Education is like fishing – knowledge and skills
“Education is like giving someone the knowledge and the skill to fish, but not giving them the fish” said Precious Mastala, one of the Watipa scholars in Malawi. In this perfect phrase, he has captured the core spirit of why we provide scholarships, and place education at the core of Watipa’s youth development programme.
The most exciting moment for Watipa this month has been the formation of the scholarship committee – a group of 5 of the first Watipa scholars who will be guiding the Board of Trustees and management of Watipa on how we develop the scholarship programme in the future.
Watipa is thrilled to have been selected to be part of the Cambridge Social Ventures programme, part of the Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, starting in September 2017. The programme will offer us a fantastic mentorship opportunities to learn and grow as a social venture – a business that has social impact at the heart of its vision and way of working.
Watipa was selected on the basis of Edu Connect, a project to connect with other locally oriented scholarship programmes supporting youth development around the world. We want to connect with other initiatives so that young people can co-create and co-design the processes, gaining work experience, income generating opportunities, employability skills and employment. Being part of Edu Connect will also bring together people from very diverse contexts and backgrounds that can enable learning. People will have the chance to connect with people very far away and from different daily realities than their own – much like the experience Watipa will again from being part of the Cambridge Social Ventures programme.
Over the last month we have been busy reviewing training materials for healthcare workers to provide quality and comprehensive HIV services; developing creative case studies to document innovations in health service provision in rural Malawi; in Jamaica, finalising recommendations from a review of training curricula and interventions to address stigma and discrimination. within the health setting; and globally writing a report from a multi-year project looking at the interrelationship between law, human rights and access to justice in the response to HIV.
Keep up-to-date with our thinking, work and new ideas through our latest blogs:
- Uganda: Meet a scholar: Mariam Nassaka
- UK: We’re thrilled to be part of the Cambridge Social Ventures programme
- UK: Watipa strategy: A meeting like no other!
- Malawi: Meet a scholar: Precious Mastala
- France: HIV Science: IAS 2017
We need your help!
- Are you a highly organised coordinator, a good communicator and keen to support the scholarship programme? We are looking for a volunteer to work with us for 3 weeks in October to coordinate the next round of scholarship applications. You would need to be available for 1-2 hours a day and can be based anywhere in the world…. just with access to the internet and good English. Get in touch ASAP if you would like to take up this unique and very important role with Watipa!
- Are you a bookkeeper or budding accountant with 1-2 hours a week free? Watipa is looking for support. We have an accountant, so it’s just some help with filing, making spreadsheets and keep track of receipts, claims, and expenses. You’d need to be based in the UK, and ideally we would work together in person around the Kentish Town area in London. Get in touch ASAP if you would like to join the dynamic management team at Watipa and take up this important role!
For further details about these two opportunities to join the Watipa team, contact Lucy.