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Executive committee 2nd June 07

AFCONEEXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING HELD ON 2ND JUNE 2007 AT WIDOWS  AND CHILDREN

 

ATTENDEES                                        ABSENT WITH APOLOGY

1.Furaha Dimitry                                     1.Pascal Maziku

2.Violet H. Yimbo.                                  2.Yovita Makoko

3Donatian Marusu

4.Shaban Madega

5.Richard Mwendilimo

6.Mary Mabhaya

 

AGENDAS

1.How to help the weaker groups improve their services

2.Designing the monthly content meeting

3. Designing a calendar for executive committee meeting

Opening

4.PROYOLIPA

5.Opening New account

6.Electing Assistant officials.

 

Violet opened the meeting at 10.30 am by first asking members to pose for a prayer.She then thanked members for turning up for the meeting.She read the agendas to the committee members and asked them to feel free to suggest more agendas that are worth discussing for the benefit of the network.

 

1.HOW TO HELP WEAKER GROUPS IMPROVE THEIR SERVICES

Donatian said all gropups are weak in one way or the other in terms of leadership,illiteracy lack of commitment.However, there are some weakness that are more serious and really need attention. He said there are some groups where all membders are not learned at all.That was why proporsal writting was a major challenge to many.He gave an example of upendo where people who are not learned are in the same group.

Richard said it is hard to eradicate weakness in groups since people  have become very corrupt in the network.Tim introduced exchange visit to make us learn from others. But, people are not sincere.They stump forms during network meetings  just to present it for payment. Yet they did not visit at all. He said people have approached him to stamp forms that they exchanged visit yet they didn't, he refused.

-All the members supported Richards sentiments.Chairman was questioned if he is aware of that.

 

Furaha said he knows that habbit is going on but, what can i do if we are dealing with  grownups who have decided to be dishonest. Furaha further stressed that exchange visit is the most effective method of uplifting weaker groups but if they fail to see sense.That is bad enough.Chairman was told to remind members the main aim of exchange visit.

 

Richard said that the analysys form that Donatian brought could have helped in the evaluation of weaker groups. But, again people were not honest in filling the forms.

Donatian said that he noticed people filled untrue things. He got tough work convincing people that Tim cannever penalize anybody coz of the form.It only helps him to know how to help groups in general. He told members to grade groups as strong moderate and weak and members classified all groups in those three categories.

 

-Donatian suggested that it will help if we  identify some competent individuals from those weaker groups and talk to them individually and persuade them to try and improve their own groups. it works better from within than from outside

The committee agreed that Donatian  will design questionnaire form for all groups to fill. The form will be made in away that the person filling will answer questions without knowing that we are looking for weaknesses.l

2.DESIGNING THE MONTHLY CONTENT MEETING.

A member suggested that we should design the content with specific target since we have a lot within  a short duration of time.

- A member suggested that we should set creteria that qualifies a topic for presentation.

SUGGESTIONS WERE:

-You should be a proffessional in that field. We have so many professionals wthin our network and we need to use them.

 

-You shuld have an experience.

 

If a professional has given a lecture on a particular topic for example rights a child---Sharing real life experience is allowed.For example if there is someone whose rights were violated as a child. He can say how he went through it and the lessons we can borrow to help us help the children we care for if a similar situation arise or one related to that.

 

Real life experience should be voluntarism.Tha is you will not be paid and you should not exceed 15 mins.

The committee agreed that all those wishing to make presentation must hand in the draft early enough to the excecutive committee.

The commmittee will go through all handouts and decide which one is worth presentinbg and the best content will B short listed by the committee not Furaha.So that Furaha can B free from blame since some people hold grudge with him for denying them presentation opportunity.Furaha gave an example of Azzaria who asked to give presentation on STI deseases.Dr, Nyirabu also applied for the same.When Furaha allowed Nyirabu coz of his Profession and people will have confidence in him more than Azzaria. Azzaria felt bad with Furaha and insulted him. Shaban reassured Furaha that it is now solved . You will never B blame again. If somebody is turned down it will B the committee not Furaha.

