World Aids Day 2011
Date: 1 December 2011

Link Community Development greets World Aids Day on December 1 with both celebration for what has been accomplished, as well as hope and commitment to continuing to work to save lives. In the last decade, the global community has made great strides against HIV/AIDS: UNAIDS reports that in 2010, AIDS deaths declined to 1.8 million from 2.1 million in 2004. However, since 2007 the number of new infections worldwide has plateaued at 2.7 million- 70% of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Link recognizes that there is still much to be done in the fight against HIV/AIDS and takes an active role in this struggle. For example:

• In South Africa, Link is implementing the Peer Education Care and Support Program (PECSP) to 141 schools. This innovative program trains 2532 parents of Peer Educators, 492 Life Orientation Educators and 88 District Officials. This program is funded by USAID.
• In Ethiopia, Link has held numerous teacher workshops to facilitate better understanding of the disease and learning on how to better educate and support students.
• In Uganda, Link assists schools in administering the new National Policy Guidelines on HIV/AIDS in Your School; thus helping schools to provide a supportive and nurturing environment for HIV-positive teachers and students.

Education has been called a "social vaccine" against HIV/AIDS because education empowers individuals with the appropriate skills to receive and act on knowledge, including knowledge about HIV/AIDS. It is important that we continue these programs until HIV/AIDS no longer cripples Africa's growth and development.

Click here to find out more about what Link is doing to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

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Wishing Nelson Mandela a happy birthday from Link
Date: 18 July 2011
Location: South Africa

Millions of children around the world are uniting today to sing happy birthday to Nelson Mandela, one of the world’s most iconic statesmen.

Mr Mandela, who is 93 today, led the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa and the subsequent transition to multi-racial democracy. He became the country’s first black president in 1994 following the country’s first fully representative democratic elections.

For Link, the story of Nelson Mandela and the transition to democracy in South Africa is especially poignant, as it is closely tied to our own development as an organisation.

We began life in 1989 as Link Africa, a student-led charity based in Cambridge University that supported black education in South Africa under Apartheid rule. Under Apartheid, responsibility for education was divided between 19 separate departments across the country, defined by racial groups and homelands. The quality of education on offer to black people was significantly weaker than the education available for the white minority.

Link organised short-term teaching placements in rural black communities - many students then took on longer placements after graduating, allowing us to develop more comprehensive projects to improve the quality of education on offer.

Following the end of Apartheid in 1994, South Africa merged its 19 separate departments of education into a single department. Reforming the education system was a huge logistical challenge, but Link was well placed to support the process having gained experience running 17 different education projects across the country. So we started to focus on supporting central government with this crucially important but demanding process.

June 1995 was a crucial moment in the development of both South Africa and Link. The Rugby World Cup was held in South Africa, and Nelson Mandela’s dream of uniting his people through sport reached a remarkable conclusion as the hosts triumphed in the final against New Zealand. Few people will forget the images of Mr Mandela and South Africa captain François Pienaar embracing as the trophy was lifted, a moment captured in the 2009 film Invictus.

That same month, Link was officially registered with the UK Charity Commission under our current name, Link Community Development. With our experience growing, the immediate challenge was to reduce the chasm in quality between formerly white schools and formerly black schools in South Africa.

Link switched from a focus on individual projects to a “whole district approach”, working with local district staff and communities to understand the problems facing education and ensure that all schools in the district began to take steps forward. We focused our efforts on the township of Soshanguve, 60km north of Pretoria. Between 1997 and 2003, the difference in completion rates between formerly black and formerly white schools fell from 45% to 8%, with no drop in standards in the formerly white schools.

Nelson Mandela’s presidency finished in 1999, but his legacy of change has lived on ever since. Our current projects across sub-Saharan Africa – such as our School Performance Review - still bear the hallmarks of the approach we adopted in Soshanguve. We work closely with both government and district staff to ensure that the work we do and the lessons we learn are as wide-reaching as possible.

So here at Link we are joining the millions of others pausing today to celebrate the extraordinary contribution of Nelson Mandela. He is known for his incredible energy and charisma, his disarming smile and his utter dedication to the cause he believed in. For Link, too, he shares the tenacity and vision of equality that has characterised our own approach to education in South Africa.

Happy Birthday Nelson Mandela - Nobel Peace Prize Winner, iconic figure and inspirational leader.

Nelson Mandela's biography on the Nobel Peace Prize site.

BBC World Service article on Apartheid Rule in South Africa.

BBC On This Day 10 May 1994: Mandela becomes South Africa's first black president.

Official website for the 2009 film Invictus, dramatising the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa.

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Link begins HIV & AIDS Peer Education training camps
Date: June 2011
Location: South Africa

Link have begun the process of rolling out training for the upscaled Phase 2 of the USAID funded Peer Education Care & Support Programme in South Africa. Link staff are conducting four sets of training camps in the four target provinces between 24th June and 15th July. In total they will visit 144 schools and train 1728 peer educators and 288 Life Orientation educators. Peer educators are selected from two age groups per school, 10-13 years and 14-19 years and are trained to implement the programme as agents of social change. They are supported by the Life Orientation educators who are trained to act as mentors. The roll out is a major milestone for LCD South Africa and key to ensuring the programme delivers as planned.

