Welcome to the Link Asea blog
The Blog section of our web site is now in action. This is expected to become a major tool in our work, and hopefully a core communications tool for the community that we hope will develop around Link Asea's core activities.
So, why the pretty picture? Well, effective capacity development through the application of modern knowledge management tools and methods is our core business, and the photo reminds me of perhaps the most rewarding capacity-building experience I've had.
The scene is of a wedding party of Uygur tribes-people in a truly beautiful setting, known as Heavenly Lake, near Urumqi in Western China. This was at the end of the business planning workshops in Urumqi, in Western China, for thirteen Distance Learning Centres. I was able to visit because the participants worked extra long hours so that the last (planned) day would be available for sight-seeing!
The whole experience during that workshop really demonstrated how much we could learn from each other, how well we could interact and how friendships could be developed even through translators, and how modern communications reaches even the most remote, isolated locations today.
Comments
I would like to echo the power of modern knowledge management tools and methods for a very effective capacity development, by sharing some of my work in capacity building by linking Asian countries.
I developed one capacity building program on Mother and Child Health Education for Mongolian Youth, with an aim to nurture specialists in mother and child health care. Opportunities for such education for nurses are scarce in Mongolia, so this program was designed for nurses in Mongolia to be able to get education at the accessible condition, by taking advantage of video-conferencing system. 5 locations within Mongolia and Japan were connected by video-conferencing and knowledge was shared without too much time and financial burden on participating nurses and lecturer’ shoulder. This training course held on April 2008 saw a turnout of 440 young women at 5 venues connected by the videoconferencing. The participants could, not only be able to access to the latest knowledge, but also could build a network among themselves. Cost-effectiveness of the capacity building program by video-conferencing made it easier for continuous education on a long-term basis, and second session is planned to be held in March 2009, with approximately 400 nurses.
Approximately 600 Nurses, front-line health providers, in Indonesia and Timor Leste will also gather in February 2009 via video-conferencing to learn about the disaster nursing in order to meet the need of community to have daily appropriate disaster nursing services and the skilled nurses in disaster preparedness, responses, and rehabilitation. The response from Indonesia has been very enthusiastic, and this program is also expected to promote the effective knowledge sharing of the most needed knowledge of disaster nursing among the nurses in different countries and locations by taking advantage of modern knowledge management tools and methods.
Knowledge is power, and capacity building opportunities is something that “unreached” people are also looking for. I learned through some of the ICT enabled capacity building projects that modern knowledge management tools and methods has a power to reach different people even “unreached” population for the latest and needed knowledge sharing.
Posted by: Yuka | February 13, 2009 10:54 PM