 

ROYOLIPA

Violet asked members what can B done to help trace PROYOLIPA ?

-First, Furaha asked if anybody knows their wherebouts.

-Donatian expressed his dissatisfaction with members relactancy. He said network members were not serious to help trace the P0ROYOLIPA thieves.

-Madega said we need an explanation from the then officers about PROYOLIPA.

-Donatian said  that when he visited them, he told the fellow officers that the way I see things, I request that, we do not reccommend this group for funds.But, Marusu and Bwire insisted.

He then kept silence. He asked why Marusu was not present in the 1st place.

-Violet explained that he asked for apology.

_ He said he feels Mazuku is not sincere.He went on "one time he called me and said the PROYOLIPA Man is here can you come we talk." He said he advised Mazuku to bring him to the Network meeting and let him explain to members what happened .

-From their upto now neither Mazuku or PROYOLIPA Man called him again.

Madega said these leaders we need an an explanation.if Mazuku misses another excecutive committee meeting he will have to explain. The committee anonymously agreed that we nee to look for PROYOLIPA.

OPENING NEW ACCOUNT

Donatian said the current bank delays Network progress coz they are too slow and the que is too long.

-chairman and other committee members supported  him. The committee agreed that we need to change to another bank.

-Donatian was given the responsibility to visit the inqury desks of Barclays and CRDB .He should collect more information about the two banks and report to he commitee to decide whuch is best.

DESIGNING  A CALENDAR FOR EXCECUTIVE COMMITEE MEETINGS

-It was suggested that the excecutive committee meeting should B held each month.

-It should take place one week before the monthly network meeting to enable us decide on a good presentation. The suggested dates for executive committee meetings were:

July 21st

August 18Th

September 22nd

October 20th

Nov 17th

Dec 22nd

The committee is requesting Tim to send monthly operation reports a week before the network meeting so that it can B discussed by the executive committee . By doing this we will not spend the whole day in the monthly meeting any more.

 

ELECTING ASSISTANT OFFICIALS

Furaha said there is a need to elect assistants for some officers to enhace delegation of duties . He said people to assist should be members of executive committee who show commitment to the network.

-Members agreed that it is important to do so coz in case of imergency that one officer do not show up, there will B someone else who is more conversant wth his duties that can carry on wiyhout any problem.

-It was agreed that electing assistant officials will B done come the next executive committee meeting.

CONDEMNING LEADERS

A member said, the culture of condemning network officials should B discouraged.

-Furaha said, that started from Tim, and members followed suit.However, am happy nowadays he has changed.

Mary said Tim promised transparency and I think that is what transparency demands.

-Violet said Tim knows where to give credits and where to rebuke as well.

-Furaha said some people improve better with appreciation than rebukes.However, as for me am used to him and am very grateful for the skills of leadership that I have leaned from him.It helps me a lot to run my group effectively.

Madega amused people by asking,So, you expect appriciation even when you have done nothing ?

Violet concluded the meeting at 5.00O'clock expressing her greates gratitude for members turnup and mervelous contribution.

26 May 07 Network meeting record

The network held its fifth meeting of 2007 on 26 May.

Donatian:
REPORT OF THE FIFTH AFCONET MEETING, 26TH May 2007

Venue: CARE International Hall.

The meeting started around 9:05 a.m. preceded by registration and warm up.

Introduction: The meeting started with greetings and a welcome note from the chairman.

All the officers were present and they carried out their responsibilities accordingly. i.e (Furaha Dimitrios (Chairman), Pascal Maziku (Secretary) and Yovita Makoko (Treasurer)

Attendance: 30 people attended the meeting while 25 were the groups’ representatives.
Absent groups were 3:  which were Twafaha, Redhouse 2000 and Socac,

Debriefing of the last meeting: The April meeting minutes were read by the secretary, Pascal Maziku and people were invited to ask for clarification, comments and suggestions.

