Jonny Harrison is sailing to Australia from the UK via the Panama Canal before he starts work in Sydney on a secondment at his firm PricewaterhouseCoopers »
Andrew Hebden is Assistant Editor (Business) of The Journal »
Katie Pringle has started her own business, Rock, Paper, Scissors »
Andrew Mernin is the Digital Journalist for nebusiness »
Matthew Rippon is an IP lawyer for BHP Law »
Formerly editor of a national business lifestyle magazine, Jez Davison is a business writer for the Evening Gazette in Teesside »
Ross Smith, Head of Policy and Research at the North-East Chamber of Commerce »
Julian Christopher from Footprint Public Relations, on media and marketing »
Norma Foster from the North East Regional Portal writes about e-business »
Ian Brown, Northumberland farmer and businessman writes about the agricultural industry »
Accessibilty Champion Steve Wilkinson on the importance of inclusion »
Andrea Wilkinson of Shared Interest is visiting Rwanda to deliver business training »
Jonathan Wheatley from Stokesley-based MC Ware writes about IT matters »
Paul Williamson from Deloitte »Wow what a day yesterday. We managed to get through three projectors, 65 cups of tea, one bed sheet (which was used as a screen for the projector - very creative I thought!) and three different languages (Kinyarwanda, French and English!)
This all carried us through our workshop in Fair Trade and presentations on both COFTA and Shared Interest, with a seminar to follow to share knowledge and skills.
As I said yesterday, 40 people turned up for the Open Day. Now, I have to say that quantity doesn’t always mean quality. Let’s not forget the lady who turned up purely because she heard there were free sandwiches on offer!
On the other hand, we met some inspirational people who would make great trainers: enthusiastic, knowledgeable and with a great deal of experience.
The 15 trainers selected for an exclusive training programme will receive ‘train the trainer’ training (hmmm catchy eh?!) and will work together as a group to develop the materials used to train the targeted 50 organisations.
After a hectic day, we see the evening in from a nearby Rwandan Coffee shop, going over the plans for the week ahead. The coffee shop is set on a hill that over looks the city and we can see lights shining across the city from peoples’ homes (there are no street lights.) In the background Frank Sinatra is playing and for this moment I could be in any city in the world.
This feeling continued (perhaps in a not so good way!) when Joan and I were almost mown down whilst trying to cross the road! It turned out to be three matatus (minibus taxis) with poeple screaming out of the windows - waving Rwandan flags.
They were off to Ethiopia to compete in a football competition - proud to be Rwandan and convinced that they will win. As I glimpse the Man United, Chelsea and even Newcastle United logos painted on the side of the matatus, I realise that maybe it is only football that can cross cultural divides and really bind the world together. And on that note, it was time for bed.
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »