All,

The response below contains the text of a message I sent to Mary earlier today.

"I concur with your and Jennifer's views. There has been a tragic lack of direction and leadership for at least a year, probably two. In fact since the last, in my opinion useless, upgrade to the site. The focus was always on tinkering with the site and not on 'getting the job done'. We have seen a simplistic, if not naive, approach to management and funding, which certainly drove me away from Nabuur, and into a personal communication arrangement with neighbours of a like mind to support my village. We built a school despite Nabuur rather than with Nabuur. If we had relied on the Nabuur model we would still be talking; it was only when we moved away and did things independently that progress was really made. The key issue for us, was, and probably is for virtually all villages, finding funding. Nabuur's contribution to that was negligible, in fact I thank you, rather than Nabuur for pointing us in the right direction on more than one occasion! I understand that Nabuur's intention was probably not to provide funding but the problem is they never made that clear enough to neighbours and, perhaps more importantly, to the villages that registered.

If Nabuur's aim was simply to provide a communications and information site we can say they succeeded in some respects. If the aim was to improve conditions in the villages that registered with them then they failed. The continual addition of village after village without getting the local infrastructure in place, like a decent Facilitator and Local Representative, both with adequate skills and training, had to be, in my opinion, a mistake which has cost many hopeful villages dearly. It also ensured that many of us simply declined to contribute to the overall Nabuur any further and went our separate ways.
Jennifer makes an important point about Leadership. The fact of the matter is that leadership has been lacking for some considerable time. Clarity of Intent was not Nabuur's strongpoint and the failure to communicate the Intent has to be placed on the leader Seigfried.

I am sorry to see Nabuur and particularly some of the staff reach this sorry state; I salute their commitment and the many good things they have tried to do, but I fear this is not a surprise to many of us. "

Raul's ideas about the site are worthy of further attention but perhaps the most important thing the volunteers have to do is clarify what Nabuur intends to be and do. It must, in my opinion, move away from keeping the focus on website, twitter, face-book and any new electronic communication toys and head towards stopping registration until things are sorted out, concentrate on training people for the Facilitator and Local Rep roles, and put out a new charter stating what it is and just as importantly what it is not (a funding stream).

After a long absence from regular contact with Nabuur I will return and follow the forthcoming changes. I wish the neighbours, particularly those who have followed Nabuur for some years, success as these changes happen. Nabuur, in my opinion, had to change the way it operated, if I can help shape things in the future I will.

Ron.

I just joined Nabuur not long a go but have beeen realy happy with how we were getting on with jennifer, Dave,Mary Heather and many more whom we have been interacting to make apositive change in our communities .To me the people who started nabuur were people gifted by God to connect people so that the people other wise cannot receive most of the services they need for free can access them through honest ,generous volunteers who offer them for free.
everyone who have come across Nabuur have setlled there to work out projects.
If we are told today that nabuur commited staff are not paid to make sure that all the villages who are enjoying services will be confuced with their projects
I need to ask the people concern to consider other good alternatives but not stoping staff payments

Paul
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Patriots of Nature and legends of culture

Hi all,

I am new in nabuur but in little time i have interracted with various people here i kind of understood that that this was a place where various people with various experiences/skills met and supported one another. I kind of understood that the teams in nabuur could not solve every problem but could provide links and information which was very supportive. In this respect i have seen people like Liuewe, Carolyn, Mary, Jennifer, Ken etc. doing a wonderful work and i thank them wholeheartedly for this. In this way some progress in some villages has been happening based on this support. The villages which may be very frustrated could be those looking for or were expecting all solutions to their problems to come from nabuur. If nabuur was designed with aim of getting villages depend on it for all their solutions, then this strategy needs to be rethought because it is never realistic.

Nabuur like all organisations is undergoing a change and this is normally a difficult time. My appeal to key resource persons in nabuur is that they should listen to each other carefully and strike a compromise position that ensures that everybody who has raised a concern and an opinion wins. We need everyone and let no one drop out because they feel their view was ignored. Let us have a win win situation.

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Stanley Okurut

Howmuch people need to be hired to run Nabuur? Howmuch money is needed to hire a staff to run Nabuur? Can't we as volunteers help out with getting funding by aquiring sponsorship and what not ourselves?

well i should say the message is disturbing but am willing to give it achance so please contact me and send me the latest schedule on how we are going to work .