Programmes:
The topic about INHERITANCE AND AN EXAMPLE OF WILL WRITING was presented by:     Utti A. Mwang’amba
         Centre for Widows and Children Assistance (CWCA)
        P.O. Box 60202
        Tel. 0754693892 or 0787088513
        Email. childrenwidows (at) yahoo.co.in or widows.children (at) gmail.com
        Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, East Africa.

The brainstorming questions raised were:
-What is inheritance?
-Types of inheritance
-Various types of inheritance laws
-Meaning of will write and its importance
-Types of will
-Legal aspects of will write

EXCHANGE VISIT REPORTS
The exercise of Exchange visit report was carried out for the members representing their groups to report whether they carried out exchange visit this month or not. So the following is the short report of the exchange visits carried in this month.

1.Preventive Health Care, represented by Violet Yimbo and Mary-Rose Michele, did not visit any group in this month.
2.MSWS, represented by Daudi Mussa, visited Chimaba Sanaa Group this month. During their visit they found the group busy with children performing art. They learned how the Chimaba officers manage to recruit the OVC by involving the local Authority officers.
3.Tupendane Women Group, represented by Amina Mfungo, visited YLRF group this month and learned about keeping good regular records.
4.YLRF Group, represented by Anna Njowoka, visited three groups this month, which are CWCA group where they learned how they offer legal assistance to widows and OVC. They also visited Tupendane Women Group where they learned how they provide HIV/AIDS education and ARV drugs to patients. They as well visited Chiyowonet group where they learned how to support children in schools with various needs such as uniforms, school fees and other school materials.
5.Vumwe Group, represented by Mwanahamisi Mvungi, did not visit any group this month.
6.Woyona Group, represented by Joyce Masami, did not visit any group this month.
7.Tawosu Group, represented by Cresentia Aloyce, Sperancia Kalinga and Mary Mabhaya, did not visit any group this month
8.Moms in Touch Group, represented by Liberatha Mushi, did not visit any group this month.
9.Wolisu Group, represented by Ismail Mahamudu and Devotha Nyondo, did not visit any group this month.
10.Good Samaritan Group, represented by Consalva Kasian, did not visit any group this month
11.Upendo Group, represented by Agnes Magembe and Flora Christopher, did not visit any group this month
12.Tukolene Group, represented by Magdalena Makala, Visited Good Samaritan Group this month and learned how they provide education to OVC of different ages, and more interesting was on to the young OVC who are raised in a special way to manage their studies in the future.
13.Chakupau Group, represented by Salha Ally, visited Good Samaritan this month and learned how they provide education to OVC through TV shows and design forms for OVC. They also visited SOCAC group where they learned how to carry out Home Based Care services to OVC and ways of looking and identifying funders
14.NICE Group, represented by Flaviana Ephraim, visited Vumwe Women Progressive Centre and learned how they help orphans get education by connecting them to schools
15.Chimaba Sanaa Group, represented by Azaria Mjengwa, visited MSWS and learned how they give support to OVC on uniforms and food, and also how they provide environmental care education to the OVC guardians
16.Yopac Group, represented by Stella Miti and Pascal Maziku, visited CWCA (revision to previous short time visit), learned how they give legal assistance to OVC.
They also prepared a bonanza using the shared grant Project offered by Argentarius foundation where the shared groups were given opportunity to send three representatives each.
17.Sageta Group, represented by Angelico Mwachali and Furaha Dimitrios, visited CWCA this month and learned how they give legal assistance to OVC, customer Care and good records keeping
18.Poverty Fighters’ Group, represented by Kassimu Mohamed, did not visit any group this month
19.Pofideso Group, represented by Shaban Madega, did not visit any group this month
20.CWCA Group, represented by Suresh Ashvin and Utti Mwang’amba, visited Sageta Group this month and learned how to communicate message to people by using posters and printings on the T-shirts. They also learned how to involve community in the group’s activities. They agreed to form a small network between them to continue sharing talents and information.
21.Uzima Centre Group, represented by Vedasto Oganda, did not visit any group this month
22.Chiyowonet Group, represented by Yovita Makoko, did not visit any group this month
23.Iyana Education Trust Group, represented by Simon King’ung’e, No information available about their exchange visit
24.Siyope Group, represented by Thomas Alex, no information available for their exchange visits
25.Ciso Group, represented by Joseph Mulamula, No information available about their exchange visits

