Annual Review

AET has had an extremely busy and productive year and the Board of Trustees wish to thank the Director and all the staff both in the UK and Africa for their hard work, sometimes carried out in very difficult circumstances. The Board would also like to record its thanks and gratitude to Professor Ioan Lewis, now retiring after having been Chair of the Board of Trustees for over ten years. His expertise and wise counsel have been invaluable to the AET. We are very pleased that he has remained a Trustee. The current elected Chair is a woman, for the first time in AET’s history! The Board would also like to record its thanks and gratitude to Mrs Jane Kellock who, having served as a Trustee for a significant number of years, has retired from the Board of Trustees. During the year we were pleased to welcome to the Board of Trustees Richard Dowden, Executive Director, Royal African Society.

AET has continued to work in Africa, primarily in Somaliland, Somalia, Southern Sudan, Swaziland, South Africa, Kenya (there is now an AET office in Nairobi) and in Uganda where there are also plans to open an office. The work continues to centre around developing innovative education and training programmes for children and young people especially girls, young women, former soldiers, and disabled people. Much of the success of the programmes is due to the belief that communities should design the kind of education they want, and programmes should be carried out locally by locally trained people.A novel recent project that illustrates this is the EC-funded Radio Project in which the Trust is working with the BBC World Service Trust in Somalia/Somaliland for livestock herders. This is a weekly programme discussing issues important to animal herders. The importance of radio to learners was illustrated by the extremely successful Radio-Teacher programmes devised in co-operation with the BBC World Service Trust, which were broadcast weekly in Somali on the BBC Somali Service and which have provided basic literacy and numeracy information to25, 000 students with follow up in local centres organised by local teachers.

The Trust has worked in Southern Sudan for almost ten years, despite interruptions due to the civil war, and we were delighted when the Peace Agreement was signed early in 2005. However, we were, with many others, deeply saddened by the untimely death in August 2005 of Dr John Garang, the first southern Vice President of Sudan. It seems particularly apt that AET should be carrying out a DFID-funded research project on Basic Education in Countries Emerging from Conflict (carried out by researchers from Southern Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Somaliland, South Africa and the UK), as John Garang was a passionate supporter of education as a necessary preparation for a democratic Sudan. Thirty-four Southern Sudanese students also completed the Certificate in Public Administration and Management in June 2005, the 5 th group of students to do so. This one-year distance-learning course is run in conjunction with the Fort Hare Institute of Government, South Africa.

We continue to value our links in South Africa, particularly with the University of Fort Hare and we are delighted that Professor Derrick Swartz, Vice-Chancellor of the University, agreed to give the2005 Michael Scott lecture in October. The talents of young writers in South Africa were demonstrated in the Short Story competition – organised by the Rex Collings Memorial Fund. Further Southern African links are with the Colonel Johnson Educational Trust for Swaziland, which provides funds for secondary school students, and we would like to thank Professor Cisco Magagula, acting Vice-Chancellor of the University of Swaziland, for all the work he puts in for this Trust.

AET continues to support education for Africans in the UK. Staff are to be congratulated on setting up two new programmes in the UK. One, a Certificate in Community Research and Representation, a course currently training some thirty women from African refugee and community groups to be effective advocates and catalysts in their communities.Two, a training and mentoring programme to help strengthen African community groups in the UK to develop the skills and qualifications of staff.The Women’s Refugee Project continues to offer advice to African refugee women on education and training opportunities.

None of the programmes and projects carried out by AET in Africa and the UK would be possible without the generous funding and support from our wide variety of sponsors and funders. Thank you to them and again, to the staff of AET.

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