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kabategekij

--
Am really glad to have this chance to serve under NABUUR when am still young.
I believe there are alot of people out there who need friends, help, care, good company
and believe to have such attributes. I need to supply them in different hands because

Hi Maria,
Its great time and its ever great to meet you. Straight to the point, Why would one ignore others? Is it because they are weak or they have failed sometimes, No. To my OPPINION people should not be separated rather united. One time the inactive will be active under conditions that an active person can live, So we should work hand in hand and teach the inactive how its done. Imagine your self being ignored because of such cases. People are prejudged by how many times they rise up. So I oppose your idea of separating the inactive from the active but lets stand as one NABUUR.
I will be glad to hear from you maria super day.
yours sam ( tyrosamuel@yahoo.com)

Hi people,

When i heard the news ,my heart real got torn bse i thought all our problems where to be solved via nabuur, i real feel sad indeed!! Dear officials if things become ahead of you try to publish them ,u never know some one can come up with the idea. When i came to Nabuur i saw president Bill Clinton here ,i dont know if is aware that u aclosing? if not try to contact him as apresident he might help us.

kind regards
frank

Hi everyone,

As you know, this past Wednesday and Thursday, NABUUR held two separate community calls to talk about the upcoming changes. Unfortunately, the turnout was not as expected. The calls were only attended by one volunteer who was new to NABUUR, and interested in contributing to a village.

Time of the day may have been an issue preventing many of you from attending these calls. When you have an international platform, it's difficult to settle on a time that suits all timezones as well as volunteer schedules.

We'll be posting a FAQ (frequently asked questions) page up very soon, with answers to the questions you have posted here.

In the meantime, have a great weekend - and if you have any outstanding comments or questions, please post them.

Thanks,
Romina

Hi Romina and Pelle

Sorry I could not attend either of the calls - one was during working hours and I was out yesterday evening. I and many other neighbours posted all our questions and concerns here, so even if I had been there, I am not sure I could have added anything else. I wonder whether a communal chat would work better than a phone call?

I have to say that I am very very disappointed that we have not had any answers at all yet. It has now been a week since the original announcement, and last Sunday Pelle posted here "I know this leaves many questions unanswered - I will get back on those later.", and Romina, your message today gives me the impression that we will not hear any more until after the weekend. Please can you give us a definite date. At the moment I feel as though we are being kept completely in the dark, that no one has a clue what is going on.

I can understand that you may not have all the answers yet, but if you are going to have a FAQ page, you could post the information you have right now, and add to it over time.

1st January is only four weeks away, so if you want us volunteers to start taking an active part in running the site from that date, you need to let us have full honest information and give us the chance to be involved in making decisions on the way forward.

If its going to be a case of the current staff running things exactly as they are now (but working as volunteers) with no meaningful input from others then many people will simply lose faith and disappear. I may well be one of them.

Mary

Miss or Madame Jennifer ! I am some body ho doesn't like to write or read about some thing , if that thing doesn't concern me or makes me exploded , but your letter above irritate my sense and makes me vibrate...means you become my case ,like the women of my village (the word that NABUUR is teaching me of course )but for me the world women are my village women so I , men ,(me),the contrary for women . Jennifer,your last word is the word of failure (All I feel at the moment is very deep disappointment.) my country proverb said :you think you are escaping by running but they will catch you, you are not running and you think they will catch no they will not- That is life ! don't be disappointed may your smile be all ways shine. God clear leadership owns us.chao! Teffera Tesfaye from HARERY WOMEN VILLAGE,

Dear neighbours,
I am so grateful for the efforts that you are making for the improvment of nabuur. I would like to join the team of volunteers.
I wish you all the best.
John

I am so interested and would appreciate if I will get involved as a volunteer. I am ready to work as a volunteer on nabuur.
Blessings,
John

I am not interested, or qualified,to be a part of the management team directing Nabuur but in the 2-3 years I have been a volunteer helping villagers with farming there is no other place I could have been to do so much for so little. There is no other place on the internet like it. I hope it continues.

It has it problems. It is not perfect and never will be but just think of the good it has accomplished. Just think of the good it can accomplish in the future. It has no limits!

Dear FriFend,
Looking forward to hear from you the update of the plaform.
James Chibuye

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Zambia Street Soccer is built from a passion to assist youths and the

most vulnerable, focussing on girls and women, in our community.

There is an urgent need to empower these people in education,

art/craft,sports and health issues.

The granted opportunity is a gold to us and me specific to offer free heartland assistance to our community but its sometimes be recognized that free lance acts creates insecurity and lacks coordination. So with this opportunity, I would request for little governance, administration and coordination to this organization. Thanks for your dedication.
--
Conscious stands test of time.