AWARE Reinforces Local NGO's

Reinforcing the capacity of local NGO's was built into the scope of the AWARE Project, which is funded by USAID and implemented by ADRA-STP. "While there is a considerable number of NGO’s (81) registered in the National Federation of NGO’s (FONG), one of the major setbacks in the fight against poverty and promotion of development in São Tomé and Príncipe is the reduced number of NGO’s with capacity to implement effective programs, especially in the health sector," writes Emanuel G. Costa, Country Director for ADRA-STP and one of the primary authors of the AWARE Project. To address this, the AWARE project organized three training sessions for local NGO's in August: one in Project Proposal, one in Monitoring and Evaluation, and one in Financial Management. More than 25 local NGO's sent representatives to the training sessions. AWARE contracted several professional consulting agencies to conduct the trainings, which were attended by over 30 people on most days.

But reinforcement of capacity doesn't stop with trainings. "I am very happy to announce that we will be entering into partnership with four local NGO's as a result of these trainings," writes Dr. Adam D. Kiš, AWARE Project Director. "We have set aside funds within our budget to be awarded as subgrants to local NGO's, who will use the funds to help achieve specific AWARE Project objectives, such as constructing community health posts. Now, because of the training sessions provided by AWARE, these NGO's have been empowered to write good proposals and will have practical opportunities to practice good financial management and monitoring and evalution through implementing their subgrant activities."

At the end of the final training session, a certification ceremony was held to acknowledge the efforts and accomplishments of all involved. The ceremony was covered in the news by the national television company, and this news coverage can be viewed in the video clip at the top of this blog entry. If the embedded video is not working, you can click here to view it in a separate browser window.

NOTICE: This video clip was purchased by ADRA-STP (the Adventist Development and Relief Agency – São Tomé e Príncipe) with USAID/AWARE funds (the United States Agency for International Development/Action for West Africa Region Project) from TVS (Televisão Sãotomense), the national television company of São Tomé e Príncipe. ADRA-STP wishes to give full credit to TVS for filming all parts of the video clip, and for cropping, deleting, editing, narrating, and otherwise formatting the final content of this video clip.