Asha Kanwar appointed President of the Commonwealth of Learning

By Cameroon Link
Email: camlink99@gmail.com
Courtesy of COL, Vancouver, Canada
The big news broke out early on Tuesday, 14th February 2012 from Vancouver, Canada, that Professor Asha Kanwar, one of the world's leading advocates for learning for development, and current Vice President of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the international organisation. She succeeds Sir John Daniel, whose term as COL's President ends on 31 May.Congratulations Professor Asha Kanwar and let God guide your vision and give you good health to continue the wonderful work of promoting community learning for development around the world.
Dr. Kanwar has over 30 years of experience in teaching, research and administration. In addition to the several books, research papers and articles to her credit, she has made significant contributions to gender studies, especially the impact of distance education on the lives of Asian women. These studies have established that better educational opportunities and access to new technologies have made substantial differences to the attitudes, values and concerns of Asian women. She is also a recipient of several awards and fellowships, including the International Council for Distance Education (ICDE) Prize of Excellence.
In making the announcement, the Honourable Burchell Whiteman, O.J., Chair of COL's Board of Governors and former Jamaican Minister of Education and Culture, noted that "I am delighted by the Board's appointment of Professor Kanwar as President of our organisation. With her profound knowledge and rich experience of open and distance learning and her vision for the Commonwealth of Learning in the medium term I expect that she will take COL to a new level through a process of significant and sustainable evolutionary change. Her personal attributes and her international profile should prove to be valuable assets."
Professor Kanwar joined COL in 2003 as Education Specialist, Higher Education, and became Vice President in 2006. Her current role includes specific responsibility for stakeholder engagement and programme direction. Earlier, she was Director of the School of Humanities at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (India) and was Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University from 1999 to 2000. Prior to joining COL, she worked in Africa as a consultant in open and distance learning at UNESCO's Regional Office for Education in Africa (BREDA) in Dakar, Senegal.
"I am very pleased that Asha will succeed me," said Sir John Daniel. "In her years at COL, as Specialist for Higher Education and, since 2006, as Vice President, she has made an immense contribution, bringing greater focus to our programme and inspiring many more governments to support COL financially. I am delighted that COL will have a woman as president for the first time."
The Commonwealth of Learning, which is based in Vancouver, Canada and New Delhi, India, was created by Commonwealth Heads of Government at their meeting in Vancouver in 1987 to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies. The Commonwealth comprises 54 countries - most of which are developing nations - and one-quarter of the world's population.
"COL is a unique organisation which has the ability to respond to the needs of a wide range of stakeholders," said Professor Kanwar, "from the Batwa community in the forests of Uganda, the rural women in Malawi, goat herders in India, construction workers in Nauru, out of school youth in Jamaica to ministries and tertiary institutions across the Commonwealth. Being relevant to such a diverse constituency and delivering on results is both a challenge and an opportunity that I look forward to."
Former Presidents include Tan Sri Dato' Emeritus Professor Gajaraj Dhanarajan (1995 - 2004) and Professor James Maraj (1989 - 1995).
Professor Kanwar will take up her duties on 1 June.For more, please copy the link attached to this news story and paste to find Prof. Asha Kanwar at Radio Commons during PCF6 in Kochi, India - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KThk2gst0EM&list=UU4k_kfKKu_dDkTrc8Llaupw&index=114&feature=plcp

COL Healthy Communities Workshop

Highlights of CLP Content
By James Achanyi-Fontem, Cameroon Link
Gail White Presents COL Workshop Programme
From: camlink99 | Oct 6, 2011 |
This video highlights Gail White's welcome and presentation of the week's programme of the Commonwealth of Learning Healthy Communities workshop. Gail White is the Executive Director of the Media Training Centre, MTC, for Health in Cape Town, South Africa. MTC was host of the COL workshop. Cameroon Link was there and made this video for sharing

Patrick Prendeergast of CARIMAC Jamaica on CLP sustainability
From: camlink99 | Oct 2, 2011 |
Patrick Prendergast of CARIMAC Jamaica in this video shares his experience on how to sustain a programme, emphasizing on the project design, increase of funding possibility and capacity building. Patrick added that there needs to be clarity at the planning stage of any Community of Learning Programme. The tool kit unit on sustainability was discussed and experiences shared with COL partners during the healthy community workshop. Cameroon Link produced video with the inclusion of power point project to facilitate understanding for the issue and for sharing. For more on the Commonwealth of Learning sustainability, visit the web site at - http://www.col.org

Blythe Mckay on FRI Networking Strategies
From: camlink99 | Oct 1, 2011
Blythe Mckay, the Farm Radio International Manager of Programs and Partnership addressed participants at the Commonwealth of Learning healthy communties partners' workshop on networking opportunities and impact in Cape Town, South Africa.Cameroon Link was there and produced this for sharing.

Franklin Huizies of AMARC
From: camlink99 | Oct 1, 2011 |
Franklin Huizies is the Vice President of AMARC Africa. In the video shared here, Franklin makes a contribution on CLP trends and how issues should or can be approached for greater outcomes in media development.

Discover Radio Atlantis in South Africa
From: camlink99 | Oct 1, 2011 |
Radio Atlantis first went on air on 1 September 1995. The station's mission statement is to act as a medium to empower the community in its broadcasting area, through education and information and providing a voice and entertainment to such communities and promotes the rights of those who have been denied their basic human rights in the past, in particular women and children's rights.
The radio, which broadcasts on the 107.9 FM Stereo frequency to Atlantis; Langebaan; Sea Point; Cape Town; Abbotsdale; Mamre; Philadelphia; Tableview; Malmesbury; Darling; and Klipheuwel, is registered as a section 21 company and broadcasts in Afrikaans, English and isiXhosa. Radio Atlantis reaches listeners in LSM groups one to eight of all ages. The station broadcasts 24-hours a day, seven days a week.
This video was made by Cameroon Link during a study visit to the station in September 2011 by Commonwealth of Learning Healthy Communities Partners, who attended a workshop in Cape Town hosted by the Media Training Centre for Health. The Executive Director of MTC, Gail white, made the arrangement since her centre is promoting a health education programme at Radio Atlantis.
During the session videoed here, COL partners learnt about how the station's listeners' club contributes in the design of story episodes. The programmed listened here concerns the fight against drug abuse amongst youths within the community. Since the programmes impact on the listeners, they are given an opportunity to tell their own story through testimonies. Cameroon Link produced this video for sharing.

Discover Radio Altantis, Cape Town, South Africa
From: camlink99 | Sep 30, 2011 |
During the last Commonwealth of Learning Healthy Community Partners Workshop in Cape Town, the host organisation, Media Training Centre for Health, MTC, planned a field to Radio Atlantis.
Radio Atlantis is one of the community radio stations authorised to operate in South Africa. After several years of existence, it is working towards autonomy and would be housed by its own permanent building shortly. The road was long, but because its activities impacted on the livelihood of the community, it survived through production of dedicated programmes on issues facing youths in the community like drug abuse.
During the trip to Atlantis, COL HC Partners were introduced to the station authority, who highlighted the struggle for survival of the station. It was a community radio put in place to fight Apartheid, but it is today, a promotion of livelihood tool. In the video presented her by Cameroon Link, COL partners intorduce themselves and the station manager tells a short story of Radio Atlantis

Zahir Koradia of Gram Vaani
From: camlink99 | Sep 30, 2011 |
In this video, Zahir Koradia from Gram Vanni in India talks about how to integrate mobiles into community learning programmes (CLPs). He exchanged with the 23 participants of the Commonwealth of Learning Healthy Communities Partners' workshop hosted by the Media Training Centre for Health in Cape Town from the 12th to 17th September, 2011. He shares through this video produced by Cameroon Link some experiences of case studies on the use of mobile applications, their strengths and weaknesses and how to use them most appropriately. He also mapped out a tool kit module which assists users to reach many people within communities at a time

Joke van Kampen on Story Design
From: camlink99 | Sep 29, 2011
This video shows an excerpt of the presentation by Joke van Kampen of Malawi Story workshop during the COL Healthy Community seminar organised at MTC Cape Town, South Africa from the 12th - 17th September, 2011. Joke emphasized that to master the issue and programme matrix, you have to go through all the steps yourself. This video was made by Cameroon Link for sharing.

