Hi MariaZ,

Greetings,

Nice report you got there.

Jeremy Ecle

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..the world will make a way for a man know where he is going..

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for supporting this observation. It is then important right from the beginning the LR and neighbors to assess the likely basic documentation/communication barriers between the village and the online volunteers and work out possible remedies.

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Stanley Okurut

Dear all,
Thanks for your support and comments. If there is anything in the two documents you would like to change, please feel free to make track changes and to post it again. I will do some changes according to your comments (especially the new model posted by Ron) next week, and then we should give it to the web developers, since they have to implement the new model on the new website.

Thanks,
Maria

Hi Mariaz,

You deserve to be thanked for the good work you are doing. All i want to say is thank you for the good work you are doing. May God bless you and all other resourceful persons who have committed themselves to improving service delivery in nabuur

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Stanley Okurut

Hi Stanley and everyone,

Bonjour!

I am still new to nabuur and still have much to learn on many things though I am not new to online volunteering.

My other online volunteering work is more concerned on developing a course outline with fewer human interaction I usually work on the computer and only ask for assistance if there is trouble and the webmaster would then answer my call but mostly I only interact with computer.

What I am trying to say is that in the nabuur community it is more on the discussions and it interacts directly with other volunteers discussing matters that needs to be addressed.

I am not saying that I am choosing between the two because they serve two different purposes and I am only sharing my thoughts because they really serve two different purposes respectively.

My question perhaps maybe is how often a community or a village like yours have access to the internet and even a cellphone.

Technology such as the internet and cellphone are sometimes hard to find in other parts of the globe. Luckily in my place I have access to the internet and cellphone which is making our correspondence a possibility and a reality I have access to my internet twenty fours a day before there were no internet in my place only now a days that it became a common subject even students in the grade school makes their assignment with the help of the internet.

Anyway this is just my observation. If there is anything you wish to discuss further you can send me to my email at jeremyecle@yahoo.com.

Best regards to all,

Jeremy Ecle

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.. I came that they may have life and that they may have it abundantly ..

HI everyone.
I just wanted to make a couple of comments about LR’s and Village activity in a new improved Nabuur.
I don’t believe that a weekly post by the LR is always a necessity- but I do understand that regular updates are important for Volunteer engagement. And volunteer engagement is equally important as LR engagement. I wouldn’t want any village to be judged by the level of activity an LR generates. Stanley you can probably relate to this as I know your work is constant- but you may not always be posting on-line. Also- not all aspects of PACODET are relevant to nabuur. You have chosen to put up specific tasks on nabuur for PACODETS’s work. I think this could be the way forward for many Villages. Cecilia made some suggestions about possible “prize giving’ to active villages or LR’s. Personally, I feel the best prize we can give any village is to promote them heavily on all forms of on-line media to further attract attention and resources to them. I also think that attracting active volunteers to an active village is a big prize as well- the more people you have working on a problem the better chance we all have of resolving these problems.
One of the things I’d like to see heavily emphasized on the new look Nabuur is a very clear message to all new LR’s that nabuur is not just a funding opportunity. I have found over the years that quite a number of LR’s have been critical and/or disillusioned by our efforts because funding has not been forthcoming. I understand that funding is extremely important- but Nabuur is not a funding agency nor will it ever be one (from what I can gather). Nabuur is about collaboration of ideas, and effort- and this needs to be clearly explained to all new LR’s and the expectations set out clearly. Come to Nabuur to get ideas, help, physical outcomes like websites, help with proposals etc, and MAYBE some funding if the opportunities are there.

Hi Carolyn and everyone,

I strongly agree with you on these points you have noted about defining active LRs and villages. It is important for all resourceful persons to note this. We present the goods that have demand in the market and; not that what we present are the only once we have. We present tasks/projects here we feel we may get assistance in handling them and when you get response you are encouraged to participate actively. I remember how Eric willis approached Kameke village when it looked very isolated and abandoned here and helped bring hope to the whole village by offering some small help.

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Stanley Okurut

Hi everyone

I have decided that I am no longer able to take an active part in the Support/Resorces group and the other organsiation-related discussions. So as not to clutter up the discussion here, see my post in the Website group http://www.nabuur.com/en/comment/2010/03/14/leaving-website-group for more explanation.

