MALAWI COUNCIL FOR THE HANDICAPPED

-By Development Network-

WHAT IS MACOHA?

Macoha is a statutory corporation that was established to empower people with disabilities to enable their participation and integration in social-economic activities both in their communities and the country

 

Mission

MACOHA's mission is to implement government policies by providing rehabilitation programs and services and promoting public interest towards the empowerment of people with disabilities in order to achieve an inclusive society. Council's interventions are in the areas of education, health, livelihoods and social inclusion.

 

WHAT DOES MACOHA DO?

Macoha empowers people with disabilities through its rehabilitation programs to be independent and also to show their abilities. It strives for disability mainstreaming which places emphasis on employment of persons with disabilities in all sectors; the public and private sector.

 

MACOHA reaches out to people with disabilities through rehabilitation programs some of which are:
1. Community Based Rehabilitation programs (CBR)
2. Vocational training; Kamuzu Vocational rehabilitation and training centre (KVRTC)
and Lilongwe Vocational Training Centre (LVTC)
3. Production Units (Bangwe factory)
4. Settlement Schemes for the visually impared (Chinguluwe-Salima, Rivi-Rivi-Balaka and Ndakwera-Chikhwawa

Facebook Link:       https://www.facebook.com/malawicouncilforthehandicapped?fref=ts

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Hivare Bazar-A model for other villages

-By Development Network-

Geography Situated in the Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra and ensconced in the rain shadow area of the Sahyadri Range, the average annual rainfall in the district is 579 mm, though this is both erratic and uneven [Government of Maharashtra 1991]. Out of the total geographical area of the village which is 976.84 hectares, 795.23 hectares is cultivable. Demography The population of Hiware Bazar in 2001 was 1,150. The population is relatively homogeneous in terms of caste, an important factor in facilitating collective action. As in other regions of western Maharashtra, Marathas constitute the dominant caste (185 out of the 205 households). Economy Hiware Bazar is now reaping economic harvests of water conservation. Grass production has gone up from 100 metric tonnes in 2000 to 1000 metric tonnes in 2004. This has resulted in increased milk production from mere 150 litres per day during mid-1990s to 2200 litres per day now. The number of wells has increased from 97 to 217. The land under irrigation has lone up from 120 ha in 1999 to 260 ha in 2006. Each village resident earns almost double of most of the country's rural population. In the last 15 years the average income has gone up by 20 times. According to recent press coverage, there are 54 millionaires in this village. Resources Natural resources in this rain shadow area are scarce apart from the shrubbery and a few trees which are native to this area. (Need more info on flaura, fauna and other resources)

3S' – Self – sustainability, Self – governance and Self – reliance. Hiware Bazar, after successfully implementing the Adarsh Gram Yojana, has become a model for other villages in terms of sustainable development, optimum use of natural resources and community participation. This accomplishment of this impossible feat has earned it the title of an 'ideal village'. Hiware Bazar has become a force to reckon with both nationally and internationally, a fact that is attested by the visit of both national and international dignitaries and the numerous awards/hounours presented to it/ bestowed/conferred upon it.

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Critical Factors on Skype Interview during hiring

-By Development Network- Pre-preparedness with different people's accent with the perfect setting of relevant instrument used to have skype interview

If the interviewee aware about who is going to interview him/her from the employer site [Interviewer], the interviewee should check in the employers' website or youtube as is there any video with the voice of the interviewer is available for pre-preparation. It will greatly help to familiar with the accent of the Interviewer. Further the instrumental setup used for skype will be perfectly alright. Also the broadband speed of the Internet connection & speed of the instrument should be fairly high enough for loading the video in Skype. Else you will be shocked at how "unprepared" you come across & It is a one time opportunity, you may lose it!

"Prepare a digital portfolio that you can link to during the interview or show the interviewer your screen, which has a sample of your work," says social media expert Marian Schembari

Looking for more ways to impress? Here's how to handle a Skype or video interview:

1. Look at the camera, not the screen
It can be confusing, but when you're looking at your monitor it actually makes the interviewer feel as if you're looking away. Instead, look directly at the video camera you're using for your interview. And although you're not making eye contact in the traditional sense, this is the way that the interviewer perceives that you're looking straight ahead.