Ian Pringle Presents CLP In Cape Town
From: camlink99 | Sep 28, 2011
During the COL Healthy Community Partners Workshop organised from the 12th - 18th September 2011 at the Media training Centre for Health in Cape Town, Ian Pringle, COL's Media Education Specialist and the key facilitator traced the path of Community Open Distance Learning and the policy of the Commonwealth of Learning. Cameroon Link was there and made this video for sharing. For more on the issue treated in this video, visit the COL web site at - http://www.col.org



Charles Simbi on the Bag of Life Programming in Malawi
From: camlink99 | Sep 26, 2011
Charles Simbi is one of the expert trainers of the Story Workshop Organisation in Malawi. Charles and Gladson facilitated the story design workshop which led to programming on mother and child health care on Lebialem Community Radio in Menji, in the south west region of Cameroon. The organisation of the COL Healthy Communities Partners workshop in Cape Town created room for a second come together for sharing of experiences on the impact of story design programmes on community radio stations in Africa. In this video, Charles Simbi shares the experience of the impact following broadcast of the "Bag of Life Programme" in Malawi. He emphasizes on the issue of the programme matrix to dig deep into the heart of issues facing any community, because this highlights shared responsibility in finding solutions to problems. For more on story design programming in Lebialem Community Radio, visit the web site at - http://cameroonlink.info or http://www.col.org

Blythe Mckay on M & E
From: camlink99 | Sep 23, 2011
Blythe Mckay is the Farm Radio International (FRI) Program and partnership manager. Farm Radio International is a Canadian-based, not-for-profit organisation working in direct partnership with over 325 radio broadcasters in 39 African countries to fight poverty and food insecurity. It is a strategic partner of Commonwealth of Learning and its mission is to support broadcasters in developing countries to strengthen smallholder farmers in rural communities. It was established over 30 years ago in response to the fact that farm radio broadcasters in the global south did not, for the most part, serve small-scale farmers.
Rather, they were geared toward large-scale commercial farmers - an audience with very different needs from the largely subsistence farmers that make up the large majority of the populations of these regions.
By producing and sharing radio scripts, a weekly news and information service, and other valuable resources with radio broadcasters, Farm Radio International is improving the relevance and quality and increases the quantity of farm radio programming of partner stations that, collectively, serve over 220 Million scale-scale farmers in Africa.
Blythe Mckay was invited to Cape Town, South Africa by the Commonwealth of Learning to share the FRI experience in Monitoring and Evaluation of its work with the African broadcasters during a COL Healthy Communities Partners workshop from 10th - 17th September 2011. FRI is serving over 51 community radio stations in Cameroon and this video was made for sharing by Cameroon Link. Cameroon Link is playing the role of FRI Focal Point in Cameroon. To get more about the work of Farm Radio International and Commonwealth of Learning, visit the following web sites - http://www.farmradio.org, http://www.col.org, http://cameroonlink.info

COL Healthy Communities Partners Workshop In Cape Town

23 participants drawn from 14 Commonwealth countries ended a workshop on the expansion of healthy communities in their various countries and organizations within the action plan designed from 2012 - 2015. The countries invited were South Africa, Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Bangladesh, India, Jamaica, Fiji, Solomon islands, Canada, United Kingdom and Namibia.
The Director of Media Training Centre for Health, Gail White at the opening of deliberations told participants that it was an honour for her organization to receive and host people from all regions of the world in beautiful and historic Cape Town, South Africa. She wished that the exchanges of experiences were going to assist in the expansion of the work of the various organizations in their countries.
The workshop ran from the 11th – 17th September, 2011 was stimulating and productive because a remarkable group of people and organizations, new and existing COL partners, groups focused on media, health/development and resource people in areas from research to mobile contributed in various ways in sharing their work and experiences.
Ian Pringle, the key facilitator and COL Media Education Specialist focused on the use of media for non-formal education about health and development, specifically community learning programmes that are local, collaborative and participatory. The use of radio along with face-to-face methods and increasingly mobiles was very resourceful means of developing Community Learning Programme agenda for amelioration of livelihoods
From 2009 – 2012, knowledge sharing has been focused on seminars on educational media, community learning programmes, connecting with the COL newsletter and web site. In capacity building, over 700 individuals were engaged in training, of which 40 per cent were women. There has been increased use of community Open Distance Learning by 48 community groups in 10 nations at regional and national levels.
Community Learning Programmes (CLP) has been realized in Belize, Jamaica, Cameroon, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Solomon Island. These programmes have been produced locally blended and multichannel, collaborative, participatory, story-based and low cost effective.
Community Radio Programmes are beginning to have wide coverage, consistent message, creative, engaging with delivery through one-way and one to many people options, while the face-t-face approach is two ways, collective, links to mobilization and has limited scale.
With the introduction of mobile technologies, the programmes are more interactive, one-to- many, one-to-one, wherever and whenever they are realized. The participants before departure from Cape Town agreed that community various groups have to be involved in programming that include Community networks, experts, policy makers and media.
Elements of participation are feedback, action, discussion, content and decision making. It all starts with making decisions on the programme. Grassroots networks are supportive through story and experiences-based strategy. This means getting to use smart people, because smart people learn from experience and smarter people learn from other people’s experience, Ian Pringle observed.
He emphasized on the fact, that it is low cost when we have dedicated people involved in the programme, field based recording, collaborative management, inputs to community media outlets and promotions. The revenue resources should be varied for sustainability.
Addressing COL’s 2012 – 2015 Healthy Communities initiatives and a proposed framework, Ian Pringle shared with the partners an insight, which they built on during the week. Teams of small group work were established to reflect on the necessary additions for consolidating the action plan. Ekta Mittal of Maraa, India and Blythe Mckay of Farm Radio International Canada talked about developing capacity building materials, an Online CLP toolkit and Distance training course on educational programme development were presented.
The framework and template of the online toolkit were shared based on team assignments, while the framework of the Farm Radio international distance course to be developed over a week in 2012 was presented by Blythe Mckay.
This was followed by a workshop stream on learning the CLP model step by step by Ian Pringle and Joke van Kampen of the Story workshop in Malawi. The main outcomes were the awareness and skills developed in key CLP tools and processes through hands-on use of methods and brainstorming on different steps in the programme development process and new ideas and initiatives were proposed for the different CLPs by each team.
There field trips to Atlantis Radio, Wine Testing Vine Yard region of southern Cape and historic Rubben Island just to name a few tourism and learning attractions. At Atlantis Radio, Commonwealth of Learning Partners were shown how local community radio stations in South Africa operate, how issues are chosen for discussion during programming and the relevance of listeners’ clubs.
To live the realities of the Commonwealth of Learning Healthy Communities Partners’ stay in Cape Town, South Africa, please visit web page at – http://uk.youtube.com/camlink99

