Tuesday 2 September 2003

Press Briefing Notes
Tuesday 2 September 2003
Spokesperson: Christopher Lom

1. AFGHANISTAN - IOM Channels Aid to War-Affected Border Districts
2. GUINEA - Micro-Enterprise Training, Credits for Women
3. KOSOVO- Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS Prevention in Schools

AFGHANISTAN - IOM Channels Aid to War-Affected Border Districts - IOM's USAID-funded Afghanistan Transition Initiative (ATI) has begun to target seven war-affected border districts in Khost and Paktika provinces in the Southeast, and in Nangarhar province in the East of the country.

Infrastructure projects in the seven marginalized districts include the drilling of wells, the construction of retaining walls, weir-intakes, reservoirs and pipe systems and the rehabilitation of traditional Karez irrigation systems.

The US$2.5 million US-funded initiative will also provide housing kits that include metal doors, windows, lintels, iron beams and construction tools, in the remote areas where few other aid agencies are currently operating.

The projects follow an assessment of six southeastern border districts in June by IOM and representatives of the Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD).

The Wor Mamay, Gomal, Barmal districts in Paktika and Jaji Maidan, Tere Zayi, Tani districts in Khost are geographically isolated and face serious security problems. In mid-August, Taliban and reportedly Al Quaeda forces destroyed the district government house in Barmal killing almost all the occupants. Since then, military operations involving US and Afghan government forces have been ongoing.

The assessment team met with local authorities in each district to identify their most urgent needs. Two Jirgas were held in June and July in Gardez City with representatives from central and provincial government to discuss the needs of the population, options for relief assistance and long-term recovery and development needs.

The team also consulted local representatives in Nangahar's isolated Pachir Agam district, which includes the Tora Bora area, to prioritize and identify their needs.

Since the launch of the ATI in March 2002, the programme has implemented almost 300 projects worth more than $14 million in 30 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces.

For more information, contact Brian Kelly, IOM Kabul. Email: bkelly@iomkabul.net <mailto:bkelly@iomkabul.net>.
Tel. + 93.70.278.815.





GUINEA - Micro-Enterprise Training, Credits for Women - IOM and the Ministry of Social Affairs, Promotion of Women and
Children, yesterday launched the first in a series of business training courses to empower impoverished women in the ECOWAS region of West Africa.

The US$112,000 programme, which is funded by the US government's Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) and IOM, and is a part of IOM's Migration for Development in Africa (MIDA) programme, will teach women how to create and manage a micro-enterprise and how to make good use of micro-credits.

The project, which will run until October 2004, will begin with an intensive two-week training course for 60 women in the Guinean towns of Kindia, Kissidougou, and Mamou - all of which host large numbers of female-headed households created by migration of men to neighbouring countries. The course, which opened in Kindia yesterday, is being taught by three Guinean trainers from the West African diaspora.

Once trainees have acquired a basic understanding of how to create and manage a small business, the programme will provide low interest loans of between US$200 and US$500 to allow them to start up micro-enterprises or upgrade existing small businesses.

The disbursement and monitoring of the micro-credits will be initially through Crédit Rural de Guinée, a micro-credit institution, which will work with IOM to help the women to set up cooperatives that will assume ownership of a revolving credit fund by the end of the first twelve months of the project.

The resulting Women's Enterprise Cooperatives (WECs) will try to create a cohesive organization of economically empowered businesswomen - providing a forum in which women running micro-enterprises can meet, share their skills and experience, and manage a rotational lending scheme for their own benefit and that of other aspiring or established women entrepreneurs.

KOSOVO- Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS Prevention in Schools - IOM Pristina, working with the Kosovo Ministry of Education and the University of Pecs in Hungary, has completed the first phase of a pilot programme to introduce tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS prevention into the school curriculum.

The Norwegian government-funded School Health Education programme aims to raise awareness about TB and HIV/AIDS among both teaching professionals and students.

Three training seminars for 70 teachers have already been organised to prepare for the introduction TB and HIV/AIDS prevention classes to children in eight selected pilot schools.

Teachers from six Albanian-speaking and two Serbian-speaking schools have attended a five-day training course to develop suitable teaching methods and practices to deliver the prevention message.

The training courses held in Pristina and Gjilan were carried out by experts from the University of Pecs and Kosovo's Institute of Public Health.

The trainers were also involved in developing the curriculum and adapting it to the model offered by the World Health Organization European Network of Health Promoting Schools (ENHPS) - an initiative designed to gather knowledge and understanding about health promotion in schools.

The programme will be followed up a TB screening Mantoux test for 4,000 children aged 6, 10 and 14. Data collected will provide information on the spread of the disease among youngsters.