Thare Machi Education

technology bringing knowledge and hope

December News Update

  • Dr. Emery Cooper a GP from London who is related by marriage to one of our patrons, George Harris, has recently returned from a visit to his home country of Liberia. Before he left, Dr. Emery took a series of our English discs for testing at the health centre and school he has refurbished near to his family farm. The discs were a huge success being used twice a day in the community and engendering great interest in the services provided by the centre. Ministry of Health officials visited the clinic and witnessed the use of the DVD, taking a great interest. Clinic staff are now busily translating some of our English scripts into the local language of Pelo and early in the New Year we could have new DVDs in a new language in a new country with very little effort on our part - many thanks to Emery!

  • A new 2 DVD set of four lessons designed by Africans for Africans was launched on world AIDS day - December 1st by the British High Commissioner for South Africa. Former UK Cabinet Minister the Rt. Hon. Paul Boateng who is now the High Commissioner for South Africa provided his official residence for the launch of this innovative product at a ceremony in Pretoria. tme Director Stephen Clarke, Chairman, Helen Taylor Thompson and Company Secretary Tracy Stanbury were also able to be present. The English versions of the DVDs were demonstrated and all 11 official languages of South Africa plus Swahili and French will be completed in the next two months Discounting English speakers, the lessons on these discs will be understandable by nearly 200 million people worldwide. The ceremony was attended by a number of influential people committed to the cause of fighting HIV and AIDS- including representatives of: Rally to Read, The University of Johannesburg and Rorke's Drift Community. In addition we were honoured that a representative of the Chinese embassy attended to see how translations of the product into Mandarin could be used next year in China. Outside the launch, meetings were held with people unable to attend including representatives of: De Beers Mining group, Umsobomvu Youth Fund and The Evangelical Alliance of South Africa.
    • ** PLEASE DESCRIBE THIS IMAGE **
    Paul Lambert, Tracy Stanbury, Paul Boateng, Janet Boateng, Helen Taylor Thompson, Christine Lambert, Stephen Clarke, Reynold Peterson

  • One of our local Associates, Ann Loscombe, worked with a Chinese postgraduate student from Warwick University to get 2 more of our lessons recorded in Mandarin. Ann and Christine Ye are planning to work together again in the New Year to increase our library of Mandarin lessons.

  • The tme board of Trustees met to discuss progress and future direction. This focussed on the balance between production of lessons and how to distribute them. South Africa was used as an example where we are finalising a 13-language disc with 4 titles on HIV. This is potentially huge as a resource in the fight against AIDS but it needs to be professionally distributed. Developing a model for how to do this in different countries will be the main subject of our strategic planning in January.

  • Rachel Duncan Brown another tme Associate went on holiday to Malawi with a portable player and a set of discs in Chichewa. She will be demonstrating them to new communities and getting some evaluation material on the quality of the translations.

  • Andrew Williams another Associate reported conversations he has had with Professor Bob Arnott of Birmingham University Medical School who has shown some of our discs to students involved with an organisation called SKIP (Students for Kids International Programme). Bob writes.. I do know that the medical students from SKIP were very impressed with the discs and will (with permission) be using them for their educational work in Zambia.

  • Steve Clarke met with field representatives of TEAR Fund in London to show them sample DVDs. Carina from Mozambique, Anne from Zambia and Cynthia from South Africa were all working in the HIV and AIDS field and were keen to try out the lessons in their own contexts.