donderdag 19 augustus 2010

ZUNO Resource Centre Mongu



The Zambian Union of Nurses (ZUNO) have offices in every province. In Western Province Beatrice Mukambo is the chairperson and Martin Wabusa is the Resource Centre officer.

Nurses in Zambia have a need for up-to-date medical information. In this pilot project the Zambia Union of Nurses Organisation (ZUNO) will support their members with an Information and Communication Technologies resource centre in their head office in Lusaka and in their provincial offices in the Copperbelt and in Western Province. It will provide a group of about 9000 nurses access to the internet and email facilities. Furthermore this project gives access to professional nursing study materials, including opportunities for e-learning, and also provides an electronic library to members and the general public.

In Western Province the Resource Centre is based in the NAPSA Office building in a small room, between several other small companies. The resource centre provide training to nurses, but also office services like copying, typing and internet browsing to be more sustainable. At the moment the centre makes a small profit that is used to organise face-to-face meetings between nurses in the Western Province.

The centre is saving for a binding machine to increase their services and would like to set up a mobile library to distribute information also outside the Mongu area. They would like to use video more, because visualisation of nursing tasks makes it easier to understand. The materials could than also be used in the community.

Organic Producers and Processors Association of Zambia (OPPAZ)



OPPAZ is short form for the Organic Producers and Processors Association of Zambia which is a national organic movement operating in Zambia in the Southern African Region. OPPAZ was created in August 1999 by a group of farmers keen to promote and expand the opportunities of organic agriculture. OPPAZ is Zambia's leading organic association, ensuring quality and sustainability in the farms we accept as members. Zambia's naturally fertile soil allows for high quality produce, and enough yield to sustain export and a growing domestic market.

OPPAZ assists around 700 farmers to obtain international certification. The Integrating ICT for Quality Assurance and Marketing project helps to build an internal control system for the inspectors of Organic Producers and Processors Association of Zambia (OPPAZ). The project is supported by IICD since 2006. With the open source database the inspectors are able to collect the necessary data (plot data, crop type, crop produce) on a handheld computer. The system will be tested at three pilot sites (Chongwe, Mongu and Mpongwe). The data collected will also be published on the internet. This publication can be viewed by international partners who would like to buy the produce of the member farmers. The system has therefore a double function as internal control system and as marketing tool.

zondag 8 augustus 2010

Securing Financial Transaction Seminar organised by e-Brain

e-Brain Forum of Zambia organised on the 29th April 2010 a seminar on Securing Financial Transactions. This seminar was part of their cyclus of monthly ICT4D events that they organise in Zambia. e-Brain is the ICT4D network in Zambia support by IICD.



During the event 30 participants (10 women) were listening to the two speakers: Mr Julien Shabana, cyber security specialist who, gave an overview of what cyber dangers there are that more and more people become victum of it. Think of identiy theft, but also hacking into your e-mail account.

The second speaker was Mr Shamambo Saasa of the Bank of Zambia. He gave an overview of what measurements the bank is taken together with other banks to prevent this. The Q&A session afterwards was facilitated by Mr Lee Muzala, the chairperson of e-Brain.

vrijdag 6 augustus 2010

Interview about the preparations of eLearning Africa in Zambia

Prof Enala Mwase was the coordinator of the 5th e-Learning Africa conference in Lusaka Zambia. She tells about the short preparation time and the activities she did to prepare for this conference.

Donor Information system at Zambian Bloodbank

On the 4th of May I had a meeting with Agness Zimba, the data clerk of the Zambian National Blood Transfusion Services (ZNBTS) to talk about her experience with the Blood donor tracking system.



This project started in July 2008 and will develop and implement a computer based Blood Donor Tracking System. This system is developed for the staff of the Zambian Blood Transfusion Services (ZBTS) and will reduce the risks of incorrectly identifying donors and blood units. Repeat donors can effectively be tracked and a reliable pool of regular repeat blood donors is established. It ensures blood safety through accurate labelling and identification of blood units at every stage. The database will be developed with open source software (software without licence costs). More than 17,000 blood donators and patients in need of a blood transfusion benefit from the Blood Donor Tracking System.

In Zambia blood is collected differently than in the Netherlands. Most blood is collected during mobile field trips to for example schools or community gatherings. People need to be counselled before they provide blood in the field. They fill in forms and it is unclear if they have given blood in the past or not and if they have a higher risk profile. With this system the donor and his/her can now be traced from giving blood until the blood is received by another patient.

Agness demonstrates how it works after the forms have reached her, when she is doing the data entry of all information.

Radio Interview at Hone FM

During Queensday 2010 (30th of April) I had my first radio interview. e-Brain Forum of Zambia sponsored a ICT series on college radio Hone FM. I was invited to talk about the IICD Country Programme and our participation in eLearning Africa. Watching a video about a radio performance of 20 minutes is a bit boring, so it only part of the interview with the summary of what was said by David the DJ and me.



Interview at Hone FM