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Submitted by Pamela on 22 June 2013 - 1:41am

It's only a few days until the Dadamac Foundation AGM, so I'm doing my final draft of the secretary's report. I'm glad that we've been able to respond to local needs and I'm delighted by the support we've been able to deliver, but there's more to it than that. Building on our success I have a remarkable success story to write for this year's AGM, which is a credit to our tiny core team and wider network, but I don't want my report to simply be a record of our past success, I want to place it in a wider...

Sheep and Goats - and pigs too

Submitted by Frances on 19 June 2013 - 3:14pm

Sheep and goats DFID in the UK is supporting smallholders who rear sheep and goats, to improve their herd size and health. This support is being channeled through the Kaduna State Commercial Agriculture Development Association and from there to the local Jema’a Commercial Agriculture Development Association (JECADA) of which Fantsuam Foundation is a member. JECADA’s members include 25 women sheep and goat farmers who will be accessing the DFID support. This comes as a package of training and access to inputs such as feeds, veterinary care, improved stock and markets. And pigs too! This programme complements Fantsuam's support for smallholders...

First Thursday - sharing the June archive

Submitted by Pamela on 13 June 2013 - 10:06pm

First Thursday is an online meeting that I hold once a month.I go online for an hour and some of my geograhically scattered friends and contacts drop by for a chat, and have the opportunity to meet each other - more about how "First Thursday" works It is a great opportunity to exchange information and knowledge from very different cultural perspectives (this month we have people from Nigeria, USA and UK). We have bandwidth constratints so we don't talk, we type. This means there is a typed archive by the end of the chat. I'm experimenting with ways of picking...

Family Planning at Fantsuam Foundation

Submitted by Frances on 13 June 2013 - 6:59pm

USAID funds training Staff from the clinic at Fantsuam took part in training funded by USAID to provide family planning advice in their community. Training is provided in three methods of family planning – intra-uterine devices (IUDs), implants in the arm and the contraceptive pill. Encouraging response Following the staff training, Fantsuam was able to give the first thirty seven women free treatment and for subsequent patients, the advice and treatment is given at an affordable price. Although the staff training only took place at the end of May, forty one women have already attended the clinic and other women...

First Thursday - sharing the May archive

Submitted by Pamela on 6 June 2013 - 2:33pm

"First Thursdays" are informal online meetings. This blog post is an experiment in sharing some of our discussions more widely. Introductions As people arrive we introduce outselves. These are the May introductions, in the order that people wrote them: Pamela McLean - UK using laptop at home. In the "Dadamac" collaboration I'm the "mac" part of the name Dadamac. I'm exploring how the Internet can help us to collaborate and learn - especially learning-by-doing and learning-from-each-other http://dadamac.net/ Jeff LaHay - Minneapolis, MN USA using desktop and high speed DSL from work. My colleague Fran and I train people to assemble...

Social Protection in Northern Nigeria

Submitted by Frances on 31 May 2013 - 9:25pm

Children and vulnerable older women John Dada has give us this information about Fantsuam’s child protection service, “The Fantsuam Foundation Social Protection service was created in response to needs identified in the communities around Kafanchan. Two groups of vulnerable people - children and older women – were those most likely to be attacked because of accusations of witchcraft. The trauma and distress caused for these people, the disregard of their basic human rights and disrespect for their humanity were issues that led us to create a social protection unit. As a result of our experience we developed the first in-house...

#LandscapeOfChange Pioneers - Michel Bauwens, Alastair Parvin and Yaacov Hecht

Submitted by Pamela on 24 May 2013 - 1:35pm

I see the people who are exploring practical ideas about our present and future as people who are living the lives of explorers in the Landscape of Change. I mean that they are explorers and trailblazers in the areas of life which are uncertain and changing. The areas of uncertainly are increasinlgy becoming a reality in the lives of many people, who would never have chosen to explore them. The explorers are going abead of the crowd, and the directions that they take become like beaten tracks across the Landscape of Change. When they explain about what they are doing...

Kazanka Comfort Of Fantsuam Foundation - speaking tour in Canada

Submitted by Pamela on 22 May 2013 - 9:04pm

John Dada sent news today about Kazanka Comfort, who was for many years the general secretary of Fantsuam Foundation's micro-finance programme and involved in all other programmes. He wrote: VSO/CUSO have sponsored Comfort to a Women leaders course in Canada and this has been followed by a week of speaking tour Tour details The event series, called Women Leaders in the Developing World , starts in Ottawa on May 21. These details are from the website: Women: The Face of Potential in the Developing World A panel presentation featuring women leaders from Cameroon, Guyana, Nigeria, Jamaica and Ethiopia. Come hear...

Fighting a deadly fungus

Submitted by Pamela on 20 May 2013 - 5:49pm

At our Dadamac UK-Nigeria meeting on May 14th John Dada mentioned that he had to rush out to the primary school just near Fantsuam Foundation to give an urgent message on maize planting this season. John explained An ongoing problem with maize growing in Nigeria is its contamination with the fungus that produces aflatoxins... FF is raising awareness on this health issue and will be providing training to farmers on preventive measures to ensure health of their maize crops.. And as you know everybody in rural Nigeria is a farmer, so we went to book an appointment so that on...

Working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Aflatoxin contamination

Submitted by Frances on 19 May 2013 - 9:50pm

Aflatoxin contamination In a 'previous life', John Dada who is the Director of Fantsuam Foundation in rural Nigeria, used to be a lecturer in microbiology. His PhD looked into aflatoxin contamination of grains like maize and groundnuts. Such contamination is very significant in societies where grains are stored for some time until they are needed. Poor storage conditions can contribute to the aflatoxin contamination. Working in partnership John wrote that Fantsuam Foundation is teaming up with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan (IITA) and the National Agricultural Extension Research Service of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria to raise awareness of...

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