During this week's online meeting John Dada was able to give the UK-Nigeria team an update about the Attachab Eco-Village project.

Following the successful initial progress the French Embassy have just released the 2nd installment of their grant.

John reported that the classroom / manager's residence is nearing completion as is the borehole.
On Monday the construction of the overhead water tank and the installation of a solar pump are scheduled to commence.

John explained that they are using compressed bricks work for the build.
He also reported that as of today (Wednesday 30th November) there are over 20 young men working at the Attachab site.
John said:

" We have created a small employment opportunity in the village"

This is very important for the local community where unrest and turmoil (especially amongst the unemployed youth) is still high as was sadly demonstrated by the recent civil unrest.

John explained:

The weekly online UK-Nigeria meetings have been established in their present format for more than three years. However, following Nigeria’s terrible post-election violence, John this week identified a new and unexpected benefit of our regular sessions - explaining that the Dadamac meetings are “evolving into a balm, a tonic, a forum where Fantsuam Foundation can unburden ... a psycho-social element of our weekly meeting”.

The rural community has been badly shaken by the attacks and, although the news reporters appear to have moved on, the real story is still unfolding. For example, how people from both sides of the religious divide are rebuilding trust and their fragile economy with minimal Government support - save from the presence of soldiers and the curfew which we suspect helped to reduce the number of casualties.

Shortly after the burning down of the vital Kafanchan market in April and during these weekly meetings, the idea of first a peace market and more recently the women peace traders has taken shape. It is therefore very pleasing to report this week that six women have now been given their N30,000  (part grant, part loan) to restart their businesses and that the new market, located on the road to Kagoro was opened on June 6th.

John joined this week’s online UK-Nigeria session from Abuja, where he was due to attend a number of meetings - the most significant of which from our point of view was with the French Embassy. At this, John was to discuss the promised support for Attachab. Meanwhile Kelechi and Chollom joined us from Fantsuam while the UK provided three participants, based in Leeds and London.

We were pleased to hear there are reports of some semblance of normality returning to Kafanchan as people of all faiths were beginning to interact at the old and new market sites.

John informed us that as yet there have been no Government directives on the re-building of the market. Apparently it is not yet seen as a priority. He said the Committee was going to see how best to fit/feed into whatever the Government may eventually choose to do. In the meantime they are trying to meet the needs of their local community.

John also informed us that so far one woman has collected her N30,000 loan towards restarting her business - and that the remaining six beneficiaries will receive theirs when Comfort returns.

These women clients were selected by the field officer. John believes that five are  Christian and the remaining two are Muslim. This reflects the proportion of these religions in FF’s clientele. John also pointed out that each woman trader is in turn supporting at least six family members, including their children, spouse, aged parents etc

This update from Frances was sent from rural Nigeria to the UK this morning.

The talk was of tractors at this Wednesday’s weekly online meeting between the UK-Nigeria team.

Wednesday saw the second UK-Nigeria Skype meeting of 2011. However there was no gentle easing back into ‘work mode’ in the wake of the holidays! Already the Fantsuam team are quite literally building on their success of the previous 12 months.

Digging the reservoir
Originally uploaded by Attachab

A welcome triple helping of good news ensured this week’s exchange of information at the UK-Nigeria online meeting maintained the usual high level of interest.

First, John informed us that the work at the Attachab Eco-village is making exciting progress. Attachab has acquired a water pump and hose and was, at the time of the meeting, negotiating for a water tank in readiness for the dry season farming.

School in rural Nigeria
Originally uploaded by Dadamac Community

This week’s UK-Nigeria meeting returned to a theme which is at the heart of of all that Fantsuam Foundation does: namely education and training.

This was reflected in most of the items which were on the agenda for discussion this week.

This week’s online meeting saw us pick up the threads of several topics we had discussed in previous weeks. Among the matters we examined were:

Sickle Cell Disease: As previously mentioned, the screening programme for Sickle Cell amaong children under 6 years has halted temporarily. But it must have reached or at least be very close to the 6,000 target set by John Dada for his team. Fantsuam Foundation was recently visited by American Embassy staff and John reported that they seemed very impressed with the work. He is now waiting to hear if they are going to help support the much-needed expansion of the Sickle Cell Clinic. We will keep you abreast of developments.

Activities at Attachab proved the focus of this week’s UK-Nigeria online meeting. And the subject looks set to top the agenda for the next month as a result of the news that John has found an ideal site - complete with the magnificently-named river Wonderful which flows through it.