August 2011
On July 22, at the fourth Ministerial Meeting of the Lower Mekong Initiative held in Bali, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the launch of Winrock-implemented Lowering Emissions in Asia’s Forests (LEAF) project. A video with her full comments is available here.
In July, The Wallace Center at Winrock International announced 17 new awards it will grant under its Wallace Healthy Urban Food Enterprise Development (HUFED) Center. A total of $630,000 in awards will be granted to 17 groups who propose innovative and entrepreneurial approaches to resolve barriers to healthy food access among the poorest in the country. Read the press release and see the full list of grantees.
The Community Development Institute—Central (CDI) at the University of Central Arkansas awarded Winrock International the Friend of CDI Award for the organization’s long-time support of CDI. The presentation was part of a ceremony on Aug. 5. CDI-Central is a three-year training program, with one week of training per year. Participants are exposed to a comprehensive approach to community and economic development.
Last month, the Upper Nile State Ministry of Education (SMoE) in South Sudan launched a new mentoring program for all secondary school students throughout the state. The SMoE convened 21 teachers and six ministry personnel for a three-day training in Malakal. The training, facilitated by SMoE officials and supported by Winrock’s Gender Equity through Education (GEE) program staff, inducted the participants as mentors, taught them to plan and conduct effective mentoring sessions, and established roles and responsibilities for each actor at the government and school level. By the end of the training, the new mentors had drafted action plans for mentoring activities at their respective schools and the ministry staff had established a schedule for monitoring visits to the schools. The mentoring program is an approved activity of the RoSS/Ministry of Education, funded by USAID through Winrock/GEE.
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Help Support Winrock in the GlobalGiving Open Challenge; Bonus Day is Aug. 16
 As a selected participant in GlobalGiving’s open challenge period for the month of August, Winrock International can qualify to raise funding for projects that are making a positive global impact. Winrock will gain permanent membership on GlobalGiving’s website if we successfully complete the challenge to raise $4,000 from 50 individual donors by Aug. 31. Looking forward, GlobalGiving membership represents the opportunity to raise matching funds for many Winrock projects around the world.
For the challenge period, Winrock is featuring the Nike-sponsored Mata no Peito initiative. Donations to Mata no Peito will be pooled to fund projects that protect and replant forests in Brazil. The loss of forests significantly impacts the global climate and threatens the well-being and livelihoods of millions currently living in Amazon and Atlantic forest communities.
You can support Winrock by making a contribution to Winrock at the GlobalGiving site. In fact, if you donate today – Aug. 16 – GlobalGiving will provide a 15 percent match for all online donations up to $1,000. Matching funds will be provided to the project, but not count toward the challenge fundraising goal. All GlobalGiving August Challenge participants are eligible for the Bonus Day match until the total grant amount of $3,000 is used, so please make your contribution early before the funds run out. You can also help by sharing the link on Facebook. Thank you for supporting Winrock. 
Completion of the 1,000th Domestic Biogas Plant is Celebrated in Pakistan
 The Pakistan Domestic Biogas Program celebrated the completion of the 1,000th biogas plant in Pakistan last month. Sohaib Sultan Khan, chairperson of the Rural Support Programmes Network (RSPN), together with the biogas plant owner, inaugurated the 1,000th plant in the Sargodha District of Pakistan. Program partners from Winrock International, government agencies, SNV and RSPN were present, along with Biogas construction companies and local community members. RSPN implements the program with financial support from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and technical support from SNV, a Dutch organization, and Winrock International.
In 2007, Winrock and SNV conducted the feasibility study, which revealed the technical potential for 5 million domestic biogas plants in Pakistan. The Pakistan Domestic Biogas Program was designed with a vision to create a commercially viable domestic biogas sector in Pakistan with an installation target of 300,000 biogas plants in 10 years. These plants supply biogas to households for cooking and lighting and offer multiple benefits related to energy, health and sanitation, agriculture, employment and the environment. 
Asset Based Community Development Helps Fight Child Labor in Rwanda and Tanzania
 Drawing from Winrock’s extensive experience in grassroots community development, the Rwanda Education Alternatives for Children (REACH) project has adopted a new approach in the fight against child labor, in order to ensure activities will be sustained after project completion. REACH is using Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approaches to implement child labor interventions and assist communities to identify existing community assets and produce action plans to sustain project activities beyond the project period. The ABCD approach was applied successfully in Winrock’s Tanzanian Education Alternatives for Children (TEACH) project. TEACH representative, Mary Kibogoya, travelled to Rwanda to train REACH staff on the techniques in June. TEACH found that communities often do not recognize their own strengths and assets, but by using the ABCD approach, communities felt empowered and less reliant on outside funding to address child labor.
Community stakeholders involved in ABCD include parents, police, teachers, local government officials, religious leaders and other key community members. So far, three community workshops have been hosted by REACH in Nyamasheke, Nyarugenge and Kayonza Districts. During the workshop in Kanjongo Sector in Nyamasheke, a government official in charge of social affairs said, “It is we, the community, that knows better our problems than development partners; whose role is to support us to solve our own problems. The children engaged in child labor are our children and the employers are our neighbors. It’s upon us to speak straight to their faces and combat these abusive acts against the future of Rwanda.”
He goes on to emphasize, “We need home-grown solutions for our child labor.” REACH district staff will continue to assist communities in identifying assets that could be used in supporting project-initiated interventions and help them plan how those assets can be used to support activities and continue the struggle against child labor. 
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