Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
18 December 2019
Post No. 122
The Week’s Contents
• Festive Trends
• Season of Light: Starts 21 December 2019
• Festive Gifting
… and much, much more!
Key Messages
~ Festive Trends –
December and End of Autumn 2019 Updates and Trends
The following updates and trends cover three initiatives: All in Development Winter e-Discussion, Gifts of Peace and Community Value Chains.
=> All in Development Winter e-Discussion
All in Development Winter e-Discussion is currently trending as planned amongst CENFACS’ December products and services. This e-Discussion is in its second week. So far, the items e-discussed are the poverty relief and sustainable development landscapes in 2020 and 2020s, low carbon energy markets in the coming years and progress in the implementation of Africa’s Agenda 2063.
To e-discuss volunteers’ matters related to the 2020s, contact CENFACS.
= > Gifts of Peace
Our Wintry fundraising appeal, known as Gifts of Peace, has now been launched. and is trending over this Season’s Reliefs. If you are looking for fundraising appeals or projects to fund as festive gifts over this festive time, Gifts of Peace are something valuable you could consider.
To enquiry about and or fund Gifts of Peace, just contact CENFACS.
= > Community Value Chains, the CENFACS Community –
Festive celebration: CENFACS as a “Quadranscentennial” (“Q”) Community
Community Value Chains, the CENFACS Community’s festive celebration as a “Q” Community, is being prepared and trended. As part of this preparation, we are as well doing an inventory of skills and are registering the talents and skills of the CENFACS Community.
If you have not yet registered your skills to CENFACS’ Skills Data Bank, this is the opportunity to do it over this festive period.
To register or add your skills to the CENFACS Community’s skills register or database, just contact CENFACS.
~ Season of Light: Starts 21 December 2019
Autumn Fresh Start to the Season of Light
The Autumn season officially ends this week. The momentum we built from the beginning and throughout of Autumn Fresh Start season continues to galvanise our poverty relief action and is taking our relief journey into the Season of Light, which will start on the 21st of December this week.
This week is thus the end of Autumn Fresh Start projects and programmes, and the beginning of the Season of Light; season during which we light up a Blaze of Hope for people and communities suffering from the effects and impacts of destructive wars and natural disasters in Africa.
The Lights Appeal is the project that features the Season of Light, while the Gifts of Peace keep on giving the Festive Season. At CENFACS the theme for the Season of Light is Hope which we try to bring through a Blaze, while the theme for the Festive Season’s Reliefs is Peace.
Under the Main Developments section of this post, there is more information about the Season of Light.
~ Festive Gifting
As part of the season of gifts, we are asking supporters to go extra mile in responding in these two fundraising appeals which are: Festive Gift Set and End-of-year Support.
=> Festive Gift Set
The remaining 13 days of this year starting from today are those of the last legacy of the Year 2019 as a “Q” Year at CENFACS. To mark the end of and the Closing Act of our “Q” Year and Campaign, we are appealing to you to support of CENFACS’ year 2019 through a “Quadranscentennial” (“Q”) Gift. Such a gift will help to knowledge the work of CENFACS since 1994 and keep its momentum over the festive period while carrying us in the New Year and new decade.
With the “Q” Gift plus the Gift of Light plus the Gift of Peace; the three of them give you a Gift Set of £5 or more. The “Q” Gift represents the 25-year of poverty relief work and bond with poor people. The Gift of Light symbolises hope for the victims of wars and natural disasters. The Gifts of Peace creates long lasting relationships of a world without conflicts with other humans and the nature.
All these initiatives represent some great ways of helping to reduce poverty at this special time of the year. They give indeed more opportunities to supporters to do something for those in need.
By donating £5 or more for this Gift Set, you will help people in need to leave poverty and hardships behind and may be for ever throughout this festive period.
To donate and or enquire about this Gift Set, just contact CENFACS with or without your donation.
=> End-of-year Support
As 2019 is coming to an end, we would like to ask you to donate as a legacy towards CENFACS’ efforts to help reduce poverty and enhance sustainable development.
You can donate to support CENFACS’ anti-poverty message and to help reduce poverty and hardships this festive season and in the New Year.
Your support can make helpful differences to CENFACS and to those in need, the people and communities that CENFACS serves.
Make a One-off Festive Donation of £5 or more this festive time…
as a way of helping poor people via CENFACS and / or support CENFACS’ work on poverty relief and sustainable development
You can also support one of the CENFACS projects and programmes if you wish.
Make a Monthly Donation of £5 or £10 or £15 or more per month…
as a legacy for CENFACS’ work
Please make an end-of-year contribution today to help us continue to deliver the work of CENFACS in 2020 and the new decade.
This End-of-year Support is an inclusive relief sending a never-ending message from the giver that they are part of what we have achieved in 2019 and will do in the coming year and decade.
