Medellin, Colombia

After a few days home, on the road again. This time not as far away as the travel to Mozambique and Kenya. Now with COPA Airlines via Panama City to Medellin in Colombia.

A few hours at the airport in Panama City and then on to Medellin, a city where I was several times during my year here in Colombia (see under 2013). This time I was here to present about the college system in Canada and the role we could play in Bogota together with SENA in the CSR activities (Corporate Social Responsibility) of gold mining companies active in Colombia. A few pics of the conference; it was another step in a possibly very long business development process...

Good old Amsterdam

On my way back from work in Mozambique and Kenya, I made a short one day stop in Amsterdam. It was a very nice weather day and the number of tourists was incredible to see. On the photo above in front of the beautifully renovated central train station, the restaurant where Mary and I had our second wedding party (after the official wedding and party in Canada) in late September 1990.

Everywhere in the city during such a nice day people are enjoying drinks and food on the hundreds of small terraces along the canals and in the old smaller alleys. Every time I see this, it makes me a bit homesick (because I lived in this city from 1984 to 1988).

Some people in Amsterdam live on house boats. Mary and I would love to rent one for a few weeks during one of the following years. I need to look into that during my next visit.....

It was 40 years ago (August/September 1979) that the group above was in charge of organizing two weeks of an intensive orientation program for newly arrived students at the Delft University of Technology. Jan, Anne-Marjan, Jos, Coen, Lies and Hubert were the seven student friends I spent a very intensive few months with at that time during the preparations and the implementation of that program. It was one of those "learning by doing" experiences from which I benefited much later all throughout my career. It was good fun to see each other again after so many years (for most of them I had not seen these old friends for at least 35-36 years).

After dinner I walked with Jos to his house where I frequently stayed as a guest during the years when I had to regularly be in Amsterdam for coordination meetings at Artsen zonder Grenzen (MSF Holland - Doctors without Borders Holland) when I was tasked to start up MSF Canada (1990-1992). Jos has as a hobby collecting artwork from around the world. I made more photos but the flash of my old BB was not working. He has paintings and books all over his house; very unique....

During the late evening walk I passed the "Bloemenmarkt" where I had an apartment in a house we shared with three of us. My place was the top floor of the 4th house from the left. Good memories of four years of living without a car in one of the most fun cities in the world (of course I am biased!).

Work at the KTTC

Reflecting on the logic design of training courses for leadership training was the topic of this week of work at the KTTC (Kenya Technical Teacher College). We conducted pilot training sessions the past two years with Heads of Departments, Vice Principals and Principals of the Kenyan Polytechnic Institutions and the Technical Training Institutions. Now it is time to put the observations in course materials and a curriculum which will be sustainable and flexible at the same time for years to come.

Nairobi, Kenya

After the week in Mozambique, I made the short hop north along the East Coast of Africa to Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. Here we also are completing a leadership capacity development project through the CICan (College & Institutes Canada) with funding from GAC (Global Affairs Canada). Our team will have a variety of activities lined up here with the KTTC (the Kenya Technical Training College) for this week and next week. I am here only for a few days of preparations and the start of the activities. Today we worked with the local team of CICan.

The coming few days we will be at the KTTC with our Kenyan colleagues.....

Indian Ocean beach

No words..... (last evening in Pemba).....

Networking at conference

One of the events we used the outside tent for was last night's networking event with local businesses. One of the points we stressed to our colleagues here is how important it is to have close cooperation with local employers so that we as colleges are always up to date about their needs on skills and knowledge of our graduates. The local organizers made it an excellent event full of local color....

Quinn and Paulo are our quiet "movers & shakers" from Seneca who have assisted the Mozambican colleagues during the past few years to "learn by doing". They arrived a few days earlier to make sure that as much as possible of the event went smoothly.

Local host college staff worked throughout the conference to assist including during this industry networking event. Also students assistants worked at the event for example at the registration desk.

Pemba, Mozambique

Once again a few days in Mozambique. This time to have our last STEM project activity. The Seneca team worked here during the past four years on capacity building among managers of the national technical colleges/institutes. This time we organized a small training conference around what we have done with our colleagues here (last year we had a 1st such conference in Tete - see under August 2018). The conference is hosted at a new "hotel escola" (hotel school) in Pemba in the north-east.

Our key-note speaker is Tom who a brilliant and pragmatic academic leader at the colleges in Canada and who also speaks Portuguese. Tom and I have been here now four times once a year. It is a true privilege to work with Tom. On the evening of our arrival in Pemba we had dinner with some of the colleagues here.

For fun I took a photo with the local newspaper of Fonthill (Pelham) to send to them to see if they place the photo. We are staying in the hotel school as the very first visitors; a total of 12 visitors filling 24 rooms they have (4 from Canada, 2 from Maputo and 6 from Tete, the other main city of our project and where we hosted our conference last year bringing 6 colleagues there from Pemba). The view from our hotel is over the ocean as well at some distance) and over the school's sports field.

The organizers of the hosting institution set up a special tent for the lunches and dinners for the roughly 50 participants. The first day went well. Two more days to go.

Few days in NL

On my way to work on our Seneca international development projects in Mozambique and Kenya, I was able to stop over in NL (Holland) for a few days. First I caught up with Coen at the beaches of the North Sea (part of the Atlantic Ocean) in Scheveningen where he and his wife recently moved. Coen grew up near there so it was coming back for him. We studied together at the Delft University of Technology and stayed in touch ever afterwards. Coen was best man at our wedding in 1990 (with Gert-Jan, another university friend who came over from Holland in September for that event). Coen recently retired and now heads a Foundation working in several African countries to install durable energy installation in rural areas. It was great to see each other again and have some time to catch up.

The next day I had a tour on rental bicycles of our old University city Delft with two old house mates, Lies and Cathrien. So many good stories to memorize. Cathrien and I both studied Industrial Design Engineering which was then a very young Faculty of the University. Last year it celebrated 50 years.

The 3rd day of my short stay I picked up my sister Hanneke in Soest. In her nice retirement flat she had a new small balcony installed so it was time for a quick "selfie".

The we drove to the east of Holland where my other sister Gerrie lives with her husband Bert. We had our traditional Dutch Chinese meal and then it was time for me to hop on the plane again to visit the projects in south east Africa.....