• Maximum number of participants: 25 (pre-registration required).
• Venue: Center for Neohumanistic Education (Sweden Training Center).
• Fees include room, board and course materials. A professional development certification will be issued for each module completed by AMURT & AMURTEL.
• Who are these courses for? AMURT & AMURTEL Project Coordinators, Board members, Management, administration, senior staff and fund raisers.

FOR MORE INFO: CONTACT AMURT

DOWNLOAD 2012 TRAINING OVERVIEW: HERE

The Training

The humanitarian field is evolving dynamically in response to increasingly complex challenges. As agents of humanitarian work, our capability to manage people, projects and organizations is crucial to successful and long-lasting impacts of service efforts. Honing the level and scope of our practical skills and competencies to confront these diverse challenges, is one of the prerequisites for achieving high quality and professionalism in the sector. One of the greatest needs humanitarian workers have is to know how to employ participatory methodology to ensure the sustainability of programs.

In June 2012, AMURT & AMURTEL will begin to offer an annual training program in Participatory Humanitarian Management. The training consists of an introduction to humanitarian frameworks and 3 competency-based modules focused on the management of projects, finances, and people.

The program is modeled after the internationally recognized BioForce Institute training methodology, and is adapted to include the AMURT & AMURTEL philosophy and field experiences, as well as key Participatory Learning & Action tools and principles. The training modules have been designed to enhance the Quality and Accountability of humanitarian programs, through the use of simulation, group work, case studies, role-plays, and practical tools and exercises.

The key participants this training will target include field leaders, project managers, fundraisers, rising coordinators, and people directly involved in the management of various AMURT & AMURTEL-related programs. Participants can choose to take individual modules or the entire 4-module program, resulting in an AMURT & AMURTEL professional development certification.

The Trainers

• Dharma Demeter Russafov: Dharma obtained his B.S. and B.A. degree in Environmental Science and Fine Art from UNC-Asheville and a Humanitarian Management diploma the Lyon Institute BioForce, and is currently completing an M.A. in Integrated Education from Endicott College. His experiences includes a 5-year stint with a US government urban planning agency, and 6 years managing a construction and design company he helped establish in 1999. Since 2004, Dharma has been coordinating AMURT’s growing humanitarian operation in Haiti. His primary interests include sustainable and participative community development and innovative PROUT-based capacity-building.

• Sarita Wolf: Sarita obtained her B.A. in Political Science from Haverford College and M.A. in Urban Education from Harvard in 2004. Since then she has had experience teaching and consulting in urban model schools, providing educator training and curriculum development and supervising community team projects in Asia and Latin America. In 2010 she was selected as the New York City Teacher of the Year by her students and peers. For the past 2 years she has coordinated AMURT’s education and protection programs in Haiti. Her interests include the development of learner-centered methodologies and integrated pedagogical training for community learning.

• Paul Ziade: Paul obtained his degree in International Development Management from the International Business School in Paris, and a Humanitarian Management diploma from the Lyon Institute BioForce. Paul’s primary expertise is in the domain of team and project management. His work experience includes team management in France, programs communication in Cambodia, and project coordination with AMURT-Haiti. His objective is the creation of replicable management systems based on participative methodologies, ensuring sustainable development in the communities involved.

• Dada Vishvarupananda: Dada started working with AMURT in 1984 as relief-in-charge for Ananda Nagar. One year later he was given the post of Global AMURT Coordinator, and has been assisting in the development of AMURT world-wide since then.

I recently returned from Haiti, and although it was distressing to see so many people still living in appalling conditions almost two years after the earthquake, it was also extremely inspiring to see how successful our Amurtel programs have been. I met with women from two of the 7 camps where we have been running MIKFAB- Amurtel’s self-financed micro credit program, and heard their own stories of how powerful this program has been. There were some unexpected results: a reduction in domestic violence of the women and children in the family, due in part to the non-violent communications classes we offered. I was also happy to hear the more expected results- improved health of the women and children in the home, increased self esteem in the participants, better food for the family, etc. All the women we talked with told us how important it has been for them to be part of the MIKFAB program and expressed hope we would not only continue it but expand the amounts given as well as the number of women participating. When I asked what else they needed, they unanimously agreed mobile medical clinics, literacy classes, and schools for their children.

To meet some of the women and read their stories, click here.

We are committed to working with these strong and resilient women to meet these goals, but the problem now is we are almost totally out of money. Most of the other NGO’s are pulling out of the camps, but unfortunately, the people living there don’t have that option; there is no place else to go.

I can’t stand the thought of cutting these programs- they are grassroots, empowering and successful for the women, children and communities involved.

