There have been recent stories of a 'A Green Revolution for Malawi Small Farmers'. Is it true? Maeve invites discussion.

The current worldwide hospice and palliative care online newsletter has a number of offers and resources even for small organisations.

Our comprehensive manual for startups, How to Build a Good Small NGO, is now available in French (Comment Construire une Bonne Petite ONG). 

Colleagues in the Arab world have carried out a study into issues and useful approaches in the field of Domestic Violence. You can read their report, Arabic domestic violence.

And we have new (English) editions of A Guide to Fundraising and NGO Self-assesment through a SWOT exercise. 

Looking for relevant employment as a humanitarian/aid/development worker? Exploit the power of the internet with Bryan Walker's online Vacancies sites guide. And for really serious jobhunting, download his 83-page manual Better Ways to find Humanitarian Employment

Finally, in our updated NGO Fields section, we have a new category of articles on Specific Groups.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Networklearning recently took the step to become a stichting – that is an officially registered body (in the Netherlands, where our core team is based) – with a written constitution: setting out our fundamental goals, the means we'll use to achieve them, and how our organisation will be managed.

As with the recent upgrading of our website, this change in 'operating system' will have many consequences. It demands self-study and research first – in particular a good assessment of current and future capacity. Our first 7+ years of existence have been informal: achievements have been fuelled almost purely by unpaid enthusiasm, driven towards broadly shared goals. That's great for as long as it lasts. But in the long term issues around the good management and sustainability of that energy arise. We saw it was the right time to…  talk, refresh the vision, redefine our structure – and future path.

We will shortly bring you more news on this – but how about your organisation? Has your NGO been established a while and could it be time to move up to another level?

We know that organisations, like organisms, have life cycles – so a timely, thought-out and well-managed restructuring can aid successful evolution to the next level. Hopefully, avoiding the more painful symptoms that begin to show themselves when a system has outlived its time.

How do you begin – and what do we have to offer in the way of useful manuals and resources? See our quickstart guide, Self-Assessment for Established NGOs!

Are any of you involved in the voluntary HIV testing of pregnant women followed by transmission prevention?

A call to all of us working in the South – in Africa, Asia, the ex-Soviet countries, the Asian Pacific etc. It is time for us to look again at the Earth and the big issues around sex and reproduction. It is not only the job of the Health NGOs – it is everybody’s job.

The International AIDS Conference took place in Mexico in August and Aidsmap has full reports plus downloadable resources developed specifically for this conference.

Consider 'Stepping Stones', a training package with a 240-page manual and a 70-minute workshop video.

Some reports on encouraging recent developments for people with seeing and hearing difficulties…

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

The Networklearning website has been updated after a long period of behind-the-scenes redevelopment.

It is now in a new format, Joomla!. This will allow us to be more up-to-date and interact better. (On the other hand if you find any problems using the new site let us know!)

We have one major new manual, “How to Succeed in your Work” by Bryan Walker, which brings together some powerful tools and ideas. As with most of our manuals, it is available in two formats, .doc (Word) and .pdf (Acrobat)

And we have a new edition of “Interviewing and Counselling at the Grassroots” with thanks to Billy Bbosa from Uganda who came up with a new section on "Recognising & helping people with disabilities"

Since an important part of networklearning's philosophy is Keep It Simple, we have started a series of Key Information Sheets (KIS) on a number of aspects related to NGO management skills. First up are “Networking” and "Focus Group Discussions". Please give us your feedback on the usefulness of this type of information.

We have some new sections on the site: a Gender section in which you'll find many new links to the basics of gender as well as to gender aspects in various fields... a new Arabic page with links to four key manuals in Arabic of use to young NGOs in the Middle East and North Africa...

We offer examples of Behaviour Change leaflets and games to be used at the grassroots. (Does anyone else have useful, usable examples?)

We now have a Forum section where people can exchange ideas, experiences and opinions. In one are the opinions of Aly Ndione in Senegal, who has been studying Localisation, the process whereby NGOs started up by First World people and money can move into the control of Nationals – and all the difficulties that implies.

The Forum is open to all. To contribute you need to first register with networklearning. (It's also worth registering if you would like to be put on our mailing list to be kept informed of new manuals etc.)

A good way to keep up with important issues in your field is to sign up for digital newsletters (e-bulletins) from good information providers…

Are you working in an Arabic-speaking NGO?
We have been donated 20 printed and bound copies of “Incorporating Gender into your NGO" in Arabic. Would you like to have one, free? Send us your name, the name of your NGO and your postal address – the first twenty applicants will receive a copy free, courtesy of Networklearning and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs