If you work in a region where there has been periods of warfare, major displacement and/or huge repression, your workers have surely met people suffering from mental stress and other problems. Is this a good time to think of actively helping them, in a systematic and informed way? Our new manual "Finding Mental Health after Conflict" (28 pp. PDF) can guide you with this work.

Two new Arabic titles: We now have Arabic language versions of "An Introduction to Human Rights in the Middle East & North Africa – a Guide for NGOs" (49 pp. PDF) as well as our popular title, "A Guide to Fundraising" (10 pp. PDF).

• For more, see our manuals and resources in Arabic

Since our last announcement, we have also added a guest publication, the illustrated "We can play and move: ideas to help disabled children learn to move through play".

Bryan Walker, author of several Network Learning publications, has set up a new website where the new edition of 'A Guide to Voluntary and Humanitarian Work – Getting started, getting in and getting on' can be purchased (9.95GBP). Bryan's sons Richard and Adi are co-authors. The trio have collectively 75+ years working experience with local, national and international agencies in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. See www.voluntaryhumanitarianwork.com

Do you need to conduct some research to plan a project or to design a program?  Do you need data for planning or evalution purposes? Or are you studying for your bachelor, master or PhD?

We are pleased to announce the release of a new manual specifically designed to plug a gap – by helping NGOs in the Middle East and North Africa who want to do more in the field of Human Rights. A lot of consideration and cross-cultural consultation has gone into the making of An Introduction to Human Rights in the Middle East & North Africa – a Guide for NGOs.

Note, for slow internet connections, we recommend to download the smaller (1Mb) PDF rather than the Word doc. We're now have an Arabic language version of this title to join our growing list of manuals and resources in Arabic.

Games are a great way to get behaviour change. So we thought we'd breathe new life into an old favourite – Having Healthy Babies: an Educational "Snakes and Ladders" Game gets across the key messages via a colourful game board and question cards. Full supporting information and instructions included!

Finally, in case you didn't notice it slip into our library in the summer: we have a handy 17-page guide to Managing the Project Cycle.

We appreciate it's not always easy to find everything on our site so here's a quick guidance:

• All our manuals (Word and PDF documents) can be found in the library.

Tip: to find a particular title, instead of scrolling through the whole list you can use the 'Library Themes' menu which appears at the left of the library page. Or click the 'Search document' icon at top to locate any manual with a particular keyword in the title.

• All our other resources (articles and links to information) are categorized into NGO Fields and NGO Skills.

We've recently added a sitemap so you can easily browse all this content from one place. To locate all the info on a specific keyword, it's quickest to use the searchbox (at the top right of every page).

Our brand new Organizational Management skills section gives the lowdown on all you need to know about running a good ship. Strategic planning… Human resource management… Office management… Financial management…

Will you have the money for Windows 2012 or Apple SuperDuper? If you may not, think again about the no-cost alternatives.

The Word Programme that you already have includes functions that have been around for over 20 years and will be perfectly adequate for your lifetime. OR there are free, good quality Open Source programmes that you can download: for example, OpenOffice does everything Word can:

• Could you write a good-looking document? Yes.
• Could you send it to colleagues whatever programme they are using and have them open it? Yes.
• Could you open old documents? Almost certainly. But if there is a really old document that you need but cannot open, you could consult Jon, our technical expert at networklearning. > Contact

Do you get communications from ARROW in Malaysia? Their materials are great. And now they have some of their bulletins translated – in Thai, Mandarin, and Cebuano.

If you are interested in obtaining free print copies, giving feedback, or having an AFC issue translated into an Asia-Pacific language, they would love to hear from you. Email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

We recently offered some printed materials to our registered users (the OXFAM Gender Training manual, Stepping Stones training package on HIV/AIDS, and a set of French flannelgraphs for health education). The three NGOs who received them were:

• CISS in Kisumu, Kenya, an NGO that works with communities, increasing their participation in the democratic process, in community-managed development etc.
• People in Need, An NGO in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka funded by the Czech Republic, working to rebuild physical and social structures after the Tsunami.
• The Pemba Island Relief Organisation (PIRO) Tanzania which has a small resource centre for local NGOs and supports CBOs working to strengthen Sexual Reproductive Health Information & Services.

Does your own NGO have materials that you really do not use? You could circulate a list to the members of NGO groups to which you belong, offering a loan or a swop. Unused Manuals and other materials are wasted resources.

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.

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.