Tag Archives: International Development

Inspiring the next generation by challenging the headlines

Donor for a Day Headlines

With the generous support of Charlie Goldsmith Associates*, we’ve been able to expand our schools programme across Sheffield, targeting schools that wouldn’t normally be able to access this kind of educational activity.

Our Donor for a Day workshop is lively and interactive, challenging the students’ perceptions of foreign aid through debating current hot topics in the news. The students also work together to decide on how to allocate foreign aid in a fictional crisis. Continue reading

Bringing aid organisations together in South Yorkshire

Graphic illustration of the initial SYIDN workshop by Paul Harrison

Aid Works is a member of the quickly growing South Yorkshire International Development Network (SYIDN), a coordination mechanism for local aid organisations. The network provides us with an opportunity to learn from each other, share events and news, and to give us a stronger, collective voice.

Aid Works hosted the most recent meeting, which featured an informative presentation from Rachel Cornish of the Evan Cornish Foundation. Continue reading

Linking Development Aid and Social Sciences For the Next Generation

UK Government Spending - 2013

In 2013, the UK government achieved its target of contributing 0.7% of its national income in aid, spending £11.4 billion. Most students thought that the amount spent was a lot more!

The world is becoming more complex, with increasing numbers of emergencies, violent crises and people in need of aid. However, the work done by our government in international development seems far removed from our daily lives in the UK.

Aid Works partnered with the Sheffield Institute for International Development (SIID) and the Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS) Outreach Department to run two Aid Worker for A Day workshops for students from seven schools. The aim was to broaden students’ knowledge of development aid and raise awareness of related courses offered at the University of Sheffield. Continue reading

Building systems for the future

Mo has just returned from South Sudan, where he was working with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Health Information Systems Programme to support the Ministry of Health (MoH) in exploring the next generation of health systems. During the visit he explored three types of system; hospital information systems, the District Health Information Software 2 and supervisory tools for health facilities. Continue reading

Survey: What support do aspiring aid workers need?

Aid Works is launching an exciting new project called Get the North to the South, which will bring international development skills and knowledge to the North of England, so that they can be shared with the world.

There are lots of skilled and passionate people in the North who would like to get into aid work, but almost no relevant and practical training is offered in the region. We want to change that.

But first, we want to hear from you. What barriers do people from outside London face when trying to get into aid work? What kind of support would help an aspiring aid worker get that all important first job? What practical training would complement existing university programmes? Continue reading