News » Newsletter January 08
50, Friars Street,
Sudbury,
Suffolk,
CO10 2AG
 MALI DEVELOPMENT GROUP
NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2008
 
Welcome to the first newsletter of the year, and as usual there are many things to report. First a Happy New Year to everyone from MDG and from our partners Jeunesse et Développement. 2008 will see the start of our next 3 –year plan of work, and we will be sending you a copy in the next newsletter, following final agreement with J&D later this month.
 
Fund raising activities and many ‘thankyous’
We had a really successful Christmas period. The Christmas Draw raised over £1,700 this year, and the lucky winners, drawn at the MDG party, were as follows:
 
2 prizes of weeks in house in France- Katherine Batt and Patsy Townsend; Case of Wine- Greg Smith; 4 nights in a luxury Yurt in Devon-Shiva Ziaie; Weekend in Suffolk- Ken Back; Painting by John Everitt- Ross and Clare Spiers; Painting by Andrea Hewes-John Gaudoin; 3 nights in Derbyshire- Mr. Rolls; Wooden bowl- Sean Baine.
 
Many thanks to all who sold tickets, and especially those who donated prizes. The party itself was a great success, and thanks to Sue Raikes and Adrian Moyes for hosting it.
 
Linda King decided to raise money for MDG by running a Christmas Pudding factory, and sale of the puddings totalled £552, all of which went to MDG. A number of people helped with this, but special mention to Linda and Mar Fishbourne who did the pudding steaming! They plan to do this again next year, and I can confirm that the puddings were excellent!
 
We had an increase this Christmas in the number of MDG Gift Vouchers sold. Some of this came from sales at events, but there were also more sales through the web site. One of our priorities for 2008 is to increase the size of this scheme, and if you have not already started using our alternative Gifts have a look at them on the web site, or ask for further details from Linda on 01865 890829.
 
The range of activities and events which are helping us raise funds continues to broaden. One of the most unusual to date is Charlotte Facherty, aged 9, who gave up fizzy drinks for a year on the basis that her parents would give her a donation to charity. She made it, and her parents were so impressed that they doubled their contribution to £500! Well done Charlotte!
 
New member Mark Ereira-Guyer raised money for us at a Christmas Party for his business, in Bury St. Edmunds, just before Christmas, and a draw plus donations there again made over £500. Mark and his son Theo are travelling to Mali on the member’s trip later this month, and we wish them a fantastic first experience of J&D and Mali.
 
So, although we have also been raising funds in other ways, as reported later in this newsletter events and activities run by members are very important not just in providing funds but in raising our profile. It is important that we extend this, so if you have any ideas please let us know. As this newsletter is being written Robin Baker is taking part in the Plymouth/Bamako rally- an event that has been going for some years and is for cars costing less than £150! This is a real adventure for anyone taking part, and Robin has raised money from sponsorship for us. More details in the next Newsletter.
 
Next event!
Our next event is the MDG Quiz, which will take place on 23rd February at Watlington Memorial Hall. The doors will open at 7pm, and the quiz will start at 7.30pm. £10 per head, to include supper and the quiz. Teams can be up to 8 members, and there will also be a raffle. Please contact Linda King on 01865 890829 to book and register your team. Please give this event your support. There will also be a display of photos from the Mali members January trip.
 
News from Mali
  • Moussa Gadio the J&D worker who came to England to visit us two years ago and has been on a course in Canada for which we helped with funding has written to say he is back in Mali. The course was at the St Francis Xavier University and was on Development Leadership. 40 participants from 19 countries took part, and Gadio says he got a great deal from the course. He wants to thank MDG members for their support
 
  • Kader Keita has now been able to start the second phase of his project with Street Children in Bamako. His is possible because of generous funding from Tim and Andrea Hewes, whose support will enable this two-year programme to build on its earlier success. Kader has been working with young people for a number of years. One of our earliest projects in 2002 was to support Kader working on an early ‘micro-projet’ in Bamako. Sue Upton wrote recently to say that one of the original boys turned up at the J&D office recently to show off his motorbike. Not only is he making a living out of his bogolan, learned from Kader, but he is also going back to school to get his basic education certificate.
 
  • The Mafele barrage project is due to begin later this month. Last Autumn it looked as if we might have a serious shortfall in funding for this work, which has a budget of £25,000. Thanks to some successful Trust applications, especially the Alan and Nesta Ferguson Trust and the Triodos Foundation, we now have the money! Gifford Engineering’s two volunteers will be going out to join the project early in February and give their practical help to it. Mark Richardson is a building engineer, based in Oxfordshire, and Becky Mulley is an environmental scientist based in the firm’s Southampton HQ. They were selected from 40 applicants within Gifford, and we wish them a great experience helping local people change their lives by getting the barrage in place in time for this year’s rainy season. Gifford have been terrific partners, and we are grateful for all their support. All best wishes and good luck to Mark and Becky!
 
  • The Peer Educator Reproductive Health programme has now had its interim evaluation as planned, and we have received the interim report. The evaluation is based on interviews with all stakeholders, including young people from the community and health professionals. The evaluation indicates some very considerable achievements and it seems clear that J&D wish the scheme to develop further in scope. Soumalia Moro the project manager will take part in discussions about this during the January visit, and we will need to costs the project overall for the next three years. One of the main funders of the programme, since it started has been Truckfest. As members will be aware the event this year has to be postponed and then rearranged, with the result that no money was available for donation. This presented us with a major problem (and at the same time as the need to fund the barrage!) The goodwill and generosity shown us by both the Didcot Rotary Club and Holts brewery, both of whom take part in Truckfest, enabled this gap in funding to be largely covered and we were hugely grateful to them.
 
 
  • Women’s Hope Project. Our new initiative aims to help support a group of women in Bamako who have come to the city to try and obtain treatment for fistula. Tanty Samake has been working hard to gain their trust and coordinate work with other agencies involved. A visit to the group is planned for this January’s members visit, and we hop to bring back more information about them and the progress of the project.
 
Members’ visit
Altogether 7 people will be visiting from 20th January to 4th February. The programme will include a trip to Manankoro and the villages there; visits to the projects in Bamako and then a trip to Segou to attend the Festival of the Niger and also a trip down the Niger to visit the pottery village of Kaliabougou. MDG is keen to encourage members to visit Mali and find out more about J&D’s work at first hand, so if you might be interested in a future visit, please get in touch. Each year we aim to have at least one member of the J&D staff visit us in England so we will be raising that with Mamadou Kone and his team during the current trip.
 
Message from Sue Upton
We asked Sue Upton, whose original idea for a U.K. link to J&D inspired MDG, to contribute some comments for last Autumn’s AGM. What she said was both interesting and encouraging, so we agreed to reprint her comments so that more members could see them. This is what she said:
 
On my own behalf and on behalf of the J&D management committee I’d like to say how much we continue to appreciate learn and grow through our partnership with MDG. Kone’s visit to England was not only a great experience for him personally but helped develop and consolidate ideas for the new work plan, and enabled him to visit a range of partners. If I start talking about our various activities over the last year this message will get too long, so I’ll limit myself to saying something about why I think this fairly unique relationship between our two organisations is so important for J&D.
 
MDG’s trust in J&D and the value of the work we are doing provides encouragement which builds the morale and self-confidence of the organisation. Why is this important? Because while J&D is increasingly respected at national, regional and even international levels, we are a small organisation trying to manage a fast rate of growth, while maintaining quality of practice rooted in our vision and values. This is easy to write but harder to implement and MDG's support both to individuals and the organisation as a whole is a significant factor. Another aspect is the ever- increasing project funding that MDG provides- both for activities in the work plan and unforeseen requests from communities or organisational needs. I wish you could see people’s faces in J&D meetings when MDG’s initiatives are discussed. Whenever something unexpected arises or an idea for a new initiative emerges ‘perhaps we can ask MDG’ is frequently heard! Lack of bureaucracy and pragmatic decision-making based on trust means that staff time can be concentrated on direct implementation. This creates a partnership where we feel respected without compromising accountability. The nature of the partnership means that we feel able to discuss any aspect of our relationship and the work we are doing in the knowledge that we will get honest and helpful feedback from MDG.
 
Many of us are asked questions about what MDG is and what we are trying to do. Sue’s comments give an insight into what we mean to our partners, and I’m sure her thoughts will encourage us in our efforts this year.
And finally……
As part of our work with the Malian Interest Group MDG is co-hosting a conference on Mali with the Haut Conseil du Mali- the organisation for Malians in the UK. This will be on 13th March at Methodist Church House in London. If you would like to help with the event or would like to attend, please contact me. In the mean time thanks for all that you do and best wishes for 2008.                          
 
John Hedge, MDG Secretary
Mali Development Group - Charity Registration Number: 1088140