Books go into the field

Bwnoit Kasa (UNFPA) has a paper titled ‘ Population and Ageing in Africa: a Policy Dilemma? ’ (15 pages). He concludes that population ageing is often accompanied by persistent poverty, and that African governments have no budget planned for supporting the growing group of older people in Africa. Find a link to the report on the website of The Pension & Development Network , a not-for-profit organization specialized in the development of micro pension provisions: www.pensiondevelopment.org Keep in touch with the issue through Pension Watch at www.globalaging.org and Helpage International at www.helpage.org , currently helping older people caught up in the Somalia drought.

If you work in a region where there has been periods of warfare, major displacement and/or huge repression, your workers have surely met people suffering from mental stress and other problems. Is this a good time to think of actively helping them, in a systematic and informed way? Our new manual Finding Mental Health after Conflict (28 pp. PDF) can guide you with this work. Two new Arabic titles: We now have Arabic language versions of An Introduction to Human Rights in the Middle East & North Africa – a Guide for NGOs (49 pp. PDF) as well as our popular title, A Guide to Fundraising (10 pp. PDF). For more, see our manuals and resources in Arabic Since our last announcement, we have also added a guest publication, the illustrated We can play and move: ideas to help disabled children learn to move through play .

A Canadian, Daniel Kish, who was born blind, felt that his mobility – using a long white stick – was too limiting. He set about finding out how to improve on it and has now developed a mission to facilitate the self-directed achievement of blind people everywhere. A key component is echo-location, which involves blind people making noises to bounce off objects nearer and further away; they can be trained to become much more aware of the sounds around them, to become more confident and to move more freely. Graduates use bicycles to travel around. A full explanation of World Access for the Blind’s ‘Perception Based’ approach can be read at www. worldaccessfortheblind .org/node/120

The Networklearning team is deeply concerned by this practice, which is more widespread than many realise. This short manual, with illustrations, gives a clear overview of what it is, when and why it happens – and what can be done to help. Update August 2014: Somali and Arabic editions also now available for download. » Download from the Library

The International AIDS Conference took place in Mexico in August and Aidsmap has full reports plus downloadable resources developed specifically for this conference.

Conflict. We come across it all the time – because it can occur whenever people disagree over their values, motivations, perceptions, ideas, needs, desires… The good news is that engaging with conflict in a healthy way can help resolve intractable issues and clear the air. Our handy 3-page Key Information Sheet, Conflict Matters , clearly explains. Another Key Information Sheet – on ‘Networking’ – has recently been translated into Arabic by our colleague Asmaa Gillespie. > Networklearning’s Key Information Sheets Homosexuality is an issue with the potential to confuse or even provoke irrational response. Basic, clear information can help here, too. So we have produced a no-frills 12-page publication to give the straight Facts about Homosexuality . We also welcome to our library the guest publication Better Ways to Stay Healthy in Asian Tropics , by our experienced colleague Bryan Walker.