The meeting
was attended by the RIC-NET board of directors, partners represented by the
District Information officers of Kasese and Kamwenge, RIC-NET staff and
information centre’s representatives.
In his opening
remarks the Executive Director RIC-NET Welcomed
all participants in the new year 2013 and noted that the reflection would among
other things discuss last year’s full report (2012).
He also said
that among the things that were agreed upon last year in the reflection
meeting, some of them were not yet implimented like use of official e-mails. “There
is still a gap in communication because some people claim that they do not
receive communication from RIC-NET yet the communication was passed via e-mails”.
He also
noted that we need to focus on the sustainability of our centers in terms of
promoting ideals incase the leaders are out of service. It will only be done
when strong membership is there and skills imparted in different staff for
continuity.” If the center is just a name, it’s nothing; it should cause an
impact in the lives of people especially in terms of service provision” he
continued. He also posed a question how far we were in touch with board and
community members and that we should work towards answering the needs of our
people to touch their hearts during implementation.
He also said
that the most important thing is to know
who we are serving so that the interest
can be captured in RIC-NET strategic plan and for the sustainability of the
centers. “We need to engage people by appearing to them on how to generate
their local income in terms of finance” he added.
He wished
all members a fruitful reflection meeting.
The program
manager later went ahead to give highlights of the 2012 activities in various
projects that RIC-NET implemented.
RWECO
HIVOS.
Among the activities was to set up and
operationalise six E-society centers at
different district local governments and
two e-society centers were set up and launched and more three are still
pending (Ntoroko, kyenjojoj and kyegewa) to be set up this year 2013.it was
noted that Kabarole too was set up some time back in 2011. The realized output is that there is increased
access of internet at centers and also computer literacy increasing amongst the
community.
Another
activity implemented was bulk sms which has been active in sharing messages on
agriculture or epidemic outbreaks
3 Trainings
in \ICT applications and maintainance of equipments have been held with
district officials. She encouraged
centers to activate their blog pages.
Corporate
shirts and e-society flyers as well as banners were developed which has
increased visisbity.
 |
| D.I.O Kasese District giving his input during the reflection |
EU- HIvos
Domain name
procurement and activation and design of district websites to facilitate easy
access of information by community members around those districts and elsewhere
in the world. The challenge is that the
districts delay in respons.
Uganda
community library project.
The project
is hosted at BRIC one of RIC-NETs information centres.
Smart phones
were procured to ease sharing and accessing agricultural information with
farmers directly especially plant doctors and farmers.
Procured
books in agriculture, gender and how they can do better farming.
Computer
for schools.
Stake
holders meetings was held at verina gardens
and they agreed and committed themselves to support the project.
A training
of all English teachers from the benefiting schools in the two districts also
held.
Plant
clinic
Very vital
to our farmers since it was a result oriented project. RIC-NET has been running
it on local funds from within the organisation. It is also in partnership with
plant wise UK.
Plant
doctors have been participating in different events like market symposiums held
at Kisinga and civil society fair in bundubugyo.
Citizen
manifesto project
Which was
about documenting partners’ activities
and 11 videos were documented in the Rwenzori and international.
Neigbourhood assembly and citizen manifesto days were documented.
A number of
issues were discussed in this meeting where information centres also shared
their activities they’ve been doing throughout the year 2012 and among some
action points agreed upon were;
Success
stories about activities implemented be put online and shared with different
stake holders through proper documentation
Apart from
annual report, success stories should be documented properly to ensure that
there is proper accountability and evidence of what has been done. Let every
staff implementing an activity indicate the output of what was done as line of
expenditure both from information centers , e-society centers and RIC-NET
Producing a
testimonial magazine with success stories only both in written and video form.
Feedback should
also be got from target beneficiaries on these services we render to them.
Having core
programme areas in our strategic plan in terms of implementation and existing
donors.
Several resolutions
were reached at the reflection was concluded by a board meeting that later sat
in the evening to plan for the organization.
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