Rewarding with praise

jhpiego is a new website for Health Workers run in association with Johns Hopkins. It seems to have good resources and they use language appropriate to a grassroots worker trained in English. Look at their resources about malaria , for example, Malaria – protecting mothers and their families .

You may have seen the design for a slow cooker which cooks beans in 12 hours, using thick insulation and the sun’s heat? Now an NGO in Sudan has developed a refrigerating “zeer” pot which stores 10 kg of food for up to 20 days! Go to practicalaction.org – you will also find a video on the donkey cart ambulance, which has helped women in child births that have gone wrong to get to where they can be helped.

We are pleased to announce the release of a new manual specifically designed to plug a gap – by helping NGOs in the Middle East and North Africa who want to do more in the field of Human Rights. A lot of consideration and cross-cultural consultation has gone into the making of An Introduction to Human Rights in the Middle East & North Africa – a Guide for NGOs . Note, for slow internet connections, we recommend to download the smaller (1Mb) PDF rather than the Word doc. We’re now have an Arabic language version of this title to join our growing list of manuals and resources in Arabic . Games are a great way to get behaviour change. So we thought we’d breathe new life into an old favourite – Having Healthy Babies: an Educational “Snakes and Ladders” Game gets across the key messages via a colourful game board and question cards. Full supporting information and instructions included! Finally, in case you didn’t notice it slip into our library in the summer: we have a handy 17-page guide to Managing the Project Cycle .

Managing the money is a subject that anyone starting an NGO needs to grasp well. You need to be comfortable with accounting terminology and have confidence in the bookkeeping system you use. Networklearning’s new Beginner’s Guide to NGO Financial Capacity (31-page PDF) aims to make the learning curve easier – for all of us who don’t have a financial background or higher education. It bundles together best practices and explains the necessary jargon in simple language, with examples, from the perspective of an NGO. By reading it and discussing its content with other colleagues, non-technical staff will be able to learn and master essential functions in financial management, including planning, control and supervision – laying the groundwork for success and sustainability. » Download directly from the Library

Networklearning’s newest manual aims to give carers – and their supervisors – greater insight into the work that they do for their older clients. Caring for The Elderly : Best Practice in Person-centred Care includes examples from colleagues in the field and exercises for learning skills.

Here at Networklearning we are asking you to think about Childhood Development following a recent issue on the subject in the Lancet (ref. 1). One aspect is the use of Vitamin A.