Peace Cup in a peaceful Malakal

It is time for those having left Malakal to return and to show their skills.

This message was given by one of the organizers of The Peace Cup, a football competition finally won by the team from the South of town after penalties. The happily cheering crowds running into the field after the match was a joyful experience definitely not reminding any one of any tribalism. He desribed the Saturday experiences as a display of Malakal at peace and love and invited those who wanted to participate in he development of Malakal to join in.

After the sports events the artist Vivian Nyanchan and her band was giving a concert. We are very tired from fighting and war and we have been waiting for peace for a long time and now peace has come, was her message.

Late warm African evenings in peaceful coexistence, fotball and concerts at the stadium was the Malakal experience during this week end. A team of Egyptian engineers building a technical school and a hospital in Jongilei here together with Fatin and Trond "under the tree" at South Sudan Hotel in Malakal.

The last two weeks Fatin and Trond has been in Malakal after a flight by Sudan Airways not easily forgotten. Malakal is the town where the new college of technical vocational teacher education at Upper Nile University is to be located. Saturday Johan arrived by WFP. The preparations for the start of the NUCOOP-TVET Bachelor's Program no doubt requires hands on.

Earlier this year the people of Malakal has experienced some incidents among others a clash between some militia and the SPLA. Malakal now appears to be peaceful and calm. While shopping at the market we met some American and Australian UNMIS police officers working with capacity building. They confirmed the impression given by the UN security reports and told that they had received no information about any security risks in Malakal.

Looking for oportunities - and they appear

Access to the Internet has been described as a bottleneck and it is often felt to be the No One obstacle when needed and missed. Never the less it is quite often the case that this problem can be significantly reduced when the approach is to look for oportunities.

This was the case when Ohide and Fauzia sat together analyzing the oportunities for the instructors at the Multi Services Training Center in Juba to access the Internet at the MTC. A pattern of oportunities appeared and it became obvious that planning and coordination will have the experiences of possible access to improve.

Fatin, Ohide, Fauzia and Ben during a short break during the Saturday workshop at Mango Camp by the River Nile in Juba.

Imporvement of Practice and Internet Access

Having access to the Internet is an important part when technical vocational teachers in Southern Sudan are sharing information and learning together through their blogging. It also enables communication with the Sudanese and other Master's Degree Students in Vocational Pedagogy whether they are in Kampala or in Norway. It enables the Master's Degree Students to support the advancement of technical vocational practice in Southern Sudan through their blogs as well as through questioning and commenting in the blogs of the technical vocational teachers. Such a collaboration can become a very powerful force in strengthening the technical vocational learning and practices.

The comments of Barnaba Mayor and Fatin Osman to Towongo Steven's blog serves as a good example of such a collaboration across the geographical border between Uganda and Sudan. Barnaba Mayor is one out of seven Southern Sudanese Master's Degree Students in Vocational Pedagogy under the NOMA program in Uganda. Fatin Osman is a lecturer at Upper Nile University in Malakal participating in the Norwegian FK Staff Exchange program.

In a later post Towongo reflects upon the thoughts of Barnaba and Fatin and by that demonstrating the power of Internet supported collaborative learning.

However, lack of access to the Internet must not be allowed to become an obstacle to the daily and systematic work of ours to improve our professional practice. Pen and paper are still important tools as well as the ability to observe and to co-create rich professional dialogs. Asking critical questions during our search for information to increase our understanding and to improve our practice is still vital. When this is done and perhaps even documented by pen and paper, then the access to Internet-publishing might be a limitation.