Talent Consortium is looking for helpers to staff exhibition stands at the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Volunteers from the Umsobomvu Youth Fund changed the dull face of the historic St Matthew's High School last week by giving it a fresh coat of paint as a symbol of hope. The fund is working with the Eastern Cape Provincial Council of Churches on the St Matthew's R40000 project -- its biggest project in the country.

The United States Government has given an amount of $185,000 to fund the activities of five Ghanaian organisations to deal with violence against women and children.

Donors have begun to respond to the World Food Programme's (WFP) massive US $500 million appeal for the millions in need of food aid in six Southern African countries. The United Kingdom had donated US $28.1 million, Canada nearly US $1 million and the Netherlands US $500,000.

Donor countries have agreed on a three-year plan to fund the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) programme. According to a World Bank Group statement, approximately US $23 billion in resources would be made available during the three years, of which almost US $13 billion would come from new contributions from 39 donor countries.

Established in 1984 in the UK, Islamic Relief is an international NGO seeking to promote sustainable economic and social development by working with local communities - regardless of race, religion or gender - through relief and development activities. We are active in Mali since 1998. Currently, our activities are being implemented in both development and emergency fields. We require an experienced and skilled Programme Manager for our Mali office.

Since 1996, Save the Children Canada and UK have been jointly implementing a capacity building project with the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission (DPPC) of the Government of Ethiopia, to strengthen disaster management capacity. The Project Manager is responsible for overall leadership and management of the project, including project design, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

"It’s not knowledge that’s the barrier. It’s political wealth. The world stood by while AIDS overwhelmed Subsaharan Africa. Never again," said Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, in an address to the International Aids Conference in Barcelona.

Kenya has a shortfall of 22,000 teachers in both primary and secondary schools. The shortfall will be reduced through recruitment beginning this month, the government says.

Mapanzure High School near Masvingo town was on Monday shut down indefinitely after some of the 50 teachers at the school were beaten up by suspected supporters of the ruling Zanu PF party.

"Dumping" orphans into special child-care centres should only be considered as a last resort, it was agreed during Namibia's second national conference on the plight of orphans, held in Windhoek last week.

Prostitution is not a new trade in Rangwe, South Nyanza, but social workers are astounded by its meteoric rise in the height of the Aids pandemic. Nearly 500 orphaned girls in the district have become sex workers. "The epidemic has left them fending for themselves," says Ms Nereah Seda, a community worker. Neglected by relatives, their behaviour is reactive and reckless.

Eleven years ago, at the World Summit for Children, world leaders made a joint commitment and issued an urgent universal appeal to give every child a better future. Since then, much progress has been made. However, achievements and gains have been uneven, and many obstacles remain, particularly in developing countries. A brighter future for all has proved elusive, and overall gains have fallen short of national obligations and international commitments.

On Barcelona's streets outside the Aids conference, treatment advocates, doctors and people with HIV/AIDS plan to stage "massive" protests. South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign chairman, Zackie Achmat, says that treatment advocates are also planning a "new pan-African treatment movement, demanding everything from vitamins to anti-retrovirals." The protests are just one sign that this may be the most complex of the Aids conferences since the first took place almost a decade and a half ago. And while much of the noise coming from the 14th Aids International Conference in Barcelona, Spain that began Sunday will be the sound of argument about how much weight to give treatment versus prevention, the real battle cry, raised by voices focused on prevention as well as treatment, is for much more money for the Aids fight.

The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), known as MONUC, confirmed last Friday it had received reports of the presence of hundreds of Rwandan troops and their Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) allies near Moba, in the northern part of Katanga Province. If fighting were to break out between these forces and pro-government forces, it could further endanger the efforts to bring about a political and diplomatic solution to the DRC's long-running war, analysts said.

We are looking for a dynamic person to manage the delivery of all aspects of its programming across 18 countries in Africa and through four cross-cutting thematic programmes and a global programme which gives the overall strategic framework to our programming.

ACORD is looking for a new Executive Director to be responsible for the strategic leadership and overall organisational management of all areas of ACORD’s work. S/He will continue the process of change we have been undergoing. This involves changing the focus of our programming to working with communities and social movements in both the North and South and using advocacy and research as tools for change. We are relocating the secretariat from the UK to Africa by the end of 2004 and increasing the status, skills and responsibility of our Programme Managers to strategically manage their programmes.

MISA, a media advocacy organisation whose objective is to promote media freedom, diversity and pluralism is seeking to fill the position of Administrator/Office Manager.

Calling the lack of action taken by international governments to prevent the AIDS crisis a "crime against humanity", a group of doctors asked leaders at the International AIDS conference in Barcelona to stop debating cost-effectiveness and start providing more generic drugs to third world countries.

The United States has donated US $25,000 to restore one of Ethiopia’s most important religious temples. The restoring the sandstone shrine to its former glory might lead to a boost in tourism for the area. The pre-Christian temple, which dates back to 5th century BC, is now in ruins, but is the only remains of the former capital, which is close to Axum – Ethiopia’s holiest city.