SCALING UP COMMONWEALTH OF LEARNING IN CAMEROON

By Helen Ayamba Egbe
Emal: helenayamba@yahoo.com
Discussions on scaling up the Commonwealth of Learning in Cameroon have opened with the National Focal Point, Professor Ivo Leke Tambo, according to Canal 2 Tv International. In an interview, Professor Tambo highlighted how far COL activities have evolved in Cameroon since 2003 and action that has taken place since he was appointed by the Prime Minister. In the interview, Prof. Tambo also explained what Commonwealth means to Cameroonians.
Professor Leke Tambo was appointed by the Prime Minister in 2006 and since then the Commonwealth of Learning has worked with many ministries and organised groups. He added, that it was judged important to have a national focal point that could help to coordinate the various activities of the Commonwealth of Learning in Cameroon. With the setting up of the Commonwealth of Learning, the agency was considered as an instrument put in place by the 54 governments of the Commonwealth family to promote especially Open Distance Learning, Information and communication Technology as far as it is applied to education for sustaining development and livelihood growth of members of the groups and individuals in the member countries.
Before 2006, the Commonwealth of Learning was a consultant for organizing a national workshop on Open Distance Learning in Cameroon with the technical support of the Ministry of Higher Education in 2003. It was during the workshop that the recommendations were made at the end for Open Distance Learning to be introduced in Cameroon. Before the 2003 workshop, the Commonwealth of Learning had been working with the University of Dschang in the programs of Agriculture and the lead person was Professor Ajanganji. University of Dschang initiated programs in agriculture and various areas.
When Professor Ivo Leke Tambo was appointed in 2006 as the focal point, a major problem arose when the different ministries started writing to the Commonwealth requesting for the creation of Open Distance Learning possibilities in their sectors in Cameroon. When the mails requesting the establishing of Open University were received at the Commonwealth of Learning, the reply was that the government had first to implement the workshop recommendations made in 2003, which stated that to insure that Open Distance Learning goes on smoothly in the country, a legal framework to facilitates the introduction must be put in place. The legal frame needed to answer questions on what modules that Cameroon wants to implement and whether the Open University will take a module of the formal university by running face to face programs and at the same time having groups as students who are outside learning setting, by using the distance model? The document needed to say what people want to do? What the role of other partners would be and who wants to intervene? Another major problem was on how quality of the learning process and certification was to be assured?
All of these issues had to be addressed for the harmonization of diplomas and their recognition, because we know in Open Distance Learning, there are some degree mills, where some institutions issue junk degrees. What these institutions do is that they receive money in exchange of degrees created from their Lap tops. They even produce Masters or P.HD degrees without the persons going through any educational institution. These are degree mills and it is the role of the government to check against these malpractices and insuring that these types of things do not happen in Cameroon. That is why it is necessary to develop a legal framework and this has been realized through the support of the Commonwealth of Learning. A local consultant, Professor Ajanganji was recruited to work with the Commonwealth of Learning and the university concern to produce a framework document and a draft decree for introducing Open Distance Learning in Cameroon. The document was forwarded to hierarchy and everybody is waiting for it to be signed before it becomes effective.
The next other program done in Cameroon with the assistance of the Commonwealth of Learning, concerns the introduction of Open School in Cameroon. The operational document and developed programs for introducing Open School in the Ministries concerned with Education have been prepared. This document is also with hierarchy and everybody is waiting and expecting the reaction of the government, because this document takes care of non-formal education. Thus with the Open School modules, Professor Leke Tambo emphasizes that, people who have abandoned school for one reason or the other at different levels, can come back and learn at their pace and at their own time. When the document would have been signed, it is going to help a lot to regulate non formal education.
The University of Dschang has been running a program in agriculture and other areas. This is in many ways considered as a non formal program. At the University of Buea, they introduced through the support of the Commonwealth of Learning, a program in teacher education by distance, which is functioning in the 10 regions of Cameroon.
To do this, Professor Leke Tambo and others received training from Quebec and later from the Open University in Lagos, Nigeria. Although he spent about two weeks with the Open University in Lagos, and even with the other institution in Quebec before moving to China with Beijing University, these travels helped for designing the Cameroon program, which is non formal in several ways because it has taken into consideration the teacher who is in the field and preparing for a Bachelors degree and other programs.
Cameroon is looking forward to the first batch of the program graduating and the national focal point of the Commonwealth of Learning sees this as part of the major programs involving universities. Talking about the visit of Ian Pringle to Cameroon, he said the media specialist has not been very long in the Commonwealth of Learning, and the first thing will be that he is able to access the situation as far as the introduction and the use of media in education and in the different sectors of education is concerned in Cameroon. Cameroon expects that he would be able to evaluate the situation about where the country is and he would be able to inform the Commonwealth of Learning on the level at which activities are in Cameroon. Ian Pringle should be able to say after Cameroon’s evaluation whether the people are sleeping or not in relation to the rest of the other countries of the Commonwealth.
If we are making progress, Prof. Leke Tambo said, the COL Media Specialist might be able to tell Cameroon where and how to move forward following his visit. He mentioned in the interview that he was very proud to receive a very good report from Mr. James Achanyi Fontem, who he considers as the engine of the pilot program in Lebialem of the south west region of Cameroon. He noted from the report, how many people were able to be mobilized within the communities in a very short time and the high quality of the participants. Professor Leke Tambo already responded after reading through the report and wrote a letter of appreciation of the efforts to introduce the radio story design programming on Lebialem Community Radio in Menji.
The national focal point observed that it is a very good program, especially as it is using community radio for educating populations on Mother and Child Health Care. This is a COL Healthy Community Initiative and his wish is that sustainability should be built into the program, because very often we have seen in some cases, the Commonwealth of Learning comes in, or any other organization comes in and gives support for a period of time and when they withdraw, the activities collapse. Sustainability might be the concern of COL programs as well as impact and its potentials, since the quality of people who are involved on the ground count for a very good future like in the Lebialem media pilot program.
COL Gender Mainstreaming
Speaking generally about gender mainstreaming, according to Professor Tambo, it is not just the Commonwealth of Learning concerned about these issues. All international programs like those supported by the World Bank and other kinds of donors emphasize the role of gender main streaming in all programs, because we cannot continue to act, behave and work as if there is only one sex in Cameroon. There must be sex balance in programming. When there is sex balance, he believes, in many ways the country will advance, because as it is often said, one part of the body cannot move leaving another part behind. All parts of the body must walk together, as far as this matter is concerned in Cameroon.
At the level of the State, His Excellency, President Paul Biya, the President of the Republic of Cameroon, has been able to encourage Gender mainstreaming and scaling by appointments of women to ministerial positions. Many more women than ever before are holding cabinet positions in Cameroon. Others are holding positions of Senior Executive in government, Corporations and the private sectors.
With this, Professor Tambo thinks scaling up the pilot problem in Cameroon should emphasize on gender main streaming. The gender mainstreaming project in Cameroon is moving very well. We have seen women commanding in the army, giving instructions and men move. More and more of such progress are coming. Professor Tambo believes that Cameroon is in the right track as far as gender is concerned. We may not be moving as fast as some people think, but a lot is going on, he concluded.

