Commonwealth of Learning partners meeting
Patrick Prendergast
Patrick Prendergast, lecturer and coordinator of CARIMAC at the UWI Mona – Western Jamaica Campus, and adjunct lecturer in alternative media at Mona, Rosamond Brown represented the Institute at the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) Partners Meeting held in Cape Town South Africa from September 12 – 17, 2011.
South Africa, The Media & Training Centre for Health, and was designed to have partner representatives share their experiences from the work being done across the Commonwealth – Canada, Caribbean, Africa, and the Pacific. They also contributed to the process of developing a toolkit for the Community Learning Programme (CLP) model being promoted by the Healthy Communities programmatic area of COL. International organizations joining the meeting were UNESCO and AMARC. Prendergast is an associate member of AMARC.
The CARIMAC representatives led working sessions on two critical areas of CLP:
1. Planning CLPs – Consultation, capacity and needs assessment (Prendergast) and
2. Sustainability of Community Learning Programmes – New insights for ensuring continuity (Brown and Prendergast).
Both presentations were based on the work CARIMAC has been supporting among various community radio stations, health authorities, and other community-based institutions in Toledo District, Belize and Kingston and St. Mary, Jamaica.
The emerging possibilities for the University of the West Indies and CARIMAC are in the areas of impact research, structured internships for media students, and consolidating relationships for sustainability of the university’s work at the local community level especially in the coming 2012-2015 programme period.
CARIMAC receives research funding from local agencies
