Welcome back to all our dedicated readers!
Because Social Responsibility forms a major function in allowing us as an organisation to express our value of assisting in the transformation and development process; we have recently been very active in this field…
We will be providing an opportunity for MA or MSocSc students to do a Winter Internship with us! So, for all those international Master’s graduates who seek some exposure to the social development industry… Southern Hemisphere is now in the recruitment process. So please send your CV’s in to us as soon as possible to be considered for selection. Please see our “Internship Corner” for more information and contact details!
Holiday-internship Programmes for grade 11 and 12 students are also our way of exposing youth to, not only the development field, but also the working world. We would like to welcome to the organisation our holiday-intern from Puerto Rico, Emilio Nina. Emilio completed Grade 12 last year and has spent his time working at Gernika Goguratuz, Peace and Research Centre in Spain, where his core duties were to assist in the research of the status of Peace and Conflict across the globe as well as liasing with Media organisations on the research done by Gernika Goguratuz. Because Emilio intends to study Political Science this year, he decided to do a holiday internship with us in Cape Town to gain more insight into research and project work. A condition of his contract with Southern Hemisphere, is that he does voluntary work while in South Africa, and he is currently volunteering at the Big Issue, which is a magazine written by professional journalists and sold by street vendors who are trying to overcome the crisis of homelessness. Emilio enjoys the cultural diversity, which South Africa has to offer, and feels that there is plenty to be discovered here. Hope you enjoy your stay with us Emilio!
As part of the Directors’ social responsibility, Daniel Nina is working on a project, called “Mediadores sin Fronteras” (or Mediators without Frontiers) in Puerto Rico. This is now being launched internationally as “Peace without Frontiers” at the Gernika Gogoratuz International Conference on the Moral Imagination of Peace. The aim of this organisation is to intervene internationally as facilitators for building peace through promoting non-violent conflict resolution, democratic forms of citizen participation and creating courses, which assist in the prevention of violence.
Sadly, we would also like to say farewell to Bukiwe Dangazele, our project management learner/intern. After two months of being at Southern Hemisphere in the Cape Town Offices, she was offered a job at the Western Cape Network of Violence Against Women. We hope that she has learnt a lot by being with us and wish her all the best in her future endeavours!
Facilitation…
Department of Sports and Recreation (Puerto Rico) – Southern Hemisphere has been very active with the Department of Sports and Recreation in Puerto Rico. Since last year Daniel Nina has been involved in various activities including implementing a National Strategy for Conflict Resolution, conducting an evaluation of this conflict resolution programme and now facilitating the process of a conflict resolution programme for the Municipal Sports Leaders and the Department’s personnel. The purpose of the programme is to involve the community in the politics of the department so they can centre their focus on the benefits that can be provided to the community.
Big Idea – The Big Idea is a series of workshops and conferences whose purpose is to stimulate entrepreneurial activity in South Africa by providing existing or potential entrepreneurs with practical and useful knowledge and resources to inspire innovation in South Africa. Southern Hemisphere has been afforded the opportunity to be a part of this process through conducting Strategic Planning, Project Planning and building a system for the Monitoring and Evaluation of this project launched by the Mark Shuttleworth Investment Company.
Youth Employment Skills Project (Salesians Projects Office) – Southern Hemisphere is currently closing the gap for the Monitoring and Evaluation System, which was set up for the YES project last year. At this point all tools used are being integrated into a system, which ensures that the information gathered is passed effectively and efficiently through the organisation. This allows the funder (USAID) to receive relevant and valuable information while at the same time always keeping the organisation focused on the status of achieving their objectives.
Training……
GOLD (Generation Of Leaders Discovered) – After designing the tools for the Monitoring and Evaluation system for this Peer Education Programme (initiated by the Department of Education), Nana and Dena successfully conducted a 5-day training workshop in Project Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation in order to build the capacity of the team. Some of the feedback from the participants in the workshop included comments such as:
“ ... I really enjoyed the practicality and interactiveness that is part of your workshop”
“I must say your facilitation is excellent keep up the good work”
“Its very important for people at all levels to do this course. I would encourage them to do it with their teams “
“The material was presented in a very clear, logical, practical manner. Well done Nana and Dena”
“Skills very transformable to real world. This course was one of the most useful ever attended and given to many.”
Projects……
Intetho (City of Cape Town) – With the assistance of Bukiwe Dangazele, Dena Lomofsky and Nana Davies are currently completing their report on the first phase of the Stakeholder Communications Framework for the City of Cape Town. In this phase they conducted a situational analysis of the stakeholder relations, which included successful and problem areas of engagement with the City of Cape Town identified by community stakeholders, and also models suggested by NGO’s and Southern Hemisphere for the future communication framework.
Integrated Provincial Support Programme (Department of Public Services) – The Service Delivery Review is a journal intended for public service managers to support their work in the public service. The journal features current issues through the use of articles, case studies and profiles to highlight best practices, and serves to foster knowledge exchange and debate between public officials on public service delivery issues. The review of the readership of this journal was awarded to Southern Hemisphere, where an evaluation will be conducted on the effectiveness and impact that the journal has had. This information will then be used to inform the future direction of the publication.
UNICEF & SSRC- Southern Hemisphere Consultants has begun the evaluation of the Data Collection Project on the Impact of armed conflict on children that has been funded by ECHO, and carried out by UNICEF and SSRC as project partners. The data collection took place in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Colombia and Sri Lanka. Southern Hemisphere is carrying out the evaluation in the DRC and Angola, while INTRAC (NGO) and the Refugee Studies Centre of Oxford University, will be conducting the evaluation for the other two countries. A combined report will be produced and presented in New York in June. We have completed the first investigative phase; conducting exploratory interviews with a range of stakeholders in order to develop the evaluation protocol together with Jason Hart and Jo Boyden of INTRAC and RSC. The fieldwork is currently underway in the DRC (by Nana Davies) and the fieldwork will begin in Angola (by Dena Lomofsky) on the 10 May. The final report is due on the 15 June 2005.
The evaluation objectives are:
1. To evaluate the suitability of the research tools to data collection in complex situations and with conflict-affected children;
2. To assess the progress in capacity strengthening for local organisations achieved during the project time frame, and by extension the relevance and effectiveness of capacity building strategies used;
3. To assess the benefits and drawbacks of the project management structure and to make recommendations on future cooperation of this type.
Associates Update...
Gail Smith, who first joined Southern Hemisphere as an intern and then proceeded to become a Junior Consultant and now an Associate, is completing her final term of the MA in Global Political Economy at Sussex University. She intends to pursue a dissertation topic, which centres on the competitive strategies of the South African state in the global economy, in relation to both the SADC and the EU. In addition, she continues her secretary-ship of the African Forum postgraduate student society, and attending the frequent IDS seminars to remain on top of critical development debates shaping worldwide policy and practice.
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