Peacekeeping Correspondence

From: De Beer Kallie Sent: 02 September 2008 09:20 AM To: 'Tania Coetzee' Cc: Edwards Tryna; 'Tanyss Munro'; Bohloko Getrude Subject: FW: Possible partnership: Peacekeeping Collaboration Dear Tania With reference to our previous e-mails in this regard I am currently in the process to facilitate accredited short courses for local government employees in the Northern Cape Province. Dr Tryna Edwards and our Senior Director Workforce Development, Ms Gertrude Bohloko initiated these accredit short course modules for in service training. My idea is that we pursue the same modus operandi for accredited short courses in conflict management with the eventual aim to influence decision makers. We would like some of your ideas and inputs on this possibility? Regards. Kallie -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tanyss Munro [mailto:tmunro@col.org] Sent: 01 September 2008 02:58 PM To: De Beer Kallie; CoetzeeT.HUM Cc: BakerDP; Van Der Merwe Ben; fneeth; Bohloko Getrude; hjlang; pierrem Subject: RE: Possible partnership: Peacekeeping Collaboration Dear Kallie, Thank you for expanding this conversation to include more people and institutions. Our mandate at the Commonwealth of Learning in the area of good governance is to reach both civil society and government officials/ elected representatives at the local (community) level through technology mediated learning approaches (radio, self learning text, SMS, DVD, other audio formats, etc). Naturally text is always a part of the open distance learning approach. The biggest challenge, and one of the greatest needs, is to tailor materials so that they are accessible and relevant to people who may have limited formal education experience. I should also mention that we often partner with more than one organization in our initiatives so that initiatives undertaken may involve education institutions, NGOs and/or the government. NGOs, in particular, are often useful partners to have when working at the local level I find, as they often have experience and strong relationships with the target learning groups. Best wishes, Tanyss -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kallie De Beer [mailto:kbeer@cut.ac.za] Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2008 11:45 PM To: CoetzeeT.HUM Cc: BakerDP; Ben Van Der Merwe; fneeth; Getrude Bohloko; hjlang; pierrem; Tanyss Munro Subject: Possible partnership: Peacekeeping Collaboration Dear Dr Coetzee With reference to the under mentioned interest of the Commonwealth of Learning and possible partnerships with the College of William and Mary in the USA, I also updating possible interested partners in South Africa about this ongoing communication. Especially due to your infrastructure at the University of the Free State, we kindly request you to consider modules on Conflict, Governance and Social Justice in your programmes to in service government learners. We are waiting for your response or ideas about this possibility. Thank you. Kallie. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tanyss Munro [mailto:tmunro@col.org] Sent: 30 August 2008 12:18 PM To: Harvey Langholtz Cc: De Beer Kallie Subject: RE: possible partnership Dear Harvey, Thank you for your response. I think that all of the courses would have to be significantly rewritten to reduce the theory, increase the pragmatic components and ensure there were many diagrams and pictures and fewer words, etc. The courses that look the most relevant to me at this time are the Gender Perspectives and the Peacekeeping and International Conflict Resolution courses. I have a contact here in Canada who has done extraordinary work with conflict resolution and negotiations with Indigenous communities here in Canada and in Central America. He is not a professor, but has had great success and I would be interested in getting his input into course development, too. I only mention this because it might be good to start thinking about who else we might consult with to ensure we address real needs, build on existing materials as much as possible and link with institutions who may be able to lead this work. We should also keep I mind that for a number of initiatives in good governance, because COL is quite a modest organization (in other words, we are not able to pay WB or UN type fees for contracts), we often engage NGOs (who work already directly with civil society) as well as individual consultants and professors who may guide the course development process, in cases where accreditation is important. We should also keep in mind that, when working with some marginalized populations, it is much more important to involve them in learning and not worry too much about the accreditation part at the outset. Best wishes, Tanyss -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harvey Langholtz [mailto:hjlang@wm.edu] Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 8:09 PM To: Tanyss Munro Cc: 'Kallie De Beer' Subject: RE: possible partnership Dear Tanyss, Thanks for your e-mail. I recognize you will be on holiday through the 27th, but I thought I’d reply now. I invite you to view all our courses and programs at www.unitarpoci.org (we will soon change to a new url). If you see a course there that interests you please let me know and I will be glad to provide you with a free download. Once you look it over we can discuss other possibilities. Best wishes, Harvey -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tanyss Munro [mailto:tmunro@col.org] Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 9:57 AM To: Harvey Langholtz; Kallie De Beer Subject: RE: possible partnership Dear Harvey & Kallie, Thank you for your email. As our focus is with the local level, which often involves people with mid-range to limited formal education backgrounds whether with civil society, elected officials or government, I would be interested in exploring ways to link your work with our bottom-up approach. I don’t know if this may be an interest for you, or if we should perhaps lo issues would book more closely at some of your material to explore ways to make the link. One of the technical factors would be to ensure that learning materials are available in both self-learning text and other distance formats (contextualized for the specific country) which could include DVDs, closed