Monday, September 10, 2007

Follow-up Meeting: Day 2


Mission Accomplished!


In the morning, Christina and Jose came to the center and drove us to their facility where the presentation of CIDH and RUMBA took place. El Centro Internacional para el Desarrollo Humano (CIDH) was a non-profit, multidisciplinary, educational and applied research organization based in San José, Costa Rica, whose mission is to promote the sustainability of the development process in Latin America and the Caribbean. CIDH works with international agencies, including the World Bank, UNDP, and IADB, to promote sustainable human development through programs of social dialogue, applied research, and academic exchange, giving individuals and organizations access to the knowledge and skills they need to play a major role in the development process.

For RUMBA, it was affiliated with the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA), which was a global network of individuals and organisations concerned with the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding worldwide. WABA action is based on the Innocenti Declaration, the Ten Links for Nurturing the Future and the Global Strategy for Infant & Young Child Feeding. Its core partners are IBFAN, LLLI, ILCA, Wellstart International and ABM.

Then, we visited Omar Dengo Foundation (ODF). It was a private non-profit institution which had launched national and regional projects in the area of educational innovation and the social benefits of new technologies. The ODF's projects were varied and benefited a large number of Costa Ricans, especially young and adolescent students, educators, members of the communities, and senior citizens. The ODF had extensive experience in the fields of education, evaluation, research, and the design, management, and execution of projects of an educational and social nature. The Foundation currently developed programs in the following areas, for example, Educational Informatics, Professional Development and Training for Educators, Educational Innovation, Digital Technologies for all, and etc.

After that, we went back to the center due to some NGOs' representatives would like to come see us at the Global College to have a further discussion about their fields of work and also the the application form. Unfortunately, most of the NGOs that visited us at the center were more comfortable with speaking Spanish than English so the Spanish speakers had to be involved in the discussion. And the rest who could not understand Spanish got to write the reports about the NGOs that we had been met in the past 2 days. Nevertheless, we got a good number of NGOs that interested in affiliation with the NGO/DPI as expected. In conclusion, a Breakfast Meeting and the Follow-up Meetings were considered successful and we were glad to see our mission accomplished.

By Sudarat Adirek