LisaC's blog

GenARDIS round III: Photo taken of grantees at the final workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa during the knowledge sharing workshop. March 2010.GenARDIS is for the deaf woman in Ethiopia who can now generate her own income through digital photography. GenARDIS is for rural mothers across rural Africa, who can now provide additional income for their families because they can now market to buyers from outside their community. GenARDIS is for small women farmers who are no longer being taken advantage of by the middle man, that can now get a fair price for their crop by sending a simple SMS. It is for Cameroon farming women who were able to purchase new and more appropriate farming tools thanks to increased revenues and the ability to call into town to order the product.

Now in our third round of GenARDIS, this morning’s workshop session was opened as the group was welcomed by exploring the question why – Why GenARDIS? Oumy Ndiaye of the CTA began the discussion by sharing her personal interest in the small grants fun, but also elaborated on its importance on a greater scale. “GenARDIS,” she explained, “is an opportunity to see things move, and seeing the good ideas being implemented on the ground.” APC Executive Director Anriette Esterhuisen continued that GenARDIS also brings together the work that organisations do at national policy and international levels, that can sometimes lose their sense without knowing how it is being reflected on the ground.