Back to Bangladesh

In September I visited the Dhaka Ahsania Mission skills training centres in the slums of the city. Here is my favourite selection of the young people trying to learn skills to earn a living. DAM does incredible work for these young people who otherwise would have no hope of skills training. Many of them have left school with