Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
06 November 2019
Post No. 116
The Week’s Contents
• Skills Development Month, In Focus: Skills to Manage Uncertainty and Financial Pressure
• “A la une“ (Autumn Leaves of Action for the Upkeep of the Nature in Existence) Campaign, Note No. 5 – In Focus between 06/11/2019 and 12/11/2019: Options to Adapt and Change Habits
• Festive Income Booster with Little Extra Income Generation
… and much more!
Key Messages
~ Skills Development Month, In Focus: Skills to Manage Uncertainty and Financial Pressure
November at CENFACS is the month of education and training; which revolves around the development of skills for life, for work, for poverty relief and sustainable development. It is the month during which we look into ourselves and try to assess, explore and learn the skills we need in order to help further reduce poverty in a sustainable way amongst ourselves and re-engage with the business of sustainable development.
It is also the training implementation month during which educationally related projects or projects that involve training, skills development and acquisition of new knowledge to help users and our Africa-based Sister Organisations (ASOs) to empower themselves with the educational tools and training resources they need to further help reduce poverty. One of the skills development project planned to support ASOs is Skills for Value Chains.
We all know that poverty is not only material or the lack of monetary income; it is even more the lack of knowledge, skills, know how and technologies than anything else. Therefore, knowing and learning a skill can help to further reduce poverty and set one on the right course of the development process.
We strive to support those who want to learn a skill while we at CENFACS as an organisation plan our own training, learning and development programme from time to time when we can access both funding and training.
The November 2019 focus will be on enhancing skills to manage uncertainty linked to exiting economies (or economies in transition) and festive financial pressure
To find out and or support the November 2019 skills development month, read the Main Developments section of this post.
~ “A la une“ (Autumn Leaves of Action for the Upkeep of the Nature in Existence) Campaign, Note No. 5 –
In Focus between 06/11/2019 and 12/11/2019: Options to Adapt and Change Habits
Our Autumn running theme of the upkeep of the nature is still in progress. After campaigning for sustainable trajectories for the nature (note 1), balanced diets (note 2), biofuel crops and new forests (note 3), and the reduction of coastal extreme events (note 4); we are now working on the options to adapt and possibly change habits (note 5).
For further the current campaigning note of the upkeep of the nature, please read the Main Developments section of this post.
~ Festive Income Booster: Little Extra Income Generation
The next issue of our Autumn ICDP (Individual Capacity Development Programme) resource, known as Festive Income Boost and which is designed to support Multi-dimensionally Income Poor Children, Young People and Families (MIPCYPFs); will focus on little extra ways of generating income. This year, our focus will be on some of the casual jobs and creative ways of generating some little extra incomes that poor people and families may embark on to make ends meet around the festive period.
More information about this year’s edition of Festive Income Booster has been provided under the Main Developments section of this post.
Extra Messages
Besides the above selected initiatives for your readership and engagement, we have added for this week the following.
~ CENFACS Charity e-Shop: GOODS DONATIONS & SHOPPING
Like any organisation running a shop over the Season’s special occasions, CENFACS needs GOODS DONATIONS and SHOPPING at its e-store over the festive time.
We would very much appreciate if supporters could help either by providing GOODS as DONATIONS or SHOPPING at CENFACS e-Store or both. This way of supporting can further help reduce poverty over the Festive season and beyond.
To find out details about items to donate and / or to donate GOODS, go http://cenfacs.org.uk/supporting-us/
To buy donated goods, go to http://cenfacs.org.uk/shop/
Thank you to those who wish to support our e-store!
~ DRC Appeal: Autumn Review
As a result of two on-going developments on the grounds in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), we are reviewing our Happiness Appeal we launched during the last Summer. The two developments are the same issues that DRC is facing: Ebola virus and conflicting situation in the province of Kivu.
