James Mills is a web developer in the North East of England and founder of Refresh Teesside »
Mike Hughes is the Head of Business for the Evening Gazette. He will be blogging on all matters of importance to Teesside businesses - and some that are just worth knowing »
Jez Davison, business writer at the Evening Gazette, is a regular blogger on all things business - particularly finance, entrepreneurship and the state of the Teesside economy » 
Karen McLauchlan is the Evening Gazette's deputy business and features editor - with special interest in all things industry, property and arts related » 
Jeremy Middleton is a venture capitalist and the co-founder of FTSE-200 company HomeServe » 
Deloitte, which has 23 offices across the UK including Newcastle, is among the country's leading professional services firms » 
ClimateNE & Climate Change Schools Project support the move to a low-carbon, resilient economy and help businesses avoid risk and realise commercial opportunities. Posts by Jen Atkinson, Krista McKinzey and Harriet Thew » Here I am again in the whirlwind that is pre-planning for a long haul journey. This time it's a mammoth trip to the Swaziland and South Africa for three weeks, flying from the UK to Johannesburg to Swaziland to Mpumalanga to Cape Town.
From visiting the largest trade fair in the Southern Hemisphere to training people in fair trade awareness at Kruger National Park and Cape Town to watching King Mswati the Third of Swaziland pick his 14th wife; it's going to be a varied trip!
Swaziland is a key focus for the trip as it is set to be the location for our next long term capacity building project.
This is a country that has captured my heart. An incredibly beautiful kingdom in southern Africa, Swaziland is the 36th poorest country in the world, greatly affected by the HIV/AIDS virus, with almost every other person (42%) of the country suffering from the disease.
The practicalities of this include the effect it has on businesses as staff take time off due to ill health, or in worst case scenarios, valuable staff members skilled in a particular area, die.
We aim to start a training project in business skills and HIV/AIDS awareness so that fair trade businesses can put steps in place to ensure that these staff losses don't mean loss of skills.
Yes, I have a lot to prepare for but at least now that I have all trains, planes and automobiles booked (well actually 5 flights, 6 hotels, 2 cars, 20 meetings and 5 training sessions), I'm up to date with all my injections and have a new batch of malaria tablets, the logistics are all in place!
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »