Dear Nightingale friends,
Time for a new semester, hopefully filled with new energy!
As mentioned in the summer Newsletter, always remembers: Each of us can make a difference but together we can make a change!
New homepage
As you might have seen we have had some problems with our webpage loading up photos etc. and there were also some limitations too. But with a lot of help from our administrator Nina we are now very happy to soon be able to introduce our new webpage. We will have this new address now but hope soon to change it to a Nightingalementoring.com in the future.
Next network meeting & celebration of the Nightingale Network 10th anniversary the 24-25th of February 2020.
As you already know the next Network meeting will be held at Malmö University
Remember to save the date!
We will as soon as possible make a blog with more information.
This time we also hope you can invite school persons, your contact persons too. They are important link and cooperation partners to all of us and we would like them to get together, form groups (let them get in touch with each others, even after the network meeting) and also have the opportunity to have experience exchange.
EU KA3 application
As mention earlier, Barcelona (Servei Solidar) had an idea of applying an EU application KA3 in cooperation with Malmö Nightingale. It was a good idea and it could give us a great opportunity to also involve our former mentors to come together (Youth dialogue) as an event on the next network meeting in Malmö.
A KA3- application could involve youth/mentors in political action, therefore, the topic should be carried out by the participants of the network/Conference.
The deadline however is October 1st and it should be presented to the Swedish National Agency before. You should fill in a paper if interested and of course a lot of things should be done before. Unfortunately this is at the same time as we have a hectic program in Malmö (but also you have!) with recruiting students and children and we also have a new team in Malmö. So we have decided to postpone the application this year. However we think it is a great opportunity to let our mentors come together (by EU funds) so that’s why we would like to put the subject /KA3 Erasmus on the agenda of our network meeting in Malmö the 24th – 25th of February. Hopefully Laia, from Servei Solidar in Barcelona could introduce the KA3 application, the benefit and from there we can decide if and how many are interested. My idea is to already decide the content or focus of next Conference: Student mentors. Then we can invite key-note speakers, researchers and maybe PHD students too in this area.
I think we can even make a better application and maybe also get us the money easier if we plan all the things in advance.
New partner
We are happy to announce that Berlin Frei Universität will be our partner again.
We want to welcome Peter Stammerjohann, coordinator of Nightingale at the Free University Berlin and Prof. Dr. Petra Wieler, as responsible project manager of Nightingale at the Free University Berlin.
Ghana
Our Nightingale partner in Ghana is working hard but with success! He wants to share his experience so far and wrote to me:
Dear Carina,
November 3rd, 2019 will exactly be two years ago that you set your
foot unto the land of Ghana to sow a seed that should bring some sort
of happiness to school children in Ghana.
This seed is The Nightingale Mentoring Program. In fact the program
kicked off a year after you have left the country Ghana (2018) at
Ashesi University in Ghana. However, the program faced and still
facing financial problems from the beginning to the end of the program
calendar (May). But with determination, the first group of 15 mentors
and mentees respectively has come to an end in this year, 2019. Thank
you for this unique program that you have extended to us in Ghana.
Parents, school children (mentees) and the mentors are saying they
have learnt a lot from the program and have expressed their joy on the program.
Many parents have testified how it has brought a change in their children lives
After all, we were not able to make a big get- to- gather or
farewell, though we met to bring the program to an end successfully.
Attached to this are few pictures on the farewell day.
On this note, we are increasing the number of mentors and mentees
respectively from 15 to 25 in the coming kick-off day in October 2019
at the Ashesi University in Ghana.
Also, we are extending the program to the University of Ghana (
approval pending) may be this or next year .
Thank you once again.
Best , David Kwakye