According to the DRC official source, 2,185 people have died so far from the Ebola virus disease out of 3,274 screened cases. 246,310 people have been vaccinated in the stricken-disease province. At the same time, there has been a rising level of armed violence and attacks against health personnel dealing with the Ebola virus and the sick. There are as well extremist and fundamentalist militants who are fighting against the regular Congolese army and the locals in the same part of the country.
Because of these facts and data, we are reviewing our previous appeals about the DRC. We are at the same following the development on the grounds in the remote and conflicting zones. We are particularly trying to find out about the safety of vulnerable and poor people, and among them women and children.
One can hope that the wisdom will prevail so that peace, which other Congolese people are enjoying in other parts of their country, will be the same in the conflicting and Ebola-stricken areas; peace from health and security points of view.
In meantime, CENFACS will continue to appeal to all sides to keep working for peace and health in the interests of poor people in DRC.
~ Skills Data Bank
As part of our Skills Development Month, we would like to let you know that you can register your skills to our data bank; which is a repository containing information about CENFACS and the data of the CENFACS’ Community. The register is free and skills information are stored following the data protection act.
Knowing the skills that one possesses, it makes easy when opportunity arises to match them with registered skills. It also helps to point those in need of support to the right and relevant a skilful person and direction.
To register your skills to make up the CENFACS’ Community of skilled people, please contact CENFACS.
Main Developments
• Skills Development Month –
In Focus: Skills to Manage Uncertainty and Financial Pressure
This year, for the Skills Development Month, we are going to focus on two areas where difficulties can come from for those in need. These areas are:
1) The prolong uncertainty linked to the exit or non exit from a regional economic bloc like in the case of the UK searching ways of exiting or not exiting the EU economic bloc
2) The financial pressure to cover the expenses of the end of the year’s festivities for families on very modest incomes
The two issues require those in most pressing life-sustaining needs to develop skills to meet them. Our Skills Development Month will therefore concentrate on the skills and capacities that those living in poverty need to less painfully manage uncertainty linked to exiting economies and the festive financial pressure. This is our general focus for this 2019 November Skills Development.
Besides this general November interest, we have planned weekly skills focus. In other words, each week of November 2019, we shall have skills set to focus on. The following plan is our weekly skills focus:
Weeks Skills Focus
Week 1 (starting 04/11/2019): Skills to manage economic uncertainty
Week 2 (starting 11/11/2019): Skills to cope with financial pressure
Week 3 (starting 18/11/2019): Skills to survive economic transition
Week 4 (starting 25/11/2019): Skills to create little extra festive income
All these management, survival, coping and creative skills will make our November Skills Development; skills revolving around the need to make ends meet during the economic uncertainty and festive period. This is despite the fact we know that there could be a gap between the time people learn a particular skill on one hand, and the time they apply this skill to solve their poverty and hardship problem on the other.
These November 2019 skills are as well those that can be used beyond these two specific circumstances, particularly in other conditions of life when they are required to meet the challenge of poverty.
To get further insight into Skills Development Month at CENFACS, please continue to read our weekly posts.
• “A la une “ (Autumn Leaves of Action for the Upkeep of the Nature in Existence) Campaign, Note No. 5 –
In Focus between 06/11/2019 and 12/11/2019: Options to Adapt and Change Habits
Adaptation to changes and change of habits are personal decisions to any human beings. However, due to the impacts of climate change, both adaptation and change of habits cannot always be regarded as a personal matter. One has to act for the sake of the common goods.
The impacts of climate change and climate related risks and challenges require a diversity of bold options to adapt to changes and to change habits. This diversity lies in human ability to make adjustments of their systems of functioning or conditions of life from vulnerability and improve their own ability to survive in a changing environment like of climate change. To do that, there is a need to adapt and change.
• • Options to adapt
⇒ Adaptation approaches for the common goods
There are different adaptation approaches or strategies that can suit each individual’s, organisation’s and country’s own pace. These include technological and engineering options to adapt, eco-system-based or nature-based approaches etc.
