Brain Gain Project - Sierra Leone

This sounds very interesting!

Have you all tried contacting some of the outstanding students at - say IPAM etc. This will definitely look good on their CVs.

Ah bin for hep way ah don march don for PO wit me white white. But i won't be there !

Glad to announce that registration is now open for Sierra Visions' First Brain Gain Training program in Serra Leone.

Please complete registration by March 29, 2005.

http://www.sierravisions.org/Directory/BrainGainRegFlyer.pdf

The Brain Gain program went really well.  Sierra Visions taught MS Excel and some Access.  Teaching the class was very fulfilling and I encourage anyone who wants to give back to use this as another venue.  The students were very grateful to us.  I was surprised that some came back the second day showing that they have studied. 

However, there were some problems.  We did not get electricity for both days so we had to use a generator (small) which could not cope with eight computers.  Besides that, the business that provided the the office and computers tried their best to make it very comfortable for the trainers and students.  Big thanks to SBTS Group and PCL International.  They were really helpful in getting this program going.  They provided the lunch for the students, the petrol for the generator (I know everyone was aware of the oil shortage and increase in price), and their office space and computers. It shows what we could do if we just work together.

The success of the Brain Gain programme goes to show; how much potential and willingless to learn these students have, and with a bit of encouragement and teaching they can go a very longway in their careers. Adopt-a-Student is a good way forward in our development.

FOR Francois Pienaar, the World-Cup-winning former rugby captain, moving back to South Africa from England in 2002 was one of the best decisions he ever took. Going to Europe for a few years was a good professional move, but he missed friends and family and thought South Africa a better place to raise children. He has now become the poster boy for the Homecoming Revolution, a non-profit outfit helping South Africans living abroad to come back. Its aim, with a warning that it is not for “pessimists, racists, bigots and moaners”, is to bring talent back home. Apartheid deprived the black majority of high-quality education, leaving the country with a shortage of skills that the education system is now struggling to remedy. The brain drain of the most highly qualified has worsened the problem.

Though hardly new, emigration accelerated after the country moved to democracy in 1994 and its international isolation ended. While 70,000 South Africans are thought to have left the country in 1989-92, the estimated number ballooned to over 166,000 in 1998-2001. Some 1.4m South Africans are thought to be living in Britain alone. According to official statistics, over 16,000 highly-skilled South Africans emigrated between 1994 and 2001, but the real numbers are probably three to four times higher. Close to half of the South Africans living in rich countries have higher-education degrees.

Official statistics do not offer a racial breakdown of migration, but a survey has indicated that white professionals are only slightly more likely to consider emigrating than black professionals. Whites probably make up the majority of those who leave, largely because they are disproportionately well-educated: close to 45% of South Africans with a university degree (and possibly over 70% of those with a doctorate) are white, though they make up less than 10% of the population.

But South Africa is hardly alone. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Geneva reckons that the global stock of international migrants more than doubled in 30 years to 175m in 2000 and the African continent probably has the most mobile population in the world. Many Africans are pushed out by conflict or poverty. Those with exportable skills are lured by countries that pay better and offer more attractive career prospects, work conditions or lifestyle. South African expatriates also cite crime as a reason to leave, while some whites say that affirmative action to advance blacks is shrinking their career opportunities at home.

The effect of emigration is hard to assess. According to the Human Science Research Council, a South African think-tank, the country's research-and-development activity has been resilient. But the departure of doctors and nurses, for instance, is hitting the region hard. The British Medical Journal has reported that 23,000 of them leave Africa every year. According to some estimates, 10% of hospital doctors in Canada are South Africans, while the countries whose nurses got the most British work permits in 2001 were South Africa and Zimbabwe. The IOM says that more Ethiopian doctors are practising in Chicago than in Ethiopia.

Emigration is aggravating already crippling staff shortages in many of Africa's state clinics and hospitals. Only 50 of the 600-odd doctors trained in Zambia since independence have stayed. In South Africa, over a quarter of annual vacancies for doctors and nurses in the state hospitals and clinics are unfilled; as many as two-thirds of such jobs outside the bigger cities are not taken up. About $1 billion has been spent on training South African health-care professionals now working abroad.

Those who leave can still, however, help their home countries develop. An increasing number of diaspora networks, such as the South African Network of Skills Abroad or the IOM's Migration for Development in Africa, are trying to foster research and exchange programmes or even business links between those who have left and those who have stayed. The Francophone Initiatives of African Women in France and Europe, another diaspora network, has contributed to humanitarian aid, vocational training for orphans and micro-credit for women in places like Congo, Gabon and Cameroon. Many African expatriates also send money back to their families. The amount is a lot higher than the $4 billion officially recorded in 2002, as cash often travels in suitcases or through informal channels. For small countries, such as Cape Verde and Lesotho, remittances make up 12.5% and 26% of GDP, respectively. (Click below for more)

http://www.economist.com/World/africa/displayStory.cfm?story _id=4277319

Sierra Visions is proud to announce the 2nd session of the Brain Gain Project in January 2006 - do ya no to 'Tutu Pati' noh for plan for.

Hope we can get some much-needed Volunteer Trainers and a diverse and eager to learn group of students to register again this time around.

Also, feel free to share the Brain Gain Project Needs Survey with folks in SL to ensure that we're meeting the educational/business needs of our country..

PS* Otolo, thanks for the plug in last night's Newsletter! We dae wit u 100%...

The latest from the man who inspired us to develop the Brain Gain Project.