2. Be aware of interruptions
Since you're used to living in the house, it can be easy to forget to turn off a phone or not warn family members to give you some privacy, Schembari says. Have a plan for whatever distractions you have in your house, including children and dogs. "Too many people don't take [Skype interviews] as seriously as in-person interviews, but you need to be just as professional here," she says.

3. Practice in front of a mirror
During the interview, you can see yourself in the video camera, which can be startling if you've never seen yourself speak. "It's important to get familiar with your own facial expressions when you talk," says Colleen Aylward, chief executive of InterviewStudio Inc., a company that offers video interview capabilities. "It also gets rid of some of the camera shyness."

4. Mind the background
Your surroundings can say a lot about how you've prepared for the interview, so it's important to put your best foot forward. "Shoot your video against a blank wall or a warm one-color background," Aylward suggests. "Clear off your desk, or have only awards and certificates in the background."

5. Avoid patterned clothing
Wear a shirt that's business casual and complimentary to your skin tone. Avoid patterns that come across as too loud on screen, such as anything floral or bright stripes. Clothing can distract the interviewer from the information conveyed during the conversation, so it's important to plan your outfit carefully.

6. Conduct a mock interview
Being comfortable with the technology prevents the added stress from a tech malfunction. Find a person you trust and use Skype or other video conferencing software to conduct a mock interview. You're bound to make mistakes, so it's best to practice with someone who can provide honest feedback.

7. Test audio and video
Just because your laptop has a built-in video camera and microphone doesn't mean the quality is up to par. Instead, test out the video and audio capabilities on your computer and decide whether you need to buy a headset with a microphone or an attachable video camera. Before the interview, some companies may send their own video devices to applicants.

8. Add extra enthusiasm
Any news announcer will tell that your reactions translate differently when on-screen, so it's important to compensate with extra enthusiasm and concise answers. Additionally, speak succinctly and remember that speed is important, Aylward says. "Practice speaking more quickly than you normally do," she says.

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Bill Gates: My Plan to Fix The World's Biggest Problems

-By Development Network-

We can learn a lot about improving the 21st-century world from an icon of the industrial era: the steam engine.

Harnessing steam power required many innovations, as William Rosen chronicles in the book "The Most Powerful Idea in the World." Among the most important were a new way to measure the energy output of engines and a micrometer dubbed the "Lord Chancellor" that could gauge tiny distances.

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European Pressphoto Agency

Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.

Such measuring tools, Mr. Rosen writes, allowed inventors to see if their incremental design changes led to the improvements—such as higher power and less coal consumption—needed to build better engines. There's a larger lesson here: Without feedback from precise measurement, Mr. Rosen writes, invention is "doomed to be rare and erratic." With it, invention becomes "commonplace."

In the past year, I have been struck by how important measurement is to improving the human condition. You can achieve incredible progress if you set a clear goal and find a measure that will drive progress toward that goal—in a feedback loop similar to the one Mr. Rosen describes.

This may seem basic, but it is amazing how often it is not done and how hard it is to get right. Historically, foreign aid has been measured in terms of the total amount of money invested—and during the Cold War, by whether a country stayed on our side—but not by how well it performed in actually helping people. Closer to home, despite innovation in measuring teacher performance world-wide, more than 90% of educators in the U.S. still get zero feedback on how to improve.

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An innovation—whether it's a new vaccine or an improved seed—can't have an impact unless it reaches the people who will benefit from it. We need innovations in measurement to find new, effective ways to deliver those tools and services to the clinics, family farms and classrooms that need them.

I've found many examples of how measurement is making a difference over the past year—from a school in Colorado to a health post in rural Ethiopia. Our foundation is supporting these efforts. But we and others need to do more. As budgets tighten for governments and foundations world-wide, we all need to take the lesson of the steam engine to heart and adapt it to solving the world's biggest problems.

