10:19 on April 20th 2012
Looking to the Future for the Village Voices for Development Project
pagivolt (visual aids) used to explain rights to villagers
While I have been busy over the last week bringing the Trust’s finances and paperwork up to date, and working on monitoring and future funding questions for Project VVD, the team have been in the field sharing their human rights training with villagers.
discussion on rights between village particpants
and freedom of expression.
In parallel, I have been preparing monitoring exercises for the team to follow up on the radio programmes which have already been broadcast over the last two weeks, in order to gauge the reactions and collect comments. We will aim to gather feedback from villagers, the radio stations and local decision makers on a regular basis so that the project can learn lessons as quickly as possible and respond to issues and opportunities arising as the work progresses.
film about human rights shown to VVD village listening groups
I’ve also been talking to a UK partner aboutfunding opportunities and preparing a schedule for the ALT Mg team to use in country to target national donors. This is part of helping ALT Mg prepare longer term fundraising strategies for their field programme. I have drafted a proposal for scaling up the VVD project and begun to sound out international donors/agencies in order to seek opportunities for future funding. Although we don’t yet have the results of the pilot phase its important to look ahead to see who may be able to support a scaling up of the project if the outcomes prove positive as this can take many months of negotiation and preparation.
Debate about the human rights film – identifying issues
Meanwhile in the capital, Tana, the ALT Mg Director, Mme Hanitra, has been meeting with one of the funders (Swiss Embassy) and also with the UN and other national partners. She has also been meeting with Ministers to try and gain their support for the project in order to galvanise stronger participation at local level for future programming