However, with the growing adverse impacts of climate change one needs to try to match the speed of the changing climate if one is serious in doing something about the nature before it is too late to reverse the rising trends of climate adversity.
⇒ Adaptation options for “A la une” campaign
Our “A la une” campaign related to the options to adapt will be broadly about the following:
√ Options to adapt to changes (adaptation approaches or strategies)
√ Options to change habits
√ Funding capacity to adapt
√ Institutional support for adaptation
√ Development of adaptive capacity
In practical terms, we are campaigning for the following:
√ Short term change (psychological and behavioural adaptation)
√ Long term change (genetic adaptation)
We will as well take into account the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) clusters adaptation options which consist of structural and physical, social and institutional options.
• • Options to change habits
As far as the option to change habits is concerned, we shall deal with the following:
√ Strategies from breaking bad habits for the upkeep of the nature
√ How to build good habits that create peace with the nature
√ Ways of building new habits for the good health of the nature
To support “A la une” campaign and to request further details, please contact CENFACS.
• Next Issue of Autumn ICDP Resource (Festive Income Booster): Little Extra Income Generation
The next issue of Autumn Individual Capacity Development Programme (ICDP) resource (Festive Income Boost) will be on Little Extra Income Generation as the Season’s theme.
Indeed, some income poor families can find more convenient to use traditional means of generating a little extra income. Others may be forced by the events or may try to grab the opportunity of the festive season to seek for temporary or the festive season’s jobs to generate a little extra income to meet the end of year bills.
In fact, just before, during and just after the festive season, many businesses need help to cope with the pressure of the Season’s demand for goods and services. This is the same for MIPCYPFs who need income to meet their basic life-sustaining needs over the festive period. This is a particular time of the year when their respective needs can intersect; businesses’ needs of labour and poor families’ supply of labour can meet. Businesses need extra people to hire while poor families need extra income to cover the financial pressure of the Season. And if businesses can offer them casual jobs to make the little extra income, this could be good to reduce their financial pressure.
What this year’s Festive Income Booster is about
The Festive Income Booster is CENFACS’ Autumn ICDP and poverty-relieving resource that provides some income generation leads and tips. As the focus for this year’s edition is on Festive Little Extra Income Generation, the resource will include the following: temporary festive jobs, end of year earning opportunities, seasonal self-employment, petit jobs as some may call it, fundraising events etc.
Who it is for
Festive Income Boost is for Multi-dimensionally Income Poor Children, Young People and Families (MIPCYPFs) and it is designed to support to them throughout the entire the festive season.
What the Festive Income Booster covers
The resource covers some ways of dealing with casual job interview questions, seasonal job search techniques (for both online and print searches), job search engines and leads, guidance on job applications and CV, reference building techniques, job ads, credit history or score, diary of job fairs and events, job matching to person specification and profile etc. It goes further in exploring e-skills and steps that poor families can take to skill up themselves.
The resource also covers security and protection matters when trying to generate a little extra income to make ends meet. In this respect, it tells again the new general data protection regulations, child protection and safeguarding issues for jobs where these requirements apply.
The resource goes further as it includes online job scams and job advert scams which sometimes could increase in a hot period like of festivities, from now to the end of year festive celebrations.
What’s more?
The resource also reminds us the areas of law or legal requirements in terms of whatever we do to try to raise additional household income to reduce poverty.
How to access this resource
The resource will be available as a booklet from CENFACS e-Store. It is normally free of charge but we will appreciate a donation of £5 to help us help reduce poverty and the cost of renewing and producing this resource on an annual basis.
To order and or find out more about the Autumn ICDP resource, please contact CENFACS with your contact details.
Help CENFACS keep the Poverty Relief work going
We do our work on a very small budget and on a voluntary basis. Making a donation will show us you value our work and support CENFACS’ work, which is currently offered as a free service.
Donate to support CENFACS!
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Thank you for visiting CENFACS website and reading this post.
Thank you as well to those who made or make comments about our weekly posts.
We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support throughout 2019.
With many thanks.
