On Tuesday, Pam alerted the Dadamac UK and Nigeria Teams (plus a few of her contacts in Higher Education) that:
"The UK Government's Department for International Development (DfID) is investing up to £3 million a year in a new Development Partnerships in Higher Education programme (DelPHE), which will run for a seven year period, from June 2006 to March 2013. The programme will provide funding to support partnerships between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) working on collaborative activity linked to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)."
Several emails followed; and the next day, at the weekly UK-Nigeria Dadamac meeting, this initiative was top on the agenda.
John was able to inform the UK that Fantsuam Foundation has links with a College of Nursing and a College of Health Technology. Saying that both, or either of them, would be suitable partners in a collaborative proposal. During this meeting, and with reference to the exchange of emails, there was agreement that tackling Sickle Cell Disease in Nigeria would be the most appropriate Fantsuam initiative to focus our attention on.
Over the next 24hrs there was a flurry of activity here in the UK and in Nigeria. The result being an email trail of 34+ and Cicely, a VSO at Fantsuam, contacting the British Council office in Abuja! Unfortunately, it appears that the deadline for round 5 submissions in Nigeria has just passed. However we are now looking forward to organising a proposal for round 6.
Additional feedback from the online UK-Nigeria meeting:
- Permaculture: Fantsuam are raising a nursery of 2000 jathropha plants which will then be transplanted when the rains begin.
- Agreement that a UK-Nigeria online group be set up to learn about Open source software (a Moodle office is currently being established)
- Agreement that a UK-Nigeria Social Media group be set up to explore the use of Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and Nings etc. (A Ning has now been set up)