The Reach Out project has evolved beyond this space and now migrated on to Facebook.

Come and join us there, and help us build new networks for open dialogue between UK, North Africa and Middle East youth.

Yes, it’s finally arrived. DVD’s have been dispatched to the core group.

The video is a record of part of the January event in Manchester. We’ll be using it to promote the project to new stakeholders. (Meetings have already been arranged, but we’re keeping quiet until real results start to come through).

If you can’t see the video below, try going directly to the host site.

 Just click on the ‘>’ play button above to start the video.

(Sorry about the frame above. It’s out of our hands. Gets much better when you play the video). ;O)

If you want a copy of the DVD itself, get in touch with ‘reachout@REMOVETHISbritishcouncil.org’.

Hope you all like it!

If you want to re-visit what was said, click here.

See you soon.

This is the final live chat we’ll be having in this format (depending on future decisions), and it’s an opportunity for you to feedback on the following:

• The final reach out project streams as put together by your colleagues
• The workshop event
• The contributions of all the facilitators and,
• Where you see the future of reach out

It’s important you try and make it, but more importantly, it’s your final opportunity to really influence the decision makers.

See you here. Monday 30 January, 13:00 GMT. For time zones, go here.

As the event was drawing to a close, Pukul and I decided to shoot a quick video clip where we briefly discussed his views on the weeks activities.

Unfortunately the film crew had left, so we had to make do with my stills camera. Apologies for the slightly scratchy sound.

If you can’t see the video below, click here.

Pukul says there’ll be another live web chat here on Tuesday 30 January at 1300GMT. Hope to see you all then!

Pukul is briefing the groups on what they need to consider when writing proposal documents. He tells the group to take into account:

• Market Research, incorporating Political, Economic, Social, and Technology factors. Also Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
• Objective. Keeping it Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time Bound
• Target audience, incorporating segmentations
• Tactics / implementation
• Monitoring and evaluation

The groups are now preparing draft proposals, detailing roles and responsibilities for working on the projects together. We won’t be making the draft proposals public on the blog, as these are ‘practice’ documents not ready for the ‘public’ yet.

Participants are very concerned that UK involvement with the project will shortly be coming to an end. Responsibility for Reachout will be shifting to Tunisia. In order to reassure participants, Peter has flown to the UK to address everyone directly. I managed to grab him quickly, and asked him two questions:

• What change has he seen in people since the project started?
• What will British Council Tunisia be committing to do in the future?

Click to download or press play below:

There are a few things he doesn’t say in the recording, but rest assured, there are positive plans in the pipeline!

Yesterday the group had a video conference with a panel of United Nations personnel to test the validity of their project concepts.

Panellists included:

• Chris Strebel, UNESCO
• Richard Maciver, United Nations Chief Executives Board - UNCEB
• Lara Srivastava, International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
• Pierre Conille, The Global Fund
• Jane Wallace, World Health Organization (WHO)
• Santiago Imbers, UNAIDS and previously SAFAIDS in Zimbabwe
• David Galipeau, UNAIDS

Feedback from UN on group projects and approaches includes:

• Keep your message clear and ’sticky’
• Ensure your objectives are clear
• Ensure the criteria for photography are clear. What are the themes?
• Make sure you know what the project benefits are to partners and stakeholders
• What is the USP? (Unique Selling Point)
• How does the sponsor organisation benefit from funding your projects?
• Be clear about how you measure project impact. Find the tangible elements and trade on them
• Know what budget you need.
• Let fundholders know about your contacts and networks

A few participants felt the UN personnel were ‘harsh’ in their assessment of the projects. Others felt it was simply a more ‘realistic’ approach, reflecting exactly the kind of ‘grilling’ any project applicant would get in a real life situation. 

Incidentally, here’s David Galipeau talking at the LIFT conferencee in February 2006 on ‘How organisations are using new technologies to spread their message’.

Click to enlarge. Unfortunately we don’t have a high resolution version. Credit to Ghassan for taking the picture.

All the websites referenced by OneWorld today have been bookmarked at:

http://del.icio.us/reachoutweb2 (password = reachout)

Ken Kitson is happy to answer technical questions using the following contact details:

• Email: ken.kitson@REMOVETHISoneworld.net
• Skype: kenkitson
• Yahoo Chat: kennykitson