About the project: The USAID funded HIV & AIDS Peer Education Care & Support Programme seeks to build a common approach and model for implementing peer education. On the programme level the primary goals of the programme are to:
• promote healthy lifestyles among young people;
• reduce adolescent risk behaviour through delaying of sexual debut and consistent condom use for those who are sexually active, and
• provide a support network for learners with psychosocial problems (such as orphans) in your schools and to link them to community resources that can assist them to deal with issues that may place them at risk of HIV.
On an implementation level the programme aims to:
• develop the support structures and the capacity of project schools to implement peer education;
• test an implementation model, and
• evaluate the effectiveness of the school-based peer education programmes in the four target provinces.

The project began as a pilot in 4 provinces (Free State, Kwa Zulu Natal, Mpumalanga and North West Province) identified for their high HIV prevalence, poverty indicators, rural make-up, and high incidences of teenage pregnancy in secondary schools. Link worked as the implementing partner, with the Academy for Education Development (AED) who oversaw the monitoring and evaluation framework. The project has since been upscaled to a three year contract in 144 schools in the same provinces, to train 2532 Peer Educators, 2532 Parents of peer educators, 492 Life Orientation Educators and 88 District Officials. It aims to develop minimum standards for all peer education activities in schools; to harmonize and sustain school-based peer education activities; to develop a repertoire of tools and processes; to keep a database of pilot schools and capture learning; and to build relationships and partnerships with local agencies to care and support affected and infected learners.

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Kader Asmal, Anti-Apartheid Hero and former Education Minister dies aged 76
Date: June 2011
Location: South Africa

Kader Asmal, South Africa’s Education Minister from 1999-2004, died yesterday. He was a pivotal figure in the reform of the South African education system from its apartheid legacy to an inclusive approach.

Link’s Patron, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said that “He served his people and his nation, without a thought of self-enrichment or aggrandisement. He added substance and vigour to whatever he did, from the international anti-apartheid movement, to the negotiations that gave birth to our democratic nation, and later, our constitution; and from the cabinets in which he served under presidents (Nelson) Mandela and (Thabo) Mbeki, to the generations of academics and students he inspired, from Trinity College in Ireland to the University of the Western Cape.”

Asmal was also a leading light of the ANC, having met ANC president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Chief Albert Luthuli while still at school. A former teacher, Asmal left South Africa to Study Law, graduating from the London School of Economics and going on to lecture at Trinity College Dublin.

He was a founder member of both the British and Irish Anti-Apartheid Movements, and chaired the latter for nearly three decades. He was an avid civil and human rights campaigner on behalf of South Africa and Northern Ireland.

In the April 1994 general election, Asmal was elected to Parliament, and was appointed by Nelson Mandela as Minister for water affairs and forestry. President Thabo Mbeki then appointed him as minister of education in 1999. Even from within government Asmal preserved a fierce defence of civil rights, often criticising ANC policies when he felt them to be wrong.

Learn more about his life here:

http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/heart-attack-claims-stalwart-asmal-1.1087366

http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/video.php?id=189

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-06-23-asmal-hailed-as-giant-of-the-liberation-struggle

http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/article1248515.ece

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Nonzwanga Nhlapo remembered
Date: June 2011
Location: South Africa

Nonzwanga Nhlapo worked in education all of her life, first as a teacher, then with the department and then with civil society. She worked with Link in Mthatha for several years and will be well remembered by both Global Teachers and 'Mangos' who spent time in Transkei schools in 2003-2006. She brought real passion as well as expertise into the Link Eastern Cape team.

Nonzwanga was taken from us following a violent incident in her home on 1 June 2011. All Link thoughts are with her family and friends. Further tributes to Nonzwanga can be found here.

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Link launch new internship scheme
Date: May 2011
Location: London, England

The London office has launched a new Internship scheme offering flexible placements to support our work and provide valuable experience in the international development charity sector. Every intern will be fully supervised and provided with a diverse and challenging workload. Get in touch if you have a minimum of four weeks availability.

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The Link Schools Programme launches free ‘Linking for Learning’ workshop

Date: March 2011

 

This month the Link Schools teams in Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales have been working alongside Lifeworlds Learning, an innovative training organisation, to deliver workshops for our schools.

 

The training is designed to engage teachers in the ideas behind ‘linking for learning’. Based on our 10 years of experience we will be highlighting best practice in international school linking, looking at the following;

•          The broader context of linking and the work of Link Community Development

•          Examples of cross-curricula approaches to linking and global learning

•          Support for developing a whole-school ethos

•          Information about the support available locally, regionally and nationally

•          An introduction to our new partnership curriculum projects

 
If you are interested in attending one of our upcoming workshops, please contact your local LSP team; England & Wales, Ireland, Scotland and the USA. 

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Solar Connect expanding to more rural schools 
Date: