Eastern African Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI), is a women's organisation established to facilitate follow-up of the implementation of the Global and African Platforms for Action for the advancement of women within the Eastern African Sub-region. EASSI is looking to fill the vacant position of executive director. It focuses on the enhancement of gender equity and social justice through networking, research, capacity building and advocacy for women.

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) is an international human rights non-governmental organisation (NGO), with a particular focus on the human right to adequate housing and preventing forced evictions. COHRE has regional programmes in Asia & the Pacific, the Americas and Africa, along with thematic programmes on housing and property restitution; women and housing rights; the right to adequate water; and litigation. COHRE was established in 1994, and is now recognised as an important voice in the global human rights movement. COHRE requires a Coordinator to manage its Africa Programme, to be based in Accra, Ghana.

It is almost ten years since the end of apartheid - a moment that appeared to promise peace and prosperity for the future of the region. It is also roughly a decade after several other major regional political events - Namibian independence, Mozambique's first multi-party election, Zambia's first non-liberation movement government, the Lusaka Accord for (temporary) peace in Angola. The above organisations held a symposium in southern Africa on the grounds that it was an appropriate time for an evaluation. It was also the time for some thinking aloud about the future. Has the promised peace dividend come to the region? Have the hopes expressed for peace and prosperity in the region come to fruition? If not why not and was another path possible? Are we stuck with a choice of authoritarian nationalism or neo-liberalism?

Our three-day discussion analysed developments over the past ten years such as:
· The challenge of turning liberation movements into governments
· The NEPAD initiative - a "home grown" African leaders response to the worsening crises in Africa. But what of its neo-liberal approach and its lack of consultation and participation in planning?
· The formation of the African Union with its commitments to human rights, and setting limits to absolute state sovereignty.
· It is impossible to speak of liberation without coming to gender considerations, and yet development here appears stalled and inherently liable to reverse.
· The HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has tragically become the context within which development has to take place.
· The political, social and economic crisis in Zimbabwe and lack of firm regional response
· The outbreak of peace, initially inside Angola, and then the Democratic Republic of Congo (the 'African scramble for Africa') but the legacy of major divisions and problems of reconstruction.

Four prison wardens confronted Alfarson Sinalungu, a freelance journalist who writes for the privately-owned "Post" newspaper, on September 17, over an interview he conducted with convicted coup plotter Captain Jack Chiti. Chiti, who is on death row, is currently in Kabwe general hospital. Sinalungu told MISA-Zambia that the wardens accosted him at the hospital and accused him of being the author of a profile of Chiti that appeared in the 7 September edition of "The Sunday Post". In the article, Chiti explained in detail his involvement in the failed 27 October 1997 coup d'état against former president Frederick Chiluba, his subsequent torture, the harassment of his family and his views on Zambia's current political situation.

Wow, what a week! I hope to live to tell my children and grandchildren all about Ngugi wa Thiong'o's visit to South Africa to give the Steve Biko Lecture at the University of Cape Town. I hope to live to tell them about the electrifying moment as Ngugi held an audience of 2000 people spellbound. It was an incredible tour de force on the intellectual history of SA and its linkages with renaissance thought. Building on the work of another brilliant intellectual, Ntongela Masilela, Ngugi went deep into the history of the late 19th century and early 20th century intellectuals Tiyo Soga, John Tengo Jabavu, WB Rubusana, and Priscilla Maxeke.

Civil Society participation in education policy debate should be increased by mobilising broad-based constituencies to advocate for quality basic education and increaseing district capacity support for improving the conditions for learning in deprived rural areas. These are two of the recommendations of a CARE International study to discover what types of complimentary education services have been effective in reaching the under-served in Ghana, especially female, populations in rural deprived areas.

A group of six children and youth who were abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda have returned from Sudan, UNICEF Uganda has announced. The ages of the members of the group range from 12 to 22 years. All were abducted from Uganda as children, between 1997 and 2002. After arrival at Entebbe, the group was taken to reception centres in Gulu where they will be provided with psycho-social counselling by the Gulu Support for Children Organisation (GUSCO) and World Vision.

A workshop convened by HelpAge International in Nairobi this week showed that support to older carers and orphans and vulnerable children is wanting in Africa. Participants were drawn from Southern and Eastern African countries, representing organisations working with older people, orphans and other vulnerable children, AIDS Control Councils, government representatives, donor agencies, older people and orphaned children. The workshop reviewed evidence regarding the role of older women and men as carers of orphans and vulnerable children affected by AIDS, identified gaps in existing programmes and policies, and mapped out strategies to provide effective support for older people and orphans and vulnerable children.

Over the last two weeks schools around the world have opened their doors for the start of the new school year, but UNICEF says that recent household surveys show that some 123 million children are currently being left out - perhaps never to see the inside of a classroom. UNICEF said that in sub-Saharan Africa, 46 million school-aged children have never stepped foot in a school, a figure that has risen steadily every year since 1990.

What are the links between HIV, poverty, education and gender inequality? How have structural adjustment and cost-sharing affected vulnerable children in Tanzania? Are policy-makers able to address the serious inequalities and vulnerabilities faced by the growing number of children working the country’s streets? A paper from the University of Hull presents findings from ethnographic research in northern Tanzania. With almost a million people who have died from AIDS and an estimated million more cases, the disease is compounding Tanzania’s economic problems and placing an enormous burden on the surviving, economically active young people.

Lectures have resumed at the University of Ghana, Legon, after a three-week strike by lecturers to press home demands for better conditions of service.

Police in Blantyre arrested Frank Namangale on September 16. Namangale, a reporter with the "Daily Times" newspaper, was arrested on charges of "publishing false information likely to cause fear and alarm to the public". Namangale was released on bail later the same day.

Resource Alliance invites registered African not-for profit organisations to enter an awards competition for their resource mobilisation achievements. The participants will be required to explain and describe their local resource mobilisation technique, whether it was successful or if not what lessons were learnt.

The successful candidate will be responsible for the management of staff in the Project Coordination Unit; recruitment and management of short-term consultants; management of workshops and study tours; procurement of equipment (using UN modalities); facilitating task forces, financial and technical reporting. Experience required includes 3 years experience in natural resources project management & planning, knowledge of socio-economic survey and/or conservation legislation with a masters or PhD in relevant fields.

The International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH) is a leading international, non-profit, non-governmental organization focusing on human resource development, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. IFESH is seeking a long- term Program Coordinator and six short-term consultants for a community-based program to reintegrate ex-combatants in northern Katanga Province.

The Human Rights Secretariat Manager will closely work with the Sector Manager and Project Manager in establishing an effective network of agencies and relevant stakeholders, supporting capacity building activities of legal practitioners and local authorities.

The paramount chief of the Batawana tribe, Tawana Moremi, physically attacked Booster Galesekegwe, a photojournalist from the weekly "Mmegi" newspaper, and broke his camera on September 6. Moremi also attacked Kagiso Sekokonyane, acting editor of "Mmegi Monitor", "Mmegi"'s sister newspaper.

Working children are common in developing countries. The cluster of young street vendors seen at traffic lights belies the largely invisible mass of working children. They are at home cleaning, cooking and caring and provide the household's fuel and water. They are busy tending crops and livestock and, sometimes, they are paid for their labour. But how long do they spend on these responsibilities? How does their work affect their capacity to participate in the schooling offered to them?

According to the first post-apartheid national Census in 1996, 8.5% of South African children between the ages of 7 and 15 were not in school while approximately 16% of learners in Grades 1 to 7 were out of age (in school but older than their grade cohort by at least three years). From an educational point of view, these two groups of learners represent important lenses for marginality - children, who for whatever reasons, are unable to keep average pace with basic schooling.

Thousands of children fleeing Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) attacks in northern Uganda’s troubled Pader district are now stranded in neighbouring Karamoja, unable to rejoin their families, according to government officials.