Reflection about the Dar Network Operation report for May 2007
The Dar Network operation report for May 2007 was read in the meeting by Pascal Maziku, because Violet who was supposed to read was not yet in under emergency.  After the report was read the members rose up their concerns and challenges as follows:
1.About Exchange visit Records
-On the Table list of exchange visits – hosts, two groups are missing which CWCA and Moms in touch which according to the members of these groups, they received visits

a) Corrections:
-On the table list of Exchange visits – Hosts there are slightly changes to be remarked as follows:
Chiyowonet Group received 4 visits but the list shows only 1 visit.
Pofideso group received 5 visits but the list shows only 2 visits
Preventive H.C.F received 3 visits but the list shows only 1visit
Upendo Group received 2 visits but the list shows 3 visits
Yopac group received 2 visits but the list shows 1 visit
Moms In Touch received 2 visits but not shown in the list
CWCA group received 2 visits but not shown in the list

-On the Exchange visits for 2007 on the groups that made visits there were also changes as follows:
Chiyowonet Group visited 2 groups but the list shows 1
Moms in Touch visited 4 groups but the list shows 3
Pofideso group visited 3 groups but the list shows 2
Poverty fighters visited 4 groups but the list shows 3
Tupendane Group visited 1 group but not shown in the list
Upendo group visited 2 groups but not shown in the list
NB. I had difficulties in printing the updated table lists may be due to the settings you put. Again may you please for next time format with grid lines for ease references?

b) Recommendations:
The members gave recommendations about the Exchange visits as follows:
-The exchange visit report is good as:
It helps to ensure accountability
It clarifies the groups’ activities
It alerts the groups that have not done or with less exchange visit to do so timely
It helps and reminds the groups in bearing their due responsibilities
It helps in keeping records of the groups’ activities
Comment:  the exchange visits report need to be improved by clearly, correctly and properly showing the visitors and host groups and number of visits

2.Accounts
Discussions on accounts were basically based on why the monthly bank statement not reaching the Argentarius Foundation on time.  The Treasurer and the chairman explained the problem they face with the bank, “Savings and Finance Bank” which has a lot of bureaucracy in operation. The treasurer added saying that she sometimes faces problems in getting cash from this complicated bank where they need a lot of documentations and sometimes they tend to lack cash.
Solution reached was better to change the bank to another effective and efficient one like CRDB, NBC or NMB. The chairman begged the members to leave the issue to the officers to have some consultation to know which bank operates with good, simple and fair terms if at all we are to make a shift. I hope you will as well have some ideas about this. We hopefully wait for your suggestions as well.

3.About Funding Proposals for the whole Network:
The ideas from the members three things to be done if we seek to write funding proposal:
Experience shows that most Granters need to see whether the organisation has an office with required documents and with specific address
We need to have strategic plans- this area is very technical and hence we need to arrange to get facilitation on this that we all have to be aware and well informed about how to write strategic plans for funding proposal something which may also help individual groups
Each group of the Network was assigned to come next meeting with a theme for the proposal of which few expert members from the network will combine all the ideas and come up with an intensive proposal covering the integrated groups activities analysis.

