji area of town were very very low, due to lack of infrastructure and because of ignorance,” Djibril Coulibaly, hygiene coordinator of Malian non-profit JIGI, told IRIN. “We carried out research that showed contaminated water and a lack of water were causing disease, but also that behaviors’ surrounding hand washing had an impact.”

The situation in Mali’s capital, Bamako, is something that is taking place all over Africa. There are many communities that consider themselves helpless. Out of ignorance most have jeopardized their own lives without even knowing it.
Without the right steps to ensure education is provided for all, to learn and apply, the health issues that many face which can be avoided, in reality will become the cause of dangerous diseases and sicknesses.

The need for Organizations, Schools, CAP (Community Action Plan) teams to take steps and educate these poverty stricken communities on the importance of education, their health, and personal hygiene is an issue that should be addressed right away if we are to overcome the problems that developing countries are currently facing.

It is also in these communities that some traditional beliefs have played a crucial role in directing people away from the right way of tackling major health issues. One would question this sad statement in the article above, “In my area if you wash your hands, there is a belief that you will become poor,” said AFSAN member Fatoumata Haidara. “Even intellectual people would not wash their hands.”

t is clear that if steps are not taken to change the wrongful mind set of the communities that stick to these old beliefs, the problems that will result out of these communities in the future, will be far more than one could have anticipated.

Fadji Women’s Association (AFSAN), along with the help of JIGI and WaterAid supported the production of these soaps that did not only help these people break the mentality of not washing, but also provided a means for the women to raise money for support!
Where there is the will for change, change occurs only when steps are put into effect to ensure the occurrence of change!

Read the whole article here