African Women Development Cooperative

Submitted by Christiana Charles-Iyoha on 21 April, 2008 - 21:31
African Women Development Cooperative is one of the gender development projects of the Centre for Policy and Development.A response to the gender economic divide and the gender based challenges of sustainable wealth creation, AWDC aims to facilitate access to financial services, provide capacity building in financial literacy and entrepreneurial skills as well training in building enterprising businesses and sustainable livelihoods for African women.

Welcome to Kabissa 2.0!

Social Networking for African Organizations

Welcome to our online community for African civil society, designed to empower African organizations and their allies to SHOWCASE, CONNECT and LEARN. This is all about creating horizontal linkages among organizations that might otherwise have been impossible, on the local, city, national and regional levels. It is about knowing how best to use the Internet and related communications tools in pursuit of an organizational mission.

Update on Kabissa eLearning Pilots (November 2007)

With the generous support of the Hurford Foundation, Kabissa is carrying out a pilot project this year to explore ways to extend the benefits of our Time To Get Online training program with more Kabissa members through E-Learning. E-learning, courses conducted mainly over the Internet and/or on a computer, can give a tremendous boost to African organizations seeking to make more effective use of ICT. The two e-learning courses we developed and are piloting, in response to a poll of our members, are:

  • Running an Online Course
  • Emerging technologies

The first course was run via two Google Groups itself and has been completed successfully by two sets of participants, one in East Africa and the other in Nigeria. The second will be provided as a self-paced online course via our new online community site. A full report on the outcomes of the pilot project will be published in January. In the meantime, the executive summary of our proposal to the Hurford Foundation is published below.

Certificate Course in "Project Development and Management, including from

Kabissa member Human Rights and Justice Group International (HRJGI) will hold an online training certificate course in "Project Development and Management, including from a Gender Perspective" from July 9 to August 31, 2007. The program is designed to equip participants with skills for better management of community based development programmes. This course will further provide the participants with a concrete 'step-by-step' approach including hints and guidelines for developing and implementing a successful project from a gender based perspective in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs.


Request for Proposals: Kabissa Online Community/CRM Project (CLOSED)

Kabissa is seeking experienced partners to assist in a new project to implement an Online Community/Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) system for its 900+ members in Africa. Based on Kabissa's specifications, completed in October 2006, we have determined three major pieces of functionality we will require in a CRM system - member management, e-mailing, and e-commerce. These pieces may be provided by one tool or multiple tools, but all must work well with each other. All tools must be extremely user friendly, especially from the front end

Nata Village Blog in Botswana

The Nata Village Blog is a web and video blog that focuses on the battle to control HIV/AIDS in the village of Nata in Botwana. While the organisers hope to use the website as a fund raising tool, they also aim to give its visitors a chance to meet the people of Nata, learn their stories and get an intimate look at how they live. The website documents the spread and impact of HIV/AIDS in the village and shares the stories of People Living with AIDS (PLWA).

The initiative was born when world traveller Jon Rawlinson met up with Melody Jenkins who serves as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Nata. ?¢‚Ǩ?ìBoth were frustrated with the fact that enormous amounts of money are pouring into Africa yet little money is getting to the village level and to those who need it most.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù Jon made three visits to Nata and filmed a documentary about HIV/AIDS in the village. The documentary led the way to the website.

The website shows the Nata Clinic, featuring PLWA?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s, village life, youth groups, the Kgosi?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s (chiefs) and the professionals involved in the fight to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. The site hopes to profile the specific needs of the village and give its visitors an opportunity to help.



Revolutionizing Kabissa's Membership and Hosting Services

The Kabissa team is very pleased to announce that we received grants from the OSI Information Program and the Ford Foundation for two new projects that will, over the course of the next 12 months, revolutionize our membership system and hosting services. In order to make the process of becoming, and remaining, part of the Kabissa member network more user-friendly and beneficial to everyone, we are replacing our existing members database with a sophisticated constituent relationship management tool. At the same time, we are restructuring our hosting services to enable our members to quickly and easily set up an effective, professional web presence that serves their needs, with a minimum of technical skills. Read on for more details!

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