Be glad of life,

Because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars; to be satisfied with your possessions; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your admirations rather then your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbour’s except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends … and to spend as much time as you can, with body and with spirit, these are little guideposts on the footpath to peace. (Henry van Dyke)

Kubatana.net recently asked our membership to put together the top six best practices that neighbours living in close community should engage in … let’s live with respect

-Turn down the volume! Let’s stop or reduce the loud music, hooting at all hours to get gates opened, generators late at night
-Don’t burn leaves and rubbish so that smoke goes into your neighbour’s house, and onto their washing
-Keep your gate shut so that your dogs don’t roam around and cause fear and harm to other people
-If you’re going to have a party or set off fireworks, first inform your neighbours so that they are warned
-Help keep your street clean by picking up litter outside your property boundary, and keep your grass cut
-Look out for each other, keep both your home and your neighbour’s home secure

And share a Smile

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Join the Harare Residents Trust (HRT) and make a difference. You participation counts! Join at: info [at] hrt [dot] org [dot] zw

I’m in Lilongwe for the week to run Freedom Fone training. We’re based in Area 6, a suburb popular with hotels, b&b’s and NGOs. The reason for this clustering is because Malawi’s demand for power has outstripped it’s power generation capacity, so businesses try to locate themselves on grids with minimum power disruptions. Nearby is Maula Prison, an institution that is deemed to have a priority for electricity supply. No surprise if you want to limit opportunities for prison breaks I guess. Unexpected was the Welcome to Maula Prison sign!

Welcome to Maula Prison!

The short walk between my hotel and the training venue provided a number of other delightful photo opportunities.

Mr MaDogs

A vendor's table of wares

From a Kubatana subscriber:

Believe it or not, the challenge of mind-set change is  still a facade and far out cry in the post-independence Zimbabwe! Grotesque levels of corruption, poor health service delivery, hatred, policy shelving, duplicity of politicians, violence, citizens apathy and absence of rule of law continue to spell a bleak future for our country.

Tender / Bid Invitation: Mid-Term Evaluation DFID – PPA funded Empowering Adolescent Girls through Education: Plan
Deadline 26 October 2012 (1300hrs)

Founded more than 75 years ago, Plan has global presence in 68 countries and is one of the largest children’s development organisations in the world. Plan promotes child rights and lifts millions of children out of poverty through high quality development programs that facilitate lasting impact. Plan has been operating in Zimbabwe since 1986 and has active programs in the following sectors: education, health, child protection and child rights and food and income security.

Scope
In April 2011, Plan Zimbabwe commenced the implementation of a three year DFID funded project under the Partnership Programme Arrangement (PPA) secured through Plan UK. The program is being rolled out in the following other countries which are Pakistan, Cambodia, El Salvador, Mali, Malawi, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Kenya. The PPA program focuses on education including working on knowledge and attitudes, financial barriers to access, quality of education, gender based violence in schools, school governance and a small element of access to adolescent sexual reproductive health rights (ASRHR).

Plan Zimbabwe Project
In Zimbabwe the project is focusing on Girls Empowerment through Quality Education. It is being implemented in Chipinge, Chiredzi and Mwenezi district. Plan Zimbabwe’s Building Skills for Life (BS4L) project falls under Plan UK’s global Building Skills for Life programme banner, and was developed and designed by Plan Zimbabwe in co-ordination with the Plan UK team.

Plan Zimbabwe wishes to engage an experienced consultant(s) to conduct a Mid-Term Evaluation (MTE) of our programme funded through DFID’s PPA. The programme is aimed at empowering adolescent girls, particularly through education. The MTE will present an important opportunity for Plan to assess project progress at mid-term against key indicators to assess changes from the baseline. The ‘Country Office (CO) Consultant’, will be required to work closely with Plan Zimbabwe and Plan UK, under the overall direction of the ‘Lead Global Consultant’ employed by Plan UK to coordinate the MTE in all nine countries and supported by the Global Quantitative Data Consultant employed by Plan UK.

Qualifications
The Consultant should have an advanced degree in Social Sciences or related field with at least 5 years of verifiable experience in child rights programs, administering evaluations i.e. collecting data and producing evaluation reports, preferably for international non-profit organizations. The Consultant should also have proven experience and understanding of a Mixed Methods (Quantitative and Qualitative methods) approach. Knowledge of Epidata software will be a distinct advantage.

Bid documents are obtained from Plan Zimbabwe Country Office located at number 7 Lezard Avenue in Milton Park Harare upon payments of a non refundable deposit of USD10.00.  Bids should be submitted in closed plain envelope clearly marked Mid-Term Evaluation DFID – PPA funded: “Empowering Adolescent Girls through Education” project addressed to: Plan Zimbabwe, No 7 Lezard Avenue, Milton Park, Harare OR Email: zwe.procurement [at] plan-international [dot] org

NOTE: PLAN ZIMBABWE RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REJECT ANY OR ALL SUBMITTED BIDS.

Ensure receipts are issued in the name of the Bidding Consultant/Firm