circuit TV, radio, CD-ROMs, audio tapes, etc. If we decide to pursue this, it would be useful for us to work in a country where there has already been or currently is some training of peacekeepers. Having said that, we must work only in Commonwealth countries, and are not ready to get into a very difficult, slow-moving situation just yet, as our good governance sector is still new and first needs to prove itself. I share your belief, Kallie, that it will take civil society having a better grasp of conflict resolution understanding and skills to start to become more effective in mitigating conflict. There are many approaches and types of learners within civil society that we could target, and it might be interesting to attempt intense efforts in one single country, to begin with. Having said that, we have a very strong interest in increasing our presence in the South Pacific being now only strong in Papua New Guinea. We have already collaborated with an NGO to raise awareness through video, TV and activities on alternative dispute resolution approaches with an anti-witchcraft message. Perhaps you could let me know a little more about your interests or ideas. Unfortunately, I am off on holidays from tomorrow afternoon and will be out of email range until August 27th. Best wishes, Tanyss -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harvey Langholtz [mailto:hjlang@wm.edu] Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 7:54 PM To: 'Kallie De Beer'; Tanyss Munro Subject: RE: possible partnership Dear Tannys and Kallie, Thanks for cc’ing me on your e-mails. Yes, of course I would be glad to explore various partnerships. Let’s discuss details. As you may have already determined, we no longer operate under the name “UNITAR POCI” but have instead severed our relationship with UNITAR. We now function independently as the Peace Operations Training Institute, but we provide all the same programmes, with the same courses by the same authors. This included E-Learning for African Peacekeepers (ELAP). Best wishes, Harvey -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kallie De Beer [mailto:kbeer@cut.ac.za] Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 3:28 AM To: hjlang Cc: tmunro Subject: FW: possible partnership Dear Prof Langholtz Please refer to my correspondence with Dr Tannys Munro at the Commonwealth head office in Vancouver and her very correct approach towards the Governance, Conflict and Social justice research project. I will encourage the both of you to keep in touch with the latest developments at either side of the coin. Regards. Kallie de Beer CUT, SOUTH AFRICA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tanyss Munro [mailto:tmunro@col.org] Sent: 09 August 2008 01:42 AM To: De Beer Kallie Cc: Ruvani Ameresekere Subject: possible partnership Dear Kallie, Thank you for copying me on these emails. After catching a nasty cold in London, I am only now recovering and wish to respond a little more fully to where COL may be able to add value to your excellent work in peacekeeping. Our focus in good governance is mandated for the local (community) level. As you have well noted, the absence of civil education may be part (or even primarily) the cause of perpetual conflicts in Africa. Therefore, reaching civil society (community groups, through NGOs) directly and reaching local level government (through NGOs) also may allow the behavioral, attitudinal and paradigm changes that are needed to sustain efforts to peace building. I noticed that in the list of courses that I saw on ELAP from UNITAR, three stand out as being possibly the most appropriate for civil society: Conflict Resolution; Gender Perspectives in (UN) Peacekeeping; and, Ethics in Peacekeeping. The challenge will be to tailor materials to suit community people and/or government and elected representatives at the local level (that may involve people with limited formal education and limited literacy levels). We should further discuss where there may be a good opportunity to enter into this and then could engage a small group of people to discuss possibilities. I would love to be involved in this. I am also writing to you for another reason. We are putting together a small monograph on the Governance, Conflict and Social Justice theme from PCF5. It will include just 6 or 7 of the most important papers from this area and will be distributed widely. I would like to include your paper in this, if you’ve no objections. Warn wishes, Tanyss -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kallie De Beer [mailto:kbeer@cut.ac.za] Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 6:50 AM To: d.bryan Cc: l.kirken; r.roche; Tanyss Munro Subject: GOVERNANCE, CONFLICT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE Dear Dr Bryan Your Ms Lynn Kirken furnished me with the background of your institute during my visit to your university last month. I attach my paper which I presented a few days later at the Pan Commonwealth (COL) Forum in London. The purpose of my visit to Queens University of Belfast was to prepare myself for the forum discussion on Governance, Conflict and Social Justice. Your work is of the utmost importance to this COL theme. Dr Tannys Munro of COL is more interested how are we going to influence decision makers about the use of Open and Distance Education and E-Learning modes to distribute this rather sensitive academic material. I will also forward my powerpoint presentation under seperate file. Hope to learn more from you about your project which I want to introduce to our two universities in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Regards. Dr Kallie de Beer Central University of Technology, Free State SOUTH AFRICA ----------------------------------------------------------------- This e-mail is subjected to the disclaimer that can be viewed at: * http://www.cut.ac.za/www/disclaimer/email_disclaimer ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- This e-mail is subjected to the disclaimer that can be viewed at: * http://www.cut.ac.za/www/disclaimer/email_disclaimer ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- This e-mail is subjected to the disclaimer that can be viewed at: * http://www.cut.ac.za/www/disclaimer/email_disclaimer -----------------------------------------------------------------