Project Notes

The author describes two income-generation weaving projects, in Thailand and in Indonesia, both of which have had involvement with Oxfam Trading. She attributes the success of the former to sound marketing, confirming demand for reasonably priced quality products. The Indonesian project has failed primarily due to a lack of investigation of potential commercial markets.

The author describes the work of PIRATTES (Projet Intégré´de Recherches sur l'Améioration des Techniques Traditionelles d'Extraction de Sel), a project jointly directed by the Co-operative of Salt Producers in Guande (France), the Scientific And Technological Centre (Benin), and the French Volunteer Association (AFVP). The project, linking communities involved in salt-production in the North and the South, introduced new processes to Benin to avoid the major ecological and workers' health problems caused by traditional processes. Two years into the project, and it has expanded.

In 1989 Oxfam approached the town council of N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, Africa, and set up a joint project to encourage community participation in improving sanitary conditions in Ambassatna. The author highlights the main problems and lessons to be learned from the project, three years into it, including issues around neglecting the role of women and their involvement in local committee structures.

Although not part of the national curriculum until 2004, HIV/AIDS education has been taught for some time in Ugandan secondary schools through a variety of extracurricular means, including the media, youth groups, drama, music, and Parent Teacher Associations. This paper identifies and evaluates the integration of HIV/AIDS information into the national curriculum in Ugandan secondary schools between 2002 and 2004, based on the viewpoints of administrators, teachers, and students from 76 schools.

Academic urban development training programs tend to either train in town planning, where the focus is on the production of plans, or in urban studies, where the focus is on the development of urban areas; there is a need, the author argues, for training that produces `working planners' with knowledge of both. He advocates `for-the-job training', in which trainees use the real problems they face in their working environment as study material, allowing trainees to produce useful outputs while being trained, and ensuring the relevance of training.

The paper argues that education should be a crucial part of relief operations which respond to emergencies in developing countries. In practice, however, educational needs in emergencies have been neglected in competition with the demand for more conventional relief. An example from southern Sudan demonstrates how the need for education can be addressed in an emergency. Indigenous initiatives for the re-establishment and improvement of educational provision have been supported by a group of agencies working as part of the emergency operation.

A survey in the Rakai District in 1989 put the number of orphans at 25,000; by 1991 a population census counted 44,000, a growth the author attributes to the AIDS pandemic. The Child Social Care Project (CSCP) in Rakai works with widows and orphans to address their property rights, seeking to reduce the vulnerability of women and children under both customary and statutory law. The author discusses the work of the Project, and advocates continued processes of education and sensitisation to change attitudes, accompanied by legal reform.

Oxfam in Ethiopia has long been concerned that community-based development programmes should reflect local felt needs and priorities. Particularly where there has been a long history of engagement in a given area, a diagnostic survey has proved to be a valuable and flexible self-monitoring tool to re-assess development objectives with community groups. A diagnostic survey uses rapid rural appraisal techniques in a series of dialogues and interactions.

The Nilgiris Adivasi Welfare Association (NAWA) was founded in 1958, in Tamil Nadu, India, to work for the integrated welfare of the six Nilgiri tribes, all displaced and dispersed by the invasion of their forest homelands by incoming non-tribal peoples. The paper describes the original founding of the Paniya Rehabilitation Farm colony for 25 families who were bought out of bonded labour by the founder.

The paper discusses the Restaurant Programme started for women in 1991 by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC). A restaurant may be opened under individual ownership with a maximum loan of Taka 6500, after which a current account for the individual is opened with BRAC. This money is withdrawn in installments according to the entrepreneur's needs and repayment is collected in daily or weekly installments, with an interest rate of 20%. Like most rural restaurants, these enterprises sell tea, snacks, and meals.