To make a donation and or enquire about this End-of-year Support, just contact CENFACS with or without your donation.
Extra Messages
~ Climate Talks Follow-up project: Feedback
Climate Protection and Stake for African Children – Phase 3 with Madrid Makes It Work as a Working Theme
Our advocacy to make climate talks (like the COP25 Madrid) work for children continues despite the Madrid talks did not deliver to our key demand and many of the elements of CENFACS’ Compendium of Climate Advocacy.
The aim of the Madrid negotiations was to finalise the rule book for the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. However, Madrid has been a missing opportunity for the protection and stake for children and future generations.
Although the agreement reached amongst countries at COP25 failed to create the rules for trading carbon emissions credits and help developing countries to pay for climate damages; we will continue to follow up these negotiations in the New Year.
We will particularly monitor the following talking and stumbling points:
√ Article 6 of the Paris climate accord; article that governs international carbon markets
√ The need for international financing mechanisms for developing countries to deal with climate change
√ The mechanisms for financing climate change reduction in developing countries
√ The creation of a market-based system to preserve nature
√ The system for paying for climate-linked disasters
√ Inequalities in the mechanisms for financing climate change reduction
√ Financial mobilization to respond to climate impacts in vulnerable countries and for vulnerable children
We will also observe how the disagreements between climate vulnerable and emerging nations, and between rich polluters and developing countries will be resolved on pending issues such as the slashing of greenhouse emissions, the payment for loss and damage, climate emergency compensation, the double counting of climate emergency etc.
We will particularly check how the above mentioned points and issues will help in protecting children.
We will follow the next rounds of the United Nations climate negotiations scheduled in Bonn (Germany) in June and at the COP26 in Glasgow in 2020.
One could hope that new climate pledges (made about curbing greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris climate agreement) will be respected by then.
One could also hope that you will continue to support CENFACS’ Climate Talks Follow-up project and the current phase (Phase 3) of this project, which is about Taking Climate Protection and Stake for African Children at the Implementation Level.
The details of our next follow-up will be unveiled in the New Year.
Thank you for your support.
~ CENFACS Absorption Capacity Checker
As part of Capacity Development for Absorbing Climate Investment (CDACI), it is possible to have an organisation’s absorption capacity checked through CENFACS’ Analytics Dashboard.
What is CENFACS Analytics Dashboard?
CENFACS Analytics Dashboard is an information management tool that tracks, analyses and displays key performance indicators, poverty relief metrics, CENFACS’ poverty relief league, etc.
It monitors the health of CENFACS in terms of the relationships of support received to outputs and outcomes generated.
It provides as well charts and summaries about some of the campaigns conducted.
It finally helps to retrieve information from CENFACS repository about the resources to help users and supporters.
For more on CENFACS Analytics Dashboard, please contact CENFACS.
What is CENFACS’ Absorption Capacity Checker?
It is an instrument of measure that CENFACS can use to verify the level and quality of skills, knowledge, capacity, resources, infrastructures and structures within an organisation that can make it to take up climate investment and utilise it effectively and efficiently, without waste and adversely impacting the natural environment while helping to reduce the negative impacts of climate change.
For further information about CENFACS’ Absorption Capacity Checker, please contact CENFACS.
~ All year round project: 2019 Verdict
The week is finally an occasion to remind the need to report on all year round projects which are: Play, Run and Vote projects for poverty relief and development.
Under the Main Developments section of the post, we have provided what those who supported all year round projects need to report or feedback on.
Main Developments
• The Lights Season: Starts 21 December 2019
The Lights Season at CENFACS kicks off with the theme of Hope as said above. We are going to deliver this Hope with sustainable lights and energy. The 2019-2020 Season of Light is a transitional period to a new decade; a decade that will be of the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, of the realisation of the Paris Climate Treaty, and of the continuation of the implementation of Africa’s Agenda 2063.
In the light of the above expected achievements of the next decade, CENFACS will approach 2020 and the 2020s with a set of sustainable energy projects. We started this approach in January 2019. Next year, we will deepen our action on this approach.
So, we will be developing sustainable lights and energy projects to help reduce deforestation and forest degradation while supporting the reduction of poverty induced by deforestation.
• • Lights Season and Projects, Sustainable Lights and Green Energy Projects
We would like to explain that there should not be confusion between the Lights season and projects on one hand, and sustainable lights and green energy projects on the other.
Lights projects are appeals made during or after the Season of Light to support the victims of destructive wars and environmental disasters. They are part of our humanitarian relief programme.
Whereas sustainable lights and energy projects are sustainable development initiatives developed or to be developed in the context of reducing deforestation and forest degradation while addressing the problem of poverty induced by this deforestation and other causes/factors.
Although the two types of projects are separate, they could have a link between them. For example: when the victims of destructive wars and natural disaster face as well the problem of the use of forest resources to meet their life-sustainable needs of energy for cooking, shelter and clothing.