As I signed up as a member of this group at the Camp, I would like to apologise to the other members for leaving. There is a lot of interesting discussion and ideas here, and I wish you good luck with getting things working well!

Mary

Dear Mary,

It´s very sad to see you leaving. But I totally understand you. Believe me, I am not far from doing the same ... I hope that you will find new energy to help the villages you care for independently of all this new Nabuur discussion. Good luck.

Dear all,
I think Mary´s leave shows us how important it is for us all to stay motivated to achieve some tangible results. After the Camp in Amsterdam, everybody was rather positive and motivated - now one month afterwards, we all, or at least me, see how slow the process is and how difficult it is to get something done with only volunteers whose time is limited. I tried my best to animate this group, but it´s not easy I feel.

Where we are now:

We have Ron´s document on Project Management for LR. This document just has to be transformed into a powerpoint format, and be reviewed by some LR to see whether all information is in it. Who can review – saying, page … this and that should be changed/ added?

We have a number of PDFs for facilitators. These need to be reviewed and put into one document to make it easier to read it. I will ask Raul if he has the original word documents to use them. Then we would need a volunteer to put it together

We have ideas on how villages could pass from a connect stage to a small project or a bigger project stage. I am about to update the document with Ron´s and other comments and post it here. Please also see what the new website would look like and what has been done at the camp here: http://www.nabuur.com/en/group/nabuurcom-website-maintenance-and-develop... (you can actually see the drawings of the background questionnaire etc. under Pelle´s links)

I asked LR and facilitators if a monthly chat would be helpful. About LR replied with yes, none with no. Is there somebody interested in having a first chat with interested LR using the Nabuur chat and developing points that could be discussed?
Same goes for facilitators although the interest was a bit lower. About 5 answered and said useful but less than once a month.

So far for now. I just feel a bit stacked and have the feeling that it might just be too much for volunteers to manage what paid staff did before. Please let me know what others think, is there anybody who feels having the time and the capacity to help?

Maria

Dear all,

Related to the comments by Ron and others on the steps for a village from connecting with others to create a project, please find attached the updated document. You will see that I added additional questions for projects that invole funding above 200$.

Also I think that there should be a possibility to verify whether the village has gone through the different steps and is ready to start a project. For example if after having started a project there is no activity in the village, say for a months, then the project could be back-scaled to the connecting phase.

I will also share this paper with the website development group.

Happy to get any comments or suggestions for changes.

Have a good Sunday,
Maria

Village sign up process and support.doc

Hi Mary,

Really bad news. Something shocking, irritating & disgusting.

Adnan Khan.

Hi Mary,

This is a sad moment for nabuur. I hope you will continue being useful to those villages that look up to you for support. I must say i have personally benefited from you so much. I wish you all the best and hope we will remain in touch

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Stanley Okurut

Hi Maria- thanks for a good wrap up of where we are up to in this group.
I can put my hand up for one of the tasks that needs work (I don’t have a lot of time right now as I have started a post-grad course) Maybe I can do the facilitators one since I am most comfortable with this role. Sorry to be painful- but have you posted the various PDF’s in relation to facilitators on the web here ?? If so…where?? (sorry!!)
You are right to point out that it might be a bit too much for volunteers to take on these tasks of fixing Nabuur. I think we all feel that way- and it is detracting up from the real work we wish to do here- which is to help villages improve their situation. We can only do what we can- and this may take longer than any deadlines people have set for us all.

Hi everyone, i have had a look atthe documet posted and have made some suggestins and changes. They are in BLUE_ I hope youc an see them.

in this document there is talk of a 'buddy". We haven't really used that term on Nabuur for the last couple of years (I know we used to) so I just wanted some clarification- how does a volunteer promote themselves as a Buddy rather than a facilitaor.

Also- I may have missed this- BUT has there been overall agreement that a Village cannot progress to a Project unless they have a facilitator?

Ammended doc attached
Regards
Carolyn

Village sign up process and support CDV comments 15 Mar.doc

Maria,

I have posted a number of thoughts elsewhere which I think are relevant to what you are trying to do here. To avoid repetition I have given the URL

http://www.nabuur.com/en/group/nabuurcom-website-maintenance-and-develop...

Ron.