With one month left of funding, we are turning to our larger, global community for support. If everyone reading this can donate at just $5- or more if possible, and then forward this email to everyone in their address book, asking the new readers to do the same, we can reach thousands of people, and together ensure these programs continue and grow. And we will- I guarantee it – make a lasting difference in people’s lives.

Please let us not be complacent in the face of what needs to be done. Let’s not turn our backs on our neighbors in Haiti. Time is a bit urgent for these women- Take a minute now and send a donation of whatever you can afford.

Thank you all for your generosity.

Joni Zweig
President- AMURTEL
North and Central America

How to make a Donation:
 
Donate online:
 
DONATE!

Checks can be made out to:

Amurtel
PO Box 232
Warren, VT 05674 USA

Donations from within the USA are tax deductible. For info on tax deduction programs in the UK, Canada, or other countries with, please email us for the appropriate address at info@amurtel.org.

Your donation will change the life of a family in Haiti, so please – donate now!

The most severe drought in decades is threatening the lives of more than 11 million people — especially young children — in the Horn of Africa. Severe famine has ravaged parts of southern Somalia, and threatens to spread further if nothing is done to prevent it. Kenya and Ethiopia are also severely affected by the crisis, with millions in critical need of food and water. The situation in Somalia is compounded by the high level of violence and civil unrest- with women and children often bearing the brunt of the violence. East Kenya is now home to hundreds of thousands of Somalis who have managed to flee the violence and drought conditions.

 
Although the situation in Somalia is currently too dangerous for us to send any workers directly there, Amurtel has been exploring ways to help those displaced and living in refugee camps, as well as communities in East Kenya that are experiencing the harsh results of drought and lack of food. Along with food distribution and medical care, one priority we are focusing on is to help women provide food security for their families through agricultural cooperatives centered around crops that can survive in the drought stricken areas. Below is a report from Didi Ananda Prama, one of our Disaster Team Leaders who is setting up an Amurtel Disaster Relief Program in Kenya.
 

Report From the Field

Below is a report from Didi Ananda Prama, an Amurtel Disaster Team Leader in Kenya.

Greetings and thanks to all who supported my coming to Kenya. It was a bit of a surprise arriving in Africa after a hiatus of 30 years but some things never change; like the disparity of the have’s and have nots, development and disarray.

I arrived in the chilly morning hours and the taxi driver decided to take the short cut over muddy pot holed roads to avoid the traffic on the new paved road that goes all the way from Nairobi to Mombasa. Though as Clare, a new found Kenyan friend, writer, mom and osteopath said,” we’ll no longer be sure to see elephants or lions on the road as we always did in the past, so is this progress?”

We passed zinc shack slums but circumvented the high rise city center and arrived in a beautiful area called Killimani. Here there are lovely Jacaranda trees with purple blossoms that hang like grape clusters and flowering bushes of intense beauty, but all homes have high walls and security guards at the entrance. Nairobi is like a cluster of villages, and has lovely weather warm, sunny during the day, and cool at night. This is the time of the small rains, so we get short down pours which makes everything green and lush but quick to dry. I am staying with the director of our Amurtel homeopathic college (www.abhalight.org) here in Nairobi. Many students have been trained here and gone on to set up clinics in the rural village areas. We visited one of the clinics near Wati, a 3 hour drive from Nairobi through mountains and green farmland that reminds me of Vermont. The clinic is run by 3 of her students and housed in a building she built in the village which treats all kinds of diseases including HIV, which is rampant in this area.

We visited a farm planted with corn and beans cultivated by donkeys who also carry water to the newly planted orange, papaya and mango trees. We were discussing the possibility of growing Spirulina. Spirulina is 60% protein using only 17% of the water needed for corn, and needs little land and labor for cultivation, thus providing greater food security for the farmers. Relief Watch in their October 2011 report estimates that there are 3.75 million Kenyans in rural areas suffering from food insecurity. The maize and beans are looking green and growing but are dependent on the rains that in recent years too often don’t come.

So I am on the Spirulina trail. Checking out if Kenya can really become the African bread basket and feed all the hungry with Spirulina. Writing a proposal to start a program with malnourished kids and deworm them and give them Spirulina daily and offer opportunities for their mothers to learn some health education and also provide micro finance to start small businesses.
On Sundays, AMURT/EL feeds over 1,000 kids from the nearby slum. They come and sit and get a plate of rice and beans with vegetables we dole out from buckets. It’s amazing how smoothly it goes until it’s over and all dash to line up by the gate and get a packet of biscuits to take home. After the children, the infants and mothers, babies strapped back or front, sit and eat a hot meal.