In rural Nigeria when you need new furniture you don't go online or pop 
round to the nearest Ikea for a flat-pack. You employ a local carpenter to buy some wood and make the furniture that you need.
The Knowledge Resource Centre was in need of furniture it could call its own, and this was mentioned at a recent UK-Nigeria team meeting.
Although Dadamac Foundation is a tiny charity, which does not have anyone to raise new funds at the moment, it was able to send £100 to help. When the money arrived the local carpenter was able to set to work, and already he has made two large new tables and installed them in the Knowledge Resource Centre.
These photos were taken by Yakubu, one of the staff members who has just finished presenting the first C4C (Cameras for Communication) course. We are hoping that these photos mark the start of a virtuous circle of communicaton. The hope is that:
- C4C participants and staff will start to send photos for the blog
- Photos will tell the story of what is happening on the various projects that the Dadamac and Fantsuam teams are connected with.
- The photo stories from rural Nigeria will bring the people, places and projects to life
- Gradually more people who are not in rural Nigeria will come to the Dadamac.net website to follow the stories
- As people follow the stories some will want to become actively involved in our work (as learners, volunteers, donors, partners, or clients).
- Their involvement will bring benefits to the people and projects generating the photos
- As the people who send the photos see the benefits of communicating through the blog they will send more photos
- The Dadamac community will grow in the UK and online and will grow closer to the people, places and projects Nigeria.
- There will be practial benefits in terms of collaboration, development, and knowledge.
- More photos, more projects, more involvement. more knowledge, more resources - and so on and on, in the virtuous circle.
At Dadamac we value information, and we are working to develop systems that will enable good and timely information to flow back and forth between UK and rural Nigeria. We also believe in team work and skill building. Building a skills base for taking and sending photos is one part of our approach to effective information sharing.