COL Cameroon Link Programme Targets Women and Youths

The on-going Commonwealth of Learning Open Distance Programme in Lebialem Division has targeted women and youths of Azi Traditional Head Quarters as appropriate community outreach channel. This was revealed during a workshop organized by the Commonwealth of Learning Cameroon Link Partnership for some 30 participants drawn from various professions including media, community development, health, education, agriculture, social welfare, animal rearing, traditional leadership representation and high school students.
The outreach Commonwealth of Learning programme in Lebialem is using community radio to design education and information productions on mother and child health care issues with the participation of local communities.
During the workshop at Ema Azi Palace in Lebialem, chaired by His Royal Majesty, Fon Njifua, epilepsies, mental disorder, sickle cell disorder and problems faced by albinos were included on the agenda as new public health awareness areas of concern in the region. Some mothers attribute these problems to witchcraft due to ignorance and lack of sufficient information.
His Royal Majesty, Fon Fontem Njifua told the Commonwealth of Learning facilitators and participants that the births of albinos is on the increase, while epilepsies and mental disorder in persons is re-occurring in the forest zone from Fosung village to Becheti in Wabane sub division. It is feared that the problems would spread to other areas of Lebialem if research is not carried out immediately to find out the causes of the health problems and arrest the situation before it becomes late.
The Commonwealth of Learning Cameroon Link Liaison, James Achanyi-Fontem, used the opportunity to speak on the importance of breastfeeding, considering the low rate in most villages. He handed prizes for the health quiz organized during the Cameroon Youth Week(4-11 February) and the International Women’s Day (8 March) activities in Lebialem.
The prizes worth CFA 50.000 to CFA 10.000, exercise books and pens were distributed to the first three best radio scripts writers. Two students of the Government Technical College in Menji presented a radio script on how to prevent Cholera and won the first prize. Other wrote scripts on how to promote mother and child health care amongst youths. The winners were given the opportunity to talk on what motivated them to write the scripts and how they were developed. Most of the scripts were centered on the promotion of gender equity with communities.
Other scripts were on HIV and traditional healing, the prevention of unwanted pregnancies in colleges, and the disadvantages of teenage early sex relationship. The winning scripts were written by Agendia Terence and Tajoache Zachs of Government Technical College Fontem, Emesong Miriam Alemkia of Government Teacher Training College, Tengongwo Divine and Njifua Joan of Government High School Azi.
During the presentation of papers on selected issues, Anastasia Atabong, who is the secretary general of Fine Forest Foundation Cameroon and Deputy Mayor of Menji Municipal Council lectured on Sickle Cell Disorder awareness, blaming some parents for attributing the disease to witchcraft practice. She explained that sickle cell disorder is hereditary and that it can be prevented by screening before contracting marriages. If two sickle cell patients got married and gave birth to a baby, the child likely to inherit the sickle cell and grow help as sickle cell carriers. The child will be regularly sick Anastasia Atabong said, as she took time to explain how such children are treated within the community with the avoidance of stigmatization.
Diana Mbu, a nurse and mid wife of Azi District Hospital lectured on the different stages of care as far as maternal and child care is concerned. Emphasizing on the mother and child care development chain, she invited men to be more supportive to their partners before, during and after birthing of their babies. Mothers were called upon to respect the immunization appointment days and get their children vaccinated. She added that mothers are counseled in care centers in the division every week.
Peter Monet Otto, a community health worker from Fine Forest Foundation Cameroon advised the participants to adopt a family planning policy as a means of improving on livelihood, explaining that family planning is not just limitation of birth, but child spacing in the context of Cameroon. In some countries and parts of the world, family planning stands for limitation of births.
He emphasized that parents should give birth to children, that they will have the means to bring them up and guarantee their education, nutrition, housing and well being as child rights.
COL Cameroon Link current activities focus on “Mother and Child Health Care” rights as an advocacy channel for behaviour change communication. The radio health programmes produced weekly:
• Continue to challenge trade laws that prioritize profit over access to life-saving possibilities.
• Create women’s leadership and ownership training opportunities within local communities by the establishment of or collaboration with local health area women gender councils and related health taskforces.
• Educate, inform, lobby funding organizations and service providers for the involvement of young persons, especially teen mothers in care and support activities,
• Promote social norm change campaigns through publications, participation in local community radio and television programmes, fostering relationships with media outlets and through well recognized male and female celebrities for the promotion of women and child rights.
• Participate in planning, organizing and broadcasting programmes during UN international and national days with women’s involvement in radio live shows and pre-recorded programmes on Mother and Child Health Care rights.
It is understood that the subject of mother and child health care is very vast and this is the reasons for putting in place a community of learning orientation committee in Menji to discuss and decide on the issues treated during the weekly programmes on Lebialem Community Radio.
From Azi, COL Cameroon Link Partnership strategy will be focusing on Alou sub division during its next outing in June 2011. COL is an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies. For more information, click on the following links: www.col.org or http://cameroonlink.info

COL Cameroon Link Child-to-Child Health Clubs

By Celine Asonganyi, Cameroon Link
Email: camlink99@gmail.com
This project was initiated by the Commonwealth of Learning, COL, Cameroon Link Programme, and aims to raise awareness about the importance of proper sanitation and hygiene among school children, teachers, and parents in the outlying areas of Lebialem, in the south west region of Cameroon. The chil-to-child club activities was used as the entry channel for the involvement of young persons in primary schools during the ongoing “Mother and Child Health Care Project” covering three sub divisions of Lebialem.
COL Cameroon Link uses peer education and the formation of sanitation clubs to complement the building of infrastructure, such as latrines and hand-washing facilities.
Communication Strategies
The child-to-child sanitation clubs during the youth week from the 4th – 11th February, use a peer education model in which older youth between the ages of 17 and 24 are trained as facilitators to spread messages about the importance of sanitation and hygiene to school children through various interactive strategies.
These peer educators encourage the formation of child-to-child sanitation clubs and, to date, clubs are operating in over 10 schools, involving about 12,000 students. These clubs are involved in advocating for healthy schools and good hygiene practices, and warning about the dangers of unhygienic environments through participatory methods like song, dance, theatre, and games. For example, children advocated for central refuse collection spots so that they no longer had to share their play spaces with garbage. They also raised awareness on how proper disposal of syringes and other medical material could help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
In addition to raising awareness around sanitation, the clubs aim to provide students with safe after-school activities, as well as leadership skills, and an opportunity to engage in arts and creative media. The project also includes a child-to-child radio programme on Lebialem Community Radio that uses child presenters and supports the objectives of the sanitation clubs.
COL Cameroon Link Partnership Liaison organizing the youth health development activity within child care advocacy, has observed that the sanitation clubs are having an impact on adults in the community as well; this outcome emerges from efforts to establish linkages between Parent-Teacher Associations and communities to ensure that hygiene education skills acquired in school can influence behaviour change at the community level. Children take home the messages of good sanitation and begin to practice these habits at home.
As a result, parents and adults have begun putting pressure on the local authorities to provide better sanitation and hygiene education and services in all schools. According to COL Cameroon Link Partnership Liaison person, James Achanyi-Fontem, the success of the project has prompted inter-school discussions through radio drama competitions among students and teachers about the issues. This COL Cameroon Link initiative has inspired other municipalities to begin fundraising to start the project in their schools.
Development Issues
Health, Children, Youth, Sanitation
Key Points
In 2010, a Cameroon Link study found that 75% of all primary schools in Lebialem had no toilets for boys or girls and no hand-washing facilities. Few schools promoted hygiene, and those that did focused on lectures by teachers with no student participation. The authorities of the ministries of basic education and public health state that an unexpected benefit of the project is that it is allowing girls to stay in school longer and there has been no cholera outbreak in Lebialem as in other parts of Cameroon recently. Previously, many girls would leave school because of the lack of toilet facilities. For the girls existing toilets left them without any privacy. According to the COL Cameroon Link Liaison person, now that child-friendly, separate sanitation facilities for girls and boys have been installed, girls are staying on to complete their basic primary education.
The COL Cameroon Link programme is executed closely with the Ministry of Public Health, Ministry of Education and Lebialem Community Radio as an Open Distance Learning process to see how the sanitation clubs can be replicated in other communities. As part of its national curriculum reform, The government schools of Cameroon have committed 15% of the school term to reflect on local issues. Cameroon Link is pressing for hygiene promotion activities to be part of that 15%.
In 2010, COL Cameroon Link Partnership Liaison introduced Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) in the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) pilot programme in Lebialem as an effort to accelerate the construction of new facilities with support from parent-teacher associations and schools themselves and adequate use of the facilities already available in the schools. This process involves training of 50 people from 10 health districts in May 2011. Cameroon Link has been invited to attend the National Meeting of the Ministry of Public Health annually to present new approaches to more than 50 health education officers and community health organization leaders already in partnership with the health promotion department. This meeting is chaired by the Minister of Public Health, Andre Mama Fouda, who appreciates the new approach and reports to the prime minister who requests other sectors, education colleagues and women’s empowerment , social welfare and youth ministry collaborators to support this approach to accelerate sanitation and stop open defecation in schools and surrounding communities. The CLTS implementation strategy will be presented in a joint COL Cameroon Link planning exercise between district health officials, civil society and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) at a Commonwealth of Learning and Open Distance Learning exchange meeting to be held in Douala in July 2011. Participants will also be briefed on the on-going COL project in Cameroon and the outcome of the last Pan Commonwealth of Learning Forum at Kochi, India of which Cameroon Link was honoured as delegate for the linking media to health and community development training.
Partners
Commonwealth of learning, COL
IBFAN Africa
IBFAN GIFA
Ministry of Public Health
Ministry of Basic Education
Lebialem Community Radio
FECABPA