One of the greatest successes in terms of using measurement to drive global change has been an agreement signed in 2000 by the United Nations. The Millennium Development Goals, supported by 189 nations, set 2015 as a deadline for making specific percentage improvements across a set of crucial areas—such as health, education and basic income. Many people assumed the pact would be filed away and forgotten like so many U.N. and government pronouncements. The decades before had brought many well-meaning declarations to combat problems from nutrition to human rights, but most lacked a road map for measuring progress. However, the Millennium goals were backed by a broad consensus, were clear and concrete, and brought focus to the highest priorities.

The Saturday Essay

• The Guerrilla Myth (1/19/2013)
• In Defense of the CEO (1/12/13)
• Have We Lost the War on Drugs? (1/05/13)
• The Future of Medicine Is Now (12/29/12)
• The End of the Map (12/22/12)
• Who Can Still Afford State U? (12/15/12)
• They Know What You're Shopping For(12/8/12)

When Ethiopia signed on to the Millennium goals in 2000, the country put hard numbers to its ambition to bring primary health care to all of its citizens. The concrete goal of reducing child mortality by two-thirds created a clear target by which to measure success or failure. Ethiopia's commitment attracted a surge of donor money toward improving the country's primary health-care services.

With help from the Indian state of Kerala, which had built a successful network of community health-care posts, Ethiopia launched its own program in 2004 and today has more than 15,000 health posts staffed by 34,000 workers. (This is one of the greatest benefits of measurement—the ability it gives government leaders to make comparisons across countries and then learn from the best.)

Last March, I visited the Germana Gale Health Post in the Dalocha region of Ethiopia, where I saw charts of immunizations, malaria cases and other data plastered to its walls. This information goes into a system—part paper-based and part computerized—that helps government officials see where things are working and to take action in places where they aren't. In recent years, data from the field have helped the government respond more quickly to outbreaks of malaria and measles. Perhaps even more important, the government previously didn't have any official record of a child's birth or death in rural Ethiopia. It now tracks those metrics closely.

The health workers provide most services at the posts, though they also visit the homes of pregnant women and sick people. They ensure that each home has access to a bed net to protect the family from malaria, a pit toilet, first-aid training and other basic health and safety practices. All these interventions are quite simple, yet they've dramatically improved the lives of people in this country.

Consider the story of one young mother in Dalocha. Sebsebila Nassir was born in 1990, when about 20% of all children in Ethiopia did not survive to see their fifth birthdays. Two of Sebsebila's six siblings died as infants. But when a health post opened its doors in Dalocha, life started to change. Last year when Sebsebila became pregnant, she received regular checkups. On Nov. 28, Sebsebila traveled to a health center where a midwife was at her bedside during her seven-hour labor. Shortly after her daughter was born, a health worker gave the baby vaccines against polio and tuberculosis.

According to Ethiopian custom, parents wait to name a baby because children often die in the first weeks of life. When Sebsebila's first daughter was born three years ago, she followed tradition and waited a month to bestow a name. This time, with more confidence in her new baby's chances of survival, Sebsebila put "Amira"—"princess" in Arabic—in the blank at the top of her daughter's immunization card on the day she was born. Sebsebila isn't alone: Many parents in Ethiopia now have the confidence to do the same.

From Review

• Acrylic Nails on the Rifle Range
• Neanderthals: Why Us and Not Them?
• The Dance of Fire and Ice

Ethiopia has lowered child mortality more than 60% since 1990, putting the country on track to achieve the Millennium goal of lowering child mortality two-thirds by 2015, compared with 1990. Though the world won't quite meet the goal, we've still made great progress: The number of children under 5 years old who die world-wide fell to 6.9 million in 2011, down from 12 million in 1990 (despite a growing global population).

Another story of success driven by better measurement is polio. Starting in 1988, global health organizations (along with many countries) established a goal of eradicating polio, which focused political will and opened purse strings to pay for large-scale immunization campaigns. By 2000, the virus had nearly been wiped out; there are now fewer than 1,000 cases world-wide.

But getting rid of the very last cases is the hardest part. In order to stop the spread of infections, health workers have to vaccinate nearly all children under the age of 5 multiple times a year in polio-affected countries. There are now just three countries that have not eliminated polio: Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. I visited northern Nigeria four years ago to try to understand why eradication is so difficult there. I saw that routine public health services were failing: Fewer than half the kids were getting vaccines regularly. One huge problem was that many small settlements in the region were missing from vaccinators' hand-drawn maps and lists documenting the locations of villages and numbers of children.

To fix this, the polio workers walked through all high-risk areas in the northern part of the country, which enabled them to add 3,000 previously overlooked communities to the immunization campaigns. The program is also using high-resolution satellite images to create even more detailed maps. As a result, managers can now allocate vaccinators efficiently.

What's more, the program is piloting the use of phones equipped with a GPS application for the vaccinators. Tracks are downloaded from the phone at the end of the day so managers can see the route the vaccinators followed and compare it to the route they were assigned. This helps ensure that areas that were missed can be revisited.

I believe these kinds of measurement systems will help us to finish the job of polio eradication within the next six years. And those systems can be used to help expand routine vaccination and other health activities, which means the legacy of polio eradication will live beyond the disease itself.

Another place where measurement is starting to lead to vast improvements is in education.

In October, Melinda and I sat among two dozen 12th-graders at Eagle Valley High School near Vail, Colo. Mary Ann Stavney, a language-arts teacher, was leading a lesson on how to write narrative nonfiction pieces. She engaged her students, walking among them and eliciting great participation. We could see why Mary Ann is a master teacher, a distinction given to the school's best teachers and an important component of a teacher-evaluation system in Eagle County.

Ms. Stavney's work as a master teacher is informed by a three-year project our foundation funded to better understand how to build an evaluation and feedback system for educators. Drawing input from 3,000 classroom teachers, the project highlighted several measures that schools should use to assess teacher performance, including test data, student surveys and assessments by trained evaluators. Over the course of a school year, each of Eagle County's 470 teachers is evaluated three times and is observed in class at least nine times by master teachers, their principal and peers called mentor teachers.

The Eagle County evaluations are used to give a teacher not only a score but also specific feedback on areas to improve and ways to build on their strengths. In addition to one-on-one coaching, mentors and masters lead weekly group meetings in which teachers collaborate to spread their skills. Teachers are eligible for annual salary increases and bonuses based on the classroom observations and student achievement.

The program faces challenges from tightening budgets, but Eagle County so far has been able to keep its evaluation and support system intact—likely one reason why student test scores have improved in Eagle County over the past five years.

I think the most critical change we can make in U.S. K–12 education, with America lagging countries in Asia and Northern Europe when it comes to turning out top students, is to create teacher-feedback systems that are properly funded, high quality and trusted by teachers.

And there are plenty of other areas where our ability to measure can improve people's lives in powerful ways—areas where we are falling short, unnecessarily.

In poor countries, we still need better ways to measure the effectiveness of the many government workers providing health services. They are the crucial link bringing tools such as vaccines and education to the people who need them most. How well trained are they? Are they showing up to work? How can measurement enable them to perform their jobs better?

In the U.S., we should be measuring the value being added by colleges. Currently, college rankings are focused on inputs—the scores and quality of students entering college—and on judgments and prejudices about a school's "reputation." Students would be better served by measures of which colleges were best preparing their graduates for the job market. They then could know where they would get the most for their tuition money.

In agriculture, creating a global productivity target would help countries focus on a key but neglected area: the efficiency and output of hundreds of millions of small farmers who live in poverty. It would go a long way toward reducing poverty if we had public scorecards showing how developing-country governments, donors and others are helping those farmers.

And if I could wave a wand, I'd love to have a way to measure how exposure to risks like disease, infection, malnutrition and problem pregnancies impact children's potential—their ability to learn and contribute to society. Measuring that could help us quantify the broader impact of those risks and help us tackle them.

The lives of the poorest have improved more rapidly in the past 15 years than ever before. And I am optimistic that we will do even better in the next 15 years. The process I have described—setting clear goals, choosing an approach, measuring results, and then using those measurements to continually refine our approach—helps us to deliver tools and services to everybody who will benefit, be they students in the U.S. or mothers in Africa. Following the path of the steam engine long ago, thanks to measurement, progress isn't "doomed to be rare and erratic." We can, in fact, make it commonplace.

—Mr. Gates is the co-chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the co-founder of Microsoft. 
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Top Trends for the Social Sector 2013

-By Development Network-

As we launch into 2013, Pro Bono Australia founder, Karen Mahlab, says that if there is any sector undergoing huge transformation it's the social sector. After a busy year of meeting and talking with a number of sector leaders, here she offers her insights into the trends that will define the social sector in the coming 12 months.

1. The convergence of "for profit" and "for good"

The shape of what some have called internationally the "social economy" continues to emerge in Australia in 2013. The blending of "for good" and "for profit" motives to establish organisations that are either social businesses, social enterprises, or for profit businesses engaging in corporate community investment, will continue to grow.

So will the ways private monies are channeled into organisations doing social good.

Ten years down the track, in our post Global Financial Crisis and resource challenged world, we will see the disappearance of terms such as social entrepreneur, Social Enterprise, Impact Investment - as consideration of social outcomes will become a part of doing business and assumed to do no harm. Capitalism and the business sector will be instrumental in effecting this move.

Naturally before then there will be years of discussion about what this all means in terms of financial models, financial instruments, investment asset classes, taxation, management and measurement of outcomes. If all of this sounds a bit like gobbldy gook well hold onto your hat because it's just going to increase in complexity and diversity until it all becomes simpler again. These discussion will be loud and varied over 2013.

Watch out for more buzzwords: Collective Impact, Impact Assessment, Impact Investment, Shared Value, Wellbeing, Open data, crowd - everything and 2.0-everything.

2. Technology

Applications for new ways of connecting time, talent and treasure to the social sector will continue to emerge.

We are seeing a new initiative almost every week as entrepreneurial folk, both from within the existing sector and outside the sector, introduce their networks and expertise to addressing new ways to connect and resource the social sector.

New Initiatives like Budge (winner of Anthill Cool Company Award in the Social Capital section) and GiveEasy, which enables donations to disaster relief straight from mobile phones (winner The Australian Innovation Award), are just two such examples. Traditional ways of fundraising will be joined and/ or turned on their heads as these new initiatives are offered into Not for Profit organisations.

Not for Profits will need to be able to assess the fundraising opportunities for themselves and ensure they guard their precious donor database and/ or share it with those they trust to mutual benefit.

Not for Profits will increasingly use new technologies (eg Customer Relationship Management systems and cloud applications) to decrease their internal operating costs and change the way they deliver services to their clients and other "stakeholders" ie their Board, donor base, the public.

The establishment of these initiatives is being recognised in a raft of new innovation awards with categories never seen before such as Anthills Social Capitalist Award.

In the more traditional area of fundraising, the development of bequesting strategies by more and more Not for Profits reflects the demographics of Ageing in Australia.

3. What the sector calls itself will continue to evolve as the sector evolves

Influenced by the convergence of for good and for profit agendas the name of "the sector" will continue to morph and continue to be in flux.

Are we the social economy sector, the community sector, the social sector, the third sector, the Not for Profit sector, the non-profit sector, the "for purpose" sector?

4. Philanthropy

Philanthropy is becoming more democratised and multi channeled as technology solutions offer new ways to engage with charities.

2013 will see more of a general push to get high net worth individuals and families to start to make significant donations and to change the culture of giving in Australia. We are way behind other developed countries in this area despite topping the world in the recent Charities Aid Foundation Global research where more Australians had, on average, donated money, volunteered time or helped a stranger.

The profile of philanthropic giving will be an interesting space to watch as there is a new regime at Australia's peak philanthropic body, Philanthropy Australia, which has been seen in the past as being very traditional.

Philanthropic organisations, who in the past may have been very conservative in their funds management, will be looking closely at how they invest their corpus funds on the back of the growing interest in investing for financial and social outcomes (i.e. impact investing). This has the potential to leverage the effect their philanthropic funds have even further.

5. Social Enterprise

Social Enterprise will continue to thrive. What will become interesting - and problematic - is how many of these small ventures will survive past the initial externally funded (usually grants) phases. A parallel is with the survival rate of small business generally. Accreditation of Social Enterprises will become more formal as organisations such as B Corp make their way into Australia.

Government will be tracking closely how the social enterprise space affects their long term taxation revenue base.

6. Impact Investing

Early 2013 will see the release of a number of reports into how Impact Investing can be best implemented in Australia and what needs to happen to facilitate the best environment for it and what it should "look" like. These scoping initiatives are being taken by a variety of people in different organisations in Australia - foremost amongst them are DEEWR, the Centre for Social Impact, Foresters, SEDIF and Social Ventures Australia .

Impact Investment offers private investors new assets classes eg Social Impact Bonds that fund projects and organisations which enable an investor to reap financial rewards at the same time as reaping positive social outcomes for the community. JP Morgan and the Global Impact Investing Network's (GIIN) recent global research estimates Impact Investing to account for 9 billion worldwide in 2013 up from 8 billion in 2012.

The challenge for the Australian social sector will be as much about how to develop investment-ready projects with measurable and meaningful outcomes, as to how to attract financial investors. In the same way as there has been a matching issue between willing volunteers and NFP organisations needing skills i.e. where intermediary organisations are needed - so too is there an emerging need for new intermediary organisations to facilitate Impact Investment in Australia. 2013 will see more of these arising.

7. Loops: person to person, person to group, person to planet, people to planet

This may be a little cosmic for some, but awareness of the interconnectivity between people and between people and planet will continue to grow. Our awareness of the impact, seen and unseen, we have on each other and on our environment will take another step.

Tools - sites, methods for reusing, sharing and disposing of whatever it may be: food, clothing, household goods, usable space will continue to pop up everywhere - and some of this will benefit Not for Profit organisations and those they serve and others will just be good for the community generally. See, for example, Gumtree, car-share, or buynothingnew.com.au.

8. Spin off applications of data arising from the ACNC

The ACNC will hit its stride as it's now fully operational and there will be a range of innovations that will come out of the data that can soon be accessed publicly by researchers, academics, philanthropists, Not for Profits and entrepreneurial organisations. This will stretch into 2014 as the ACNC evolves.

Not for Profits, Charities in particular during this early phase of the ACNC, will be looking for the efficiencies the ACNC promised and hoping that a change of government will not disrupt the improvement process.

9. Volunteering

Volunteering is an unloved child generally but was particularly so in 2012. Volunteering generates no revenue, costs very little and happens anyway - so it's no surprise that even though it carries great value in so many ways, its intangible nature makes it under-resourced, and underdeveloped in Australia. Whilst it has been measured in the census to account for $14.6 billion and includes 5.2 generous citizens, it has been generally defunded by government and its peak national and state bodies have come under fire in 2012.

2013 may see it resuscitate to some extent through Volunteering Australia's move to Canberra and due to Australia winning the bid to host the 2014 International World Volunteering Conference. Skilled Volunteering and corporate volunteering will continue to grow.

10. The 2013 Federal Election

All eyes will be on the Election which will take place by October. The foundations that the Labor Party has established for sector reform seem unlikely to be undone, even though coalition policy announcements to date speak against it (see our story here). 

We'll make sure we revisit these predictions in 2014 to see what did and didn't happen.

Add your own predictions on the comments section below - and we'll see where we all end up - and perhaps too, it will generate discussion about what we WISH to see for 2013 and beyond. (BTW over new year I had a go at my own "vision board" for 2013. A process of cutting magazine images and words and pasting them onto a canvas. A fabulous, clarifying process.) 

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