4.Award for the best learning from the exchange visit
At the end of the meeting, the prizewinner of the Swahili Clock, Chimaba Sanaa Group happily received their long eagerly waited prize. Though seemed not aware on how the Swahili Clock is used, he thanked the Argentarius Foundation and the AFCONET for initiating such a wonderful competition, which they managed to become the prizewinner for 2007 competition award. Encouraging the other members to take part, while presenting the prize to the Director of Chimaba Sanaa Group, Azaria Mjengwa on behalf of the group, the AFCONET Coordinator (Donatian Marusu) commented that besides getting the prize, the competition has a lot of benefits including nourishing the capacity of the members in writing reports and even sharing the group’s activities with other groups for enhancing each other

5.On Email Training
The members were reminded on the email training that is going on to some of the members. The graduates of the training proved that they are carrying on well with using email without any severe problems. Those who are still on trainings were reminded to arrange with Donatian Marusu for progress. One member from Poverty fighters Group, Kassim Mohamed, requested for the training but he claimed to lack transport fair to and from the training venue, which cost about 2000 Tshs for public transport each day. I hope you will respond on this.

6. Other meeting undertakings
-
About Receipts for 2007 Grant: I had problems in identifying which groups have not yet sent receipts to you as some of the members claimed to have done so. May you please help me in giving the list of the groups that have already sent receipts to you via your airmail that I may know them and make efforts to remind those, which have not done so. Only one group, Tupendane Women Group reported to have not done so, I gave a copy of receipt to Amina Mufungo and promised to send you in two days to come. I hope you will receive it.
Treasurer’s activities: at the end of the meeting the treasurer, Yovita performed her task of payment to the different network activities expenses such as: Exchange visit Expenses (even the moms in Touch were paid), Coordinators and officers’ expenses, caterer’s expenses, and other associated expenses pertaining to the network activities.

End:
The meeting ended around 05:00p.m.

Pascal:

MINUTES OF AFCONET MEETING HELD 26th MAY 2007

 

Participants as per attached spreadsheet of the attendance register

 

Agenda of the Meeting:

* Opening of the meeting

* Reading of Minutes of the previous meeting

* Session on Inheritance and Writing Will Statement

* Different reports from Foundation –London ,

* AOB

* Closing of the meeting

 

1.0 Openning of the meeting

The Meeting was officially opened at 9:00am by the Chairperson

 

2.0 Reading of Minutes of the previous meeting

Following the introductory speech by the chairperson, the Secretary was invited to ready minutes of the previous meeting (Of 28/4/2007). The minutes were read and there was no matters arising than accepting them.

 

3.0 Session on Inheritance and Writing Will Statement

The session was presented by Utti A.Mwang’amba from CWCA.

In her session Utti shared about inheritance law background the concept, meaning and types of Inheritance, who inherits? Indian Inheritance Act of 1865, Islamic Law and Traditional law. Utti clarified strength and weaknesses of the current inheritance laws, advantage and disadvantages of failure to write will statement. She explained the advantage of both Primary and Documentary will. Utti also explained how much lawyers do struggle to amend bad laws on inheritance and made a call to AFCONET to join hands in the struggle to amend such laws.

 

 

In her session Utti distributed sample form to write Will so that participants may help other also on how to do so.

 

4.0 Different reports from Foundation –London

From London a performance report was read by the Secretary directly translating form English to Swahili on behalf of Donatian Marusu who was feeling sick. This concerned the three officers of AFCONET i.e Chairperson, Secretary and the treasure. Exchange visit reports also were distributed to members for their perusal.

Feedback from members about the reports from London were hailed that they are helpful as for credibility of the Network and transparency of the functioning of the Network. Even though members requested that forms should have a column to show names of the visitors too. This reflects the spreadsheet I send to you every month.

The issue of mobilizing resources from other donors had the following comment from members, the Network should have an office because most Donors like to visit partners and this goes in hand with knowing their operations location. This also is a demand by the registrar.

 

5.0 A.O.B

Chiyowonet and CHIMABA suggested that AFCONET may temporarily operate from their offices in order to meet the concern raised at agenda 4 above if you in London approves that.

Another issue was about writing a joint proposal but the following concerns were raised

* Having been implementing different activities from our groups, it will be difficult to come up with one joint activity and or joint proposal to be implemented together. It was suggested probably the committee will come up with constructive ideas.

*

6.0 END

The meeting was closed at 5;11pm. Next meeting will be held on 30th June 2007

 

Prepared by

Pascal J.Maziku

AFCONET Secretary.