• • Two themes to bear in mind this Festive Time: Peace and Hope
While the theme of Peace will be dominant over the festive celebrations period, the theme of Hope is the overall theme of the Season of Lights. The theme of Hope is made of notes or pieces of sustainable lights and energy. In this sense that we can bring a glimmer of hope through sustainable lights and energy over this Wintry season.
The Gifts of Peace are included in the Season of Light. Peace is the festive theme we choose to spread the joy of Season’s Reliefs to those in need. We try to help their wishes of poverty relief become true through the Gits of Peace that put a smile on their face with relief notes.
• • The Gift of Light that Keeps on Giving this Winter
=> A gift of light for every person in need everywhere!
The Lights season is the season we try to bring light or shine light to impoverished lives. We try to bring clarity, brightness to people who need to see clearly and accurately about their life. It is about helping them see the light of relief so that they can see the world in a new relieved light.
=> A gift of light that ignites and sparks the life of those in need!
This is why we have the Lights project at CENFACS; projects which enable us to bring lights to those in need. Like the last Winter, this Winter 2019-2020, our Lights projects will focus on two parts or two waves of action:
1/ post-war and post-natural disaster developments
2/ current and emerging armed conflicts and environmental catastrophes
=> A gift of light that helps people to find their own way out poverty with pride!
The Gift of Light is about helping people to help themselves. By using the light, they can find their own way out poverty and hardships instead of we telling them what do. They can act with self-esteem and self-respect. In this respect, the Gift of Light is a blessing of empowerment.
=> A Blaze of Hope for post-life following armed conflicts and natural disasters
When there are environmental disasters and armed conflicts, there are pledges and commitments to end the effects of wars and disasters. For various reasons, some of these pledges do not materialise. The post-war and post-disaster developments are sometimes left without support even until the conflicts and disasters return and or strike again.
As we cannot wait the return or repeat of the same wars and disasters, our first Blaze of Hope will go this Winter to the unfinished business of previous destructive wars and natural disasters.
=> A Blaze of Hope for the eruption of any armed conflicts and natural disasters
We always advocate for preventive development and we do not seek for destructive events to happen. However, our preparedness and readiness made us to assemble as quickly as possible advocacy tools should any effects and impacts erupt from wars and natural disasters in Africa.
So, our second wave of intervention or Blaze of Hope will go this Wintry season to erupted effects of armed conflicts and natural disasters in the areas of our interest in Africa.
With these two waves of action over this Wintry Season, we hope to enlighten the lives of those in pressing need.
=> Examples of areas where a Blaze of Hope may be needed
For this December 2019, we have selected 3 areas that need lighting a Blaze of Hope, which are as follows:
Areas of vulnerable countries affected by torrential rains and cyclones that could cause enormous food insecurity such as Djibouti and the Democratic Republic of Congo
Areas of countries devastated by killing diseases like in North Cameroon with cholera and malaria in DRC
Areas of countries that are the victims of a high level of insecurity such as Burkina Faso and Niger
The selection will help to start our Light advocacy. And we can count on you for supporting this advocacy. Thank you!
• Run, Play & Vote projects
As we are reaching the end of year 2019, it is now time to report on our three All-year Round Projects –which are Play, Run and Vote.
We would like our users and supporters to share with us and others their experiences, stories and reports regarding these projects.
• • The Action-Results of 2019: Tell it!
You can feedback the outcomes or Action-Results of your…
… Run if you ran for poverty relief over the year 2019 (or organised a Run activity)
… Play if you played the CENFACS League for Poverty Relief
… Vote if you have already voted your 2019 African Poverty Relief Manager.
Remember!
If you are Playing the CENFACS Poverty Relief League and its sub-project Le Dernier Carrẻ, there are 16 team countries in this Poverty Relief and Development League playing each 32 matches/games each against the other.
If you are Running for Poverty Relief and Development, you can do it alone or as a group.
If you are casting your Vote for an International Development and Poverty Relief Manager of 2019, there are few days remaining until the end of the year 2019.
Whether you are Gaming or Running or even Voting for Poverty Relief and Development, please keep a track record (including the facts, data, videos, audio tapes, reviews and images) of your activities to make and share your story with us and others.
To do that, you do not need sophisticated technologies or a third party. With your mobile phone only– if you have one – you can text, record voices, make a video, take pictures, phone and so on to capture and communicate the impacts of any event or activity you did, are doing or taking part by the end of this year.
We would be more than happier to hear your Action and Results to feature and conclude CENFACS 2019 Year as “Q” Year. Tell it!
• • What or who we want to hear
We would like to hear from you about one of the following Three Bests:
- The Best African Countries of 2019 which best reduced poverty
- The Best African Global Games Runners of 2019
- The Best African Development Managers of 2019
If you have not yet told us, have your say by 23 December 2019! The Verdict is yours!
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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.
