8th CIVICUS World Assembly in Glasgow

The 8th World Assembly in 2008 will be the last of the Glasgow series, which has seen a growth each year in the number of delegates and the number of countries represented. The overall theme will be ‘Acting Together for a Just World’, with a focus theme of ‘People, Participation and Power’. Deadline for early bird registration is 1 February 2008. For more information

International Women's Health Conference in Derry

This conference aims open up debate on the need to improve health status and reduce health inequalities by focusing on the themes of Women and exclusion, maintaining women's roles in determining health and well-being when societies move from conflict to post conflict, and Meeting health needs on a cross border basis. The conference takes place on the 29-30 May 2008 and is hosted by Derry Well Woman.

Our commitment to international development, where is it?

While the Northern Ireland Executive has taken the important step of setting up an All Party Working Group on International Development we would appear to be miles behind our neighbours in Scotland in this regard. NIDOS which is the main Network of International Development Organisations in Scotland has just been set up. Recently the Scottish Government announced its international development budget. I look forward to similar commitments here.

People's Learning and Action

The Institute for People's Education and Action seeks to identify, support, and facilitate community-based, learner-led education as a strategic tool for community organizing and democratic social change. It has some useful links to Grundtvig Folk Schools, Latin American Popular Education, Study Circle learning and much more. They also have a useful set of resources including links to other People's and Communal based learning networks, an extensive bibliography and educational resources and toolkits. Very useful indeed.

Training for transformation

The Partners Training for Transformation, who have been hiding out in Ireland, are an independent agency dedicated to personal, group, organisational and societal transformation through community development work. Partners have been largely involved in cross-border and cross-cultural contexts and have developed considerable international networks. They have recently brought out the publication Partners Intercultural Companion to Training for Transformation: Exercises, Processes, Resources, and Reflections for Intercultural Work. This new resource written by Maureen Sheehy, Frank Naughton, and Collette O'Reagan is a compilation of exercises, processes, resources and reflections used by facilitators over several years. It draws mainly from the experience of PARTNERS’ work in Ireland, Wales, England, Scotland and in a European Grundtvig Learning experience.

Eight hot topics for international development in 2008

From Laurence Haddad, Director of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. Read more here.

DARD announce publication of Farm Planning Handbook

'The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) have announced the publication of the ‘Farm Business Data 2008’ farm planning handbook. "Farm Business Data 2008" will be a valuable source of information for farmers, their professional advisors, those undertaking formal training in agriculture or anyone who requires planning and budgetary data relating to farming in Northern Ireland. The role of ‘Farm Business Data’ is to provide a comprehensive and authoritative source of physical and financial information that is tailored to farm planning needs in Northern Ireland.'

Download handbook here.