E-Learning Course For Africa Broadcasters

Blythe McKay is Manager of Programmes & Partnerships of Farm Radio International, FRI, in Canada. She highlighted e-learning courses organized to support African broadcasters through the development of radio scripts on small holder farmer innovations during the Pan Commonwealth of Learning Forum in Kochi, India late in November 2010. Introducing the e-learning issue, Blythe described a script as a written version of a short radio programme. The FRI script writing competitions started in 2005 with 26 entries from 16 countries on the MDGs, In 2007, the competition focused on Climate Change Adaptation with 51 entries from 20 countries.
In 2009, the radio script competition was on smallholder farmers and this accumulated 82 scripts from 20 countries. The last competition is in the course of evaluation and this got 128 entries with over 500 subscribers. Four competitions have been organized since 2005.
She explained that the purpose of the competition is to strengthen the capacity of African broadcasters affiliated to the Farm Radio International network. Different topics have been treated, as far as the needs of communicators and smallholder farmers is concerned.
In 2009, Farm Radio International partnered with Community of Learning, COL, to offer an e-learning component and to provide training for participants in the competition. Since these activities started, the number of participants has continued to increased, reflecting the value and impact of the exercise. FRI covers over 250 radio stations on the Africa continent.
The process includes course development, marketing and sign up, online training and the use of CD-Rom, script submission, judging by international panel, revision of winning script, evaluation and distribution.
This process is organized in such a way that broadcasters are reached on time. Persons who do not have regular access to internet, receive the their packets of scripts by post. It takes a couple of months for some to receive materials from Farm radio international.
The FRI online training has a duration of 10 weeks or more. When the process is completed, the scripts are reviewed by an international panel of judges. 10 to 15 winners are selected and they receive a certificate and a mini recorder for producing more interactive programmes in their stations as a incentive. They are often advised to revise their scripts based on the feedback received from the judges, to make sure the content is balanced.
When it is packed and posted to the broadcasters, the scripts are adapted and used during local language broadcasts targeting the farmer and animal breeder. Between 300 and 500 packets are sent to sub Saharan Africa. As an organization, FRI learns by doing and this helps for the planning and organization of future competitions.
The web site of Farm radio International, FRI, can be consulted at, www.farmradio.org Over 1.000 scripts are have been lodged on the web site and people can download and use them free of any charge. Farm Radio International(www.farmradio.org) is a Canadian registered charity that is at the forefront of using radio combined with other ICTs to serve smallholder farmers. It sends information on low-cost ways to improve food security to 360 radio stations across 39 countries. The packages, in English and French, cover topics from improving soil fertility to coping with climate change. In the past 30 years, local broadcasters have valued the materials and translated them into over one hundred local African languages.Over 950 subscriptions receive electronic news service on weekly basis. Farm Radio International also privodes training to broadcasters to improve their skills in serving smallholders, more of them in rural communities.

Innovative Tool for Distance Learning
Jothi, Santhy & Valluvaparidasan are all of the directorate of the Open Distance Learning in Tamil Nadu Agricultural University of India. They presented a joint paper on the innovative tool for community development through distance education.
The government is requesting the agricultural sector to come up with innovations that can help farmers improve on their yields, especially in the dry regions of the country. E-Learning is used by the International Crop Research Institute for the semi arid tropics and Tamil Nadu Agriculture University. In these institutions, instead for building course from the top down, the opposite is down building courses from the bottom upwards. This helps to locate the learning objects.
The two points on content with the consumers are the missing part of e-learning as a social network, who is reading the RLO and the automatic formation of the list, not forgetting the Meta Data with at least three taxonomies. Google relates documents to documents and it is the same system that is applied in the innovation to e-learning by the directorate.
User profiles have been conceive to facilitate interested persons to sign up for the course they want.

Innovations In ODL In Agriculture
Venkataraman Bataji, B.S. Hansra, Surya Gunjai, Valiuva Paridasan and Praveen S. Jain are of the ICRISAT in Patancheru, the School of Agriculture of IGNOU, School of Agriculture of YCMOU, the ODL Directorate and the school of agriculture, IGNOU. They made a joint presentation on innovations using the practices in re-usable Learning objects and semantic web technologies. In the picture above, Blythe is standing with James, focal point for FRI Cameroon. For more, visit the following web site at http://cameroonlink.info

Open Learning Resources and Community Development

Open Learning Resources and Community Development
By Cameroon Link
Email: camlink99@gmail.com

Presenjit Das works with the Institute of Distance and Open Learning of the University of Guahati in India. He explored new pathways of knowledge in the field of high education in Assam. There are over 40 open distance learning opportunities in India. The idea is about 15 years old. India is learning from all over the world and new initiatives are coming up throughout the country. Assam is a North East Indian state. Presenjit Das said, that as open distance learning is discussed, the word openness should be given consideration as a path way. Oral learning India is certainly different from oral learning in other parts of the world.
He said, in the last five years, there has been a remarkable development in the accessibility through the resources of open education. UNESCO chaired a vivid discussion on the use of OER through its International Institute of Educational Planning, IIEP, which affirms that Open Educational Resources,OER, can bring a remarkable change in community development.
According to Presenjit Das, learning in ODL must refer to cultural factors over and above psychological theories of learning. The design of materials must contain implicit references to institutional infrastructure like information channels which are important aspects of the learning process.
Open Distance Learning has to be contextualized. In Assam, in the north east of India, there are 5 major universities out of three offering higher education through open distance learning. The design of curriculum ordinarily refers to the tried and tested pedagogic methods of classroom teaching. Practice reveals that this consistently relegates ODL curriculum to the lower slot in the repertory of courses. The 11th five year development plan of the Indian government suggests an allocation of 600 million rupees for the integration of specifically ICT in school education.
As the government increases investment in ICT for education, continuous effeorts must be made to ensure that investments in technology positively impact on all aspects of education.such community development.
The Institute of Open and Distance Learning in Guahati university has taken a number of visionary initiativesby launching the first e-portal of the North East, notably www.bodhiroom.Idolgu.org on the 13th November 2009.
By providing more effective and efficient access to information, it improves collaboration and communication, integration of information and application, increased document flow and workflow, smarter decision making, increased productivity and integrated knowledge environment.
The e-portal offers an independent discussion forum and news forum for every programme, online interaction facility with fellow students, faculty members and even officials which include the administrative officer of G.U.
A Campus community radio station was launched at G.U. on the 20th November 2010 as another mew development. Addressing challenging issues, Presenjit Das said, the responsibility towards social needs of community development stands as a distinct markerof the ODL system, thus calling on practitioners to maintain practices reinforcing ideas of openness with reference to teacher-student relationship.

Community Development

PCF6 Discussions on Digital Content
By Cameroon Link
Email: camlink99@gmail.com
The session on digital content and community development was facilitated by Maria Protz of the Caribbean Institute for Media and Communication and the rapporteur was James Achanyi-Fontem of Cameroon Link.This session was arranged by the COL Community Media Action International Coordinator, Ian Pringle.
Presenters were Lee Tan Luck, Prasenjit Das, Blythe McKay, Valluvaparidasan, Venkataraman, B.S, Hansra, Surye Gunjal, Valluva Paridasan and Praveen Jain.
Maria Protz to get resource persons on stage, started by refreshing the memories of the audience on the required content of the theme through a series of questions: What are the ways we can capture the body of knowledge about using community media in learning? So, how do we go about capturing the body of knowledge? Are there modules for using community media for facilitating learning? With all the new communication platforms and technologies that are coming to the front, do they really work? Or do they cause more problems than we think? Another question was on quality assurance. In community media, do we need some sort of quality assurance mechanisms for checks and balance? If so,do we have any modules that work for that? Who is the community we are talking about? Is community a myth? What is the role of technologies in addressing disparities? After this introduction that the first speaker was invited to the podium to address issues related to "Supporting Community Learning with Digital Technologies"
Lee Tan Luck is a lecturer of MARA University of technology in Malaysia. He spoke about supporting community learning with digital technologies and knowledge for societal development. He emphasized on Open Distance Learning, ODL, to educate rural farmers by enhanced blended learning management system through schools, while quoting the example of Malaysia. The scenario in the school system of Malaysia, is that all primary and secondary schools are well equipped with computer systems since 1986. In all the 2000 primary schools, 45 per cent are located in rural areas. Even in the rural areas, there is everything including electricity supply.
The Open Distance Learning operates on half day and mostly in the evening. This is part of the educational system. In Malaysia, the introduction of ICT has proven its worth as the foundation of the modern mode of education delivery system. This widen the scope of development on a collaborative, open and distance digital enhanced e-learning platform.
It has also paved the way for the bridging of digital divide as well as fostering advance education for the nation. For this to happen, a main server is located in one area, connections are linked to eight district servers at one time. These computer servers in the eight districts are connected to all primary and secondary schools. Even the indigenous areas with solar energy benefit from the same syatem.
Farmers are eager to learn through the system because ICT helps them to evacuate their products to the market. Without this system, the farmers will produce and not know where to sell their crops. Most of them are poor peasant farmers. The middle men who buy from the farmers to sell in the market, take a big share of the profits of the farmers. This system of open distance learning has come to give the farmers equal opportunities and some have become very rich.
Teaching is considered a social obligation for the development of the society. This helps the farmers to equip themselves and improve on their livelihoods. Farmers are discourage from the use of chemicals for producing their crops, because this is dangerous for human health. Lee Tan Luck said, he has a farm and practices what he teaches there. He acknowledged that farming pays more that a government job, even when he practices only on part time basis.
The off-hours education for rural farmers is part and parcel of school administrators and teachers’ social obligation because they also form part of the community. The blended methodology of teaching and learning process is not an easy one because the farmers need to be guided properly on the use of the sophisticated digital facilities and caution is the key issues in the transfer of knowledge.
It is important to note that the open distance learning, whether in the afternoon or night is free. Malaysia envisages through its system of using ICT for transformation of the well being of the farmers to attain the level of developed country by the year 2020.

Story Design Workshop Is Golden Opportunity For Cameroon

COL Cameroon Link Partnership Liaison Person Describes Story Design Workshop As Golden Opportunity For Cameroon
By Lebialem Community Radio

Executive Director of Cameroon Link, James Achanyi-Fontem, who doubles as the Commonwealth of Learning Partnership Liaison, has described the first radio story design workshop organised in Lebialem as a golden opportunity for the transformation of communities.
Achanyi-Fontem was speaking during the launching of Commonwealth of Learning pilot programme in Lebialem Division of the south west region of Cameroon last November 2 at Mariapolis Centre in Menji.
He thanked the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), through Charles Simbi and Gladson Makowa, who travelled all the way from Lilongwe, Malawi in East Africa to Cameroon to deliver the radio story design workshop content on “Mother and Child Health Care”.
He appreciated the presence of the Senior Divisional Officer for Lebialem’s representative, Moni Innocent Nanje, who accepted to preside over the official launching ceremony, while congratulating the Management of Lebialem Community Radio for accepting the challenge to host the workshop for behavior change communication, which remains a challenge in Cameroon.
The COL Cameroon Link partnership liaison lauded the participants, for leaving other activities to concentrate in the learning process and to serve their communities as volunteers for the promotion of healthy communities within Lebialem, the take off point of Commonwealth Open Distance Learning activities through Lebialem Community Radio.
Achanyi-Fontem announced that the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) signed a Contribution Agreement to support Cameroon Link, to facilitate the development, design and operationalisation of a Community Learning Programme on “Maternal and Child Health Care” in the Lebialem Division of Cameroon on the 30th August 2010 after a field study and evaluation of delivery impact.
He added that, the results and evaluation of the Lebialem Community Learning model will be shared widely in Cameroon, as reminded participant that the COL is an intergovernmental organization created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education. The brain behind the media initiative in Vancouver, Canada is Ian Pringle, a Media Education Specialist, he revealed. He used the opportunity to extend the sincere thanks and gratitude of the entire staff of Cameroon Link to Ian Pringle and his collaborators in Vancouver, Canada for the trust, that led to the birth of the extension of Commonwealth of Learning to Cameroon.
Achanyi-Fontem told trainees, that COL’s Livelihoods and Health Sector aims at improving on the incomes, livelihoods and quality of life of communities and their members through new knowledge, skills and economic opportunities gained by the means of Open Distance Learning Tools and strategies.
The four initiatives, he went on, include Skills Development, Learning for Farming, Healthy Communities and e-Learning. As far as Healthy Communities is concerned, COL and Cameroon Link have a common interest in helping community organisations, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) and local public institutions to improve the health and well-being of their communities. The Healthy Communities approach focuses on health issues within a broader context of community development, dealing for example with issues such as “Maternal and Child Health Care, HIV/AIDS and Nutrition”.
Cameroon Link and Lebialem Community Radio, the two organizations concerned with the delivery of the programme will share information and promote cooperation, at both the activity level (interventions in the field) as well as with regard to policy, COL partnership liaison told the audience.
Areas of specific interest for collaboration in the Cameroon Link initiative include:
 Use of mobile technologies;
 Use of traditional media;
 Use of e-Health applications; and developing open and distance learning materials and programmes, both for healthcare intermediaries and citizens during a period of 12 months.
According to the statement of activities of Cameroon Link, COL's Healthy Communities initiative will demonstrate and document the use of media and other information and communication technologies for open and distance learning, and in particular, the use of community-based media by development groups for non-formal educational programming about livelihoods, health and other areas of community development; working closely with COL and designated partners and consultants like the Malawi Story Workshop specialists, in all aspects of the project.
Cameroon Link is guiding a range of local public, private and civil society stakeholders in the development of new participatory learning programmes about community health, one that reflects the key elements of COL's community learning model, namely a combination of educational radio content with face-to-face interactions and learner support, with a clear linkage to community mobilisation and action.
Cameroon Link has identified output and outcome indicators which assist in the collection of baseline data, establishing a consortium of partner groups working in media, maternal and child health care, and identifying at least 1,000 direct learners reached through complementary face-to-face means and 20,000 active listeners in Lebialem.
Cameroon Link worked closely with the COL-designated training facilitators and local partners to organize the five-day radio programmes design workshop that resulted to the production of our samples of episodes ready for broadcast at the end of the training.
Cameroon Link is continue to ensure the execution of the community learning programme, including at least 30-60 minutes of original weekly radio content, associated to face-to-face learning support for the next twelve months starting from November 2010.
Two key learning technologies, including using video shows for community support groups, mobile telephones to increase learner interactivity and to provide additional information to learners, computers to assess learning achievements, etc are integrated for execution of the programme.
Cameroon Link and Lebialem Community Radio are developing a case study of Lebialem radio programmes, including: An outline of the COL-Cameroon Link community learning programme model, reflecting both, the global approach and its specific application in Lebialem. The process followed in Lebialem includes:
 Twenty-five plus (25+) high-resolution, high-quality photographs reflecting the programme's participatory and educational nature;
 The outputs, outcomes and lessons learnt, including a comparative analysis of the baseline and end-of-project data from phase one of the programme;
 General considerations for policymakers in
a) Health education, especially maternal and child health care, and
b) Community media.
 A roadmap for scaling-up the Community Learning programme model in Cameroon.
COL Cameroon Link partnership will lead to sharing the case study and roadmap, widely through electronic media, and in specific fora, like community media or health conferences, and with specific groups concerned with maternal and child health care and so on, with a view to additional local and national programme development.
Groups and individuals trained or otherwise engaged in the programme development process are disaggregated by age, gender, location and livelihood, as well as Learners enrolled or directly engaged by the process.
Gender considerations will include: Involvement of and access by women and men, boys and girls; and Gender orientation of content produced; Partnerships established and maintained; Feedback from policy and programme decision makers; Prospective sustainability; and amount, quality, subject and origin of content created, with observations concerning local relevance, degree of community and learner participation, collaboration among groups and specific gender considerations; and
Impact on health and development indicators as identified at the outset of the project.
COL contact, Ian Pringle, who is International Program Coordinator and Media Education Specialist, is contributing resources towards the statement of activities; providing inputs and feedback throughout the project with the services of consultants leading in the radio programmes design and training.
Gender equality is integral to all of COL’s work and requires that both women's and men's views, interests and needs shape its work in learning for development. Cameroon Link agreed that gender considerations shall inform the activities to be undertaken under the agreement, in particular:
Consultation with both women and men and the inclusion of gender considerations, for example, the role of gender in maternal and child health, in planning activities;
Equitable participation of women and men in radio programmes development and training activities;
The inclusion in all workshops of at least one session focused on gender issues, like looking at the role of women and men in how radio programmes are developed and the gender implications for learning and action processes, and the inclusion in all learning programmes of specific gender considerations, the role of men in maternal and child health care, the roles of both women and men in preventing and treating malaria, diabetes, sickle cell, etc.
Project Strategy
The approach to programme development and content creation includes:
 Non-formal education approach to media, like identifying learning objectives and learning process
 Collaborative process involving media – ICT, health development authorities and experts and community networks.
 Participatory design and operation of learning programmes, Story-based approach to learning content alongside information from experts,
 Blended and multi-channel approach to learning that combines media content with face-to face interaction and other types of learner support using print, mobile, etc.
Issues dealing with Maternal Health tackled include:
HIV/AIDS
Sickle Cell
Nutrition
Smoking
Drinking
Family Planning
Malaria
Prenatal Care
Gender relations
Illiteracy
Poverty
Infrastructure
Information
Safe Delivery
Working conditions and
Abortion.
The above list remains incomplete and will be completed as the execution phase unfolds.
James Achanyi-Fontem used the opportunity to introduce the two national focal points of Commonwealth of Learning: Professor Ivo Leke Tambo, who is the Secretary General at the Ministry of Secondary Education in Yaounde and Dr. Daniel Akume Akume, who is the Head of the Computerised System for the Management of Staff and Salaries at the Ministry of Higher Education in Yaounde.
For more information, click on the following links-
http://camlinknews.blogspot.com/2010/11/asongah-leghung-emeh-boh-mwuah.html; http://camlinknews.blogspot.com/2010/11/lcr-welcomes-col-initiative.html

LCR WELCOMES COL INITIATIVE

By Cameroon Link
Email: camlink99@gmail.com
The President of Lebialem Community Radio (LCR), Atabong George Atemnkeng expressed thanks and gratitude to the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) in Vancouver, Canada, Cameroon Link Health Development Organisation in Douala and the facilitators of the Story Design Workshop “on Mother and Child Health Care”, who come all the way from Malawi, East Africa to Menji, Cameroon.
Atabong George acknowledged that joys and challenges shared the space in the hearts of the staff of Lebialem Community Radio , as the station was chosen to launch the pilot phase of the media Commonwealth of Learning project in Cameroon.
He added that, it was the first time in the history of Lebialem that such a project on health development through the media is being offered to the population and listeners of the various communities in Cameroon.
This training offered by the Commonwealth of Nations is coming in to help Lebialem Community Radio to fulfil one of the primordial objectives, which is to disseminate correct information to more than 3,000.000 inhabitants of Cameroon from Menji, especially as the signals of the station reach neighbouring countries to Cameroon like Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea, the LCR President emphasized.
He added, that with the support the station received from the Japanese embassy for the construction of a relay pylon of Lebialem Community Radio, the effect of COL Media Health Action programmes is going to extend to the populations of Upper Manyu Division in the South West region, Menoua Division in the West region and parts of the North West region of Cameroon.
Prior to the creation of Lebialem Community Radio in 2007, the division was virtually off from the rest of the country because of no access to CRTV signals or any other radio broadcast signals. Today, the population relies on LCR for news, information, education and entertainment on all issues.
Atabong George observed that the health story design workshop for Lebialem Community Radio will go a long way to empower the staff on healthy communities’ communication and related issues.
Through this in put, LCR will be able to:
 Give the microphone to the population, who normally have no access to the mass media an opportunity to express their views on community health development issues;
 Provide a development forum for healthy communities;
 Encourage self-help participatory community development;
 Promote active involvement of underprivileged groups such as the handicapped, women and young persons especially;
 Provide a forum for local cultural expression in relation to mother and child care;
 Improve on the population’s access to health information in local languages;
 Offer opportunities for individuals and groups to speak to each other, thus developing awareness of a common membership of community.
 The pilot Commonwealth of Learning initiative in Cameroon will reinforce some important Cameroon Radio Television network programmes already relayed in the official languages by the station.

The LCR President told the facilitators and participants, that the above mentioned objectives can be met with the kind of training offered by the Malawi Story Workshop team with the assistance of Cameroon Link, the negotiator organisation and Commonwealth of Learning.
On the part of the staff of Lebialem Community Radio, they promised to diligently use the training to educate and help reduce maternal and child health care problems in Lebialem and its environ, while reporting back to COL Cameroon regularly, accurately and on time about the effects of the training and the new programmes brought into the radio programmes schedule by COL.
During the closing and certificate handing over ceremony, Atabong George said, Lebialem Community Radio benefitted a lot through the Story Design Workshop and that the skills acquired will go a long way to solve the acute problems of broadcast materials and staffing. The volunteer staff , he added are capable of identifying vital community issues as well as designing and putting up quality programmes that will ameliorate the welfare of the communities.
Especially as “Mother and Child Health Care” was the core of the workshop, together they voted unanimously for a title of the programme to heard heard henceforth over Lebialem Community Radio : “Asongah Leghung Emeh boh Mwuah”.
At this initial stage of cooperation, he assured the trainers, the negotiator organisation and the Commonwealth of Learning of their total commitment to respect the terms of the agreement. Asongah leghung Emeh boh Muah will bring more life to the station and communities, he promised, because they have just gone through a very intensive and educative workshop. They have learned new skills. They have got new friends and learned how to take care of the health of the mothers, infants and children. The title of the programme, Atabong reiterated, calls for a greater sense of responsibility and awareness. He invited the staff of LCR to remain united and devoted to duty to win the confidence and trust of the donors and make Lebialem proud. For more, please click on the following link - http://camlinknews.blogspot.com/2010/11/asongah-leghung-emeh-boh-mwuah.html

Asongah Leghung Emeh Boh Mwuah

“Asongah Leghung Emeh Boh Mwuah” Takes Off On Lebialem Community Radio
By Cameroon Link,
Email: camlink99@gmail.com

“Asongah Leghung Emeh Boh Mwuah” has taken off on Lebialem Community Radio in Menji following a week-long story design workshop organized by the COL Cameroon Link Health Development NGO Partnership and a Malawi Radio Story Design team. The 12-month long project was officially launched by the Deputy Senior Divisional Officer, Moni Innocent Nanje, in the presence of some 26 well selected participants from various sectors of the Lebialem community. The Malawian trainers were Charles Simbi and Gladson Makowa, both from the Story Design Workshop Organisation based in Lilongwe. Before leaving Cameroon, four programmes were realized on different issues related to the theme of the Commonwealth of Learning programme, “Mother and Child Health Care”.
Addressing the participants during the official opening of the workshop, Deputy SDO for Lebialem, Moni Innocent Nanje, said , It is a great honour to the Lebialem people that the administrative jurisdiction was chosen for housing the project that started with a story design workshop and that the launching of the first initiative of the Community of Learning in Cameroon started in enclave Lebialem with no motorable roads. He expressed the thanks and gratitude of the administration and the people of Lebialem to Cameroon Link Health Development NGO for negotiating the programme and the Commonwealth of Learning Agency coordinated from Vancouver, Canada for accepting to take the initiative to the very enclave area of the south west region of Cameroon.
Innocent Nanje observed, that Canada and Cameroon have a lot of similarities and belong to the Commonwealth of Nations family and that the focus on health, and specifically on “Maternal and Child Health Care” is very much in line with the policy of community health promotion by the Cameroon government.
The SDO thanked the Commonwealth of Learning for supporting Cameroon through Cameroon Link and for bringing the experts of Malawi Radio Story Design Workshop to Cameroon and particularly to Lebialem to facilitate the Radio Programmes Story Design Training for enriching the programmes schedule of Lebialem Community Radio in Menji.
He promised that the story design workshops that have been efficient in the transformation of communities in Malawi will bear better fruits in Cameroon and hoped that similar successes were going to be attained starting from Lebialemin the south west region.
The SDO announce that the people of Lebialem are handling the initiative like an egg and will take it as another challenge for behaviour change communication activities related to mother and child health care matters. Innocent Nanje reminded the participants that the Community of Learning (COL) is an intergovernmental organization created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education.
Collaboration among different groups is one of the key principles of the Community of Open and Distance Learning (CODL) approach that Cameroon Link and the Story Design Workshop facilitators from Malawi are promoting in Lebialem. The COL’s objectives and how participants work with ODL in the context of community health and local development organizations would be achieved only if all target groups without exception collaborate during the execution phase of the new initiative.
He concluded by saying that the COL model is designed to be flexible and adaptable, centered on a few key principles:
Non-formal education approaches to media, for example, the identification of learning objectives and a learning process,
Collaborative process involving media-Information Communication Technology (ICT), health-development authorities and experts, and community networks,
Participatory design and operation of learning programmes,
Story-based approach to learning content (alongside information from experts)
Blended and multichannel approach to learning that combines media content with face-to-face interactions and other types of learner support using print, mobile phones, etc.
With this, he urged the participants of the Commonwealth of Learning story design workshop to give the trainers and facilitators the necessary collaboration for knowledge to be transferred to them, and that this knowledge should be used in transforming the populations to take up their responsibilities for mother and child health care in Lebialem division of Cameroon.
“Asongah Leghung Emeh Boh Mwuah” was chosen as the title of the mother and child health care programme already in the air at the Lebialem Community Radio, the main beneficiary of the new initiative led by James Achanyi-Fontem of the COL Cameroon Link.Partnership Liaison person.

COL Goes To Lebialem, Cameroon

Commonwealth of Learning (COL) Goes To Lebialem, Cameroon
By James Achanyi-Fontem,
Cameroon Link
Email: camlink99@gmail.com
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) has signed a Contribution Agreement to support Cameroon Link, facilitate the development, design and operationalisation of a Community Learning Programme about Maternal and Child Health in the Lebialem area. The results and evaluation of Lebialem Community Learning model will be shared widely in Cameroon. COL is an intergovernmental organization created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education. The brain behind this initiative in Canada is Ian Pringle, Media Education Specialist. The support agreement was endorsed by COL Vice President, Professor Asha S. Kanwar, on the 30th August 2010.
According to the statement of activities of Cameroon Link, COL's Healthy Communities initiative will demonstrate and document the use of media and other information and communication technologies for open and distance learning, in particular the use of community-based media by development groups for non-formal educational programming about livelihoods, health and other areas of community development; working closely with COL and designated partners and consultants in all aspects of the project.
Cameroon Link will guide a range of local public, private and civil society stakeholders in the development of a new participatory learning programme about community health, one that reflects the key elements of COL's community learning model, namely a combination of educational radio content with face-to-face interactions and learner support, with a clear linkage to community mobilisation and action.
Cameroon Link is laying the groundwork for the community learning programme by identifying output and outcome indicators, collecting baseline data, establishing a consortium of partner groups working in media and maternal and child health, and identifying at least 1,000 direct learners reached through complementary face-to-face means and 20,000 active listeners in Lebialem.
Cameroon Link is working closely with COL-designated trainer-facilitators and local partners to organize a five-day programme design workshop.
Two (2) Cameroonian facilitators are working with COL-designated external trainers to capacitate fifteen (15) participants, with an equitable number of men and women, including local community stakeholders, local health authorities and experts, radio producers, as well as representatives of educational and other partners’ agencies. Certificates of participation will be issued at the end of the training.
Cameroon Link will ensure the execution of the community learning programme, including at least 30-60 minutes of original weekly radio content, associated to face-to-face learning support for twelve months starting November 2010.
Two other learning technologies, like using video shows for community support groups, mobile telephones to increase learner interactivity and to provide additional information to learners, computers to assess learning achievements, etc will be integrated for execution of the programme.
The actors will develop a case study of the Lebialem programme, including:
An outline of the COL-Cameroon Link community learning programme model, reflecting both the global approach and its specific application in Lebialem;
The process to be followed in Lebialem will include;
Twenty-five plus (25+) high-resolution, high-quality photographs reflecting the programme's participatory and educational nature;
The outputs, outcomes and lessons learnt, including a comparative analysis of the baseline and end-of-project data from phase one of the programme;
General considerations for policymakers in a) health education, especially maternal and child health, and b) community media; and
A roadmap for scaling-up the Community Learning programme model in Cameroon.
Cameroon Link will share the case study and roadmap, widely through electronic media, and in specific fora, like community media or health conferences, and with specific groups concerned with maternal and child health and so on, with a view to additional local and national programme development.
Before the end of the project, Cameroon Link will organise a I-day national seminar, ideally piggybacking on an appropriate event and with other national or international partners, focused on the community learning programme model and the results from Lebialem.
COL will be acknowledged in appropriate correspondence with media and other partners or the local authorities in any promotional materials or documentation as a partner in the development of the programme and as having contributed funds.
Groups and individuals trained or otherwise engaged in the programme development process, will be disaggregated by age, gender, location and livelihood, as well as Learners enrolled or directly engaged by the process.
Gender considerations will include:
Involvement of and access by women and men, boys and girls; and
Gender orientation of content produced;
Partnerships established and maintained;
Feedback from policy and programme decision makers;
Prospective sustainability; and amount, quality, subject and origin of content created, with observations concerning local relevance, degree of community and learner participation, collaboration among groups and specific gender considerations; and
Impact on health and development indicators as identified at the outset of the project.
COL contact, Ian Pringle, who is international programme coordinator and Media Education Specialist, is contributing resources towards the statement of activities; providing inputs and feedback throughout the project with the services of consultants to lead in the programme design and training workshop.
Gender equality is integral to all of COL' s work and requires that both women's and men's views, interests and needs shape its work in learning for development. Cameroon Link agrees that gender considerations shall inform the activities to be undertaken under this agreement, in particular:
Consultation with both women and men and the inclusion of gender considerations, for example, the role of gender in maternal and child health, in planning activities;
Equitable participation of women and men in programme development and training activities;
The inclusion in all workshops of at least one session focused on gender issues, like looking at the role of women and men in how programmes are developed and the gender implications for learning and action processes; and
The inclusion in all learning programmes of specific gender considerations, the role of men in maternal and child health, the roles of both women and men in preventing and treating malaria, diabetes, sickle cell, etc.

Project Strategy
The approach to programme development and content creation includes:
Non-formal education approach to media, like identifying learing ojectives and learning process
Collaborative process involving media – ICT, health development authorities and experts and community networks,
Participatory design and operation of learning programmes,
Story-based approach to learning content alongside information from experts,
Blended and multi-channel approach to learning that combines media content with face-to face interaction and other types of learner support using print, mobile, etc.

Issues to do with Maternal Health include:
HIV/AIDS
Sickle Cell
Nutrition
Smoking
Drinking
Family Planning
Malaria
Prenatal Care
Gender relations
Illiteracy
Poverty
Infrastructure
Information
Safe Delivery
Working conditions
Abortion

Positive Behaviour Focused On Nutrition
1.Eating balanced meal
2.Having enough good food
3.Washing hands
4.Extra food for pregnant women
5.Clean drinking water
6.Nurses giving information on health foods

Negative Behaviour & Consequences
1.Domestic violence (Suicide, miscarriage)
2.Men not involved/excluded (Withdrawal)
3.Forced sex (Trauma, unwanted pregnancy, STIs)
4.Women denied access to money, mobility
5.Women lack decision making power ( Women feeling inferior, do not take responsibility, dependence; community is missing half the inputs and loss out)
6.Men refuse to wear condoms
7.Lack of capacity development
8.Women being submissive
9.Preference for boys (Girls discriminated against)
10.Early pregnancy (maternal death, emotional consequences: young girls not ready to parents)

Workshop Schedule
1.Opening by the Senior Divisional Officer for Lebialem
2.Introduction, background and objectives
3.The basic principles of learning programmes (Group activity)
4.About the Commonwealth of Learning Community Learning with media Programme
5.Identifying the priority health issues (Group work)
6.Designing the programmes (in groups)
a)Identify the targets and problem solvers
b)Developing the message and programme matrices for each health issue
c)Deciding on learning media formats and sources
d)Deciding on the programme teams
e)Designing learner support mechanisms and clarifying role of partners
f)Identifying the interviewees and resources people
g)Making operational plans, including budgets and sustainability
h)Training needs assessment and planning
i)Monitoring and evaluation
7.Identifying some Open and Distance Learning (ODL) courses for healthcare workers that will support the learning programmes.
The COL road map will be executed with the technical support of Lebialem Community Radio, (LCR), Lebialem Association for Twinning of Schools (LATS), Fine Forest Foundation (FFF) Cameroon,and Cameroon Link.