July 11, 2005

The American University of Sharjah (AUS) has joined Heifer International, USA, to design and implement a year-long capacity-building program for African rural development specialists and communities throughout sub-Saharan Africa. 

The program, led by Dr. Judith Killen, AUS Director of Graduate Studies and Research, is training hundreds of Africa leaders of rural, grassroots NGOs, Heifer International's staff members stationed across Africa, and African scientists from universities and international agricultural research centers in project design and competitive proposal writing.    

"The training is essentially a self-help project," said Dr. Judith Killen who also leads the workshops. "Through the workshops, which we call 'writeshops,' people learn and put into practice the elements of effective project design, how to locate and contact donors for their projects, fund raising techniques and competitive proposal writing tips." 

"People attend the workshops in teams made up of community members, development experts and research scientists," Dr. Killen added. "Together they identify problems confronting their rural communities, develop their own solutions and identify possible resources to put their solutions into practice. They write a funding proposal they can later send to donors." 

AUS Chancellor Dr. Winfred Thompson said that AUS is proud to support this important effort.       

Heifer International is a charitable organization that provides improved livestock and training to poor farmers throughout the world. It won the Conrad Hilton Humanitarian Prize of $1 million in 2004 for its work in Africa.

"This training is very empowering for people," Dr. Killen said, "and very rewarding for me. As a result of this work, I have seen a women's group in rural Uganda get funding from the McKnight Foundation for a project that enabled 200 women, mostly widows raising children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, start small, lucrative businesses - and send their children to school; an NGO in Zimbabwe was able to get funding from Sweden and Canada to set up 10 clinics in rural areas to assist people affected by HIV/AIDS; a grass roots organization in Kenya began a women's cooperative to market organic fruits and vegetables to Europe. There are examples after examples."    

Recent workshops have been held in Nairobi, Kenya and Durban South Africa, and in January 2006 the final training will be held in Cameroon. At this time, Dr. Killen will also train a group of Africa facilitators to continue the workshops.   

Other partners in the program include The International Livestock Research Center (Kenya and Ethiopia), the World Agroforestry Center (Kenya), Bothar-Ireland and Send-a-Cow (Uganda and UK). People attending the workshop have come from Burkina-Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Ireland, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, United States, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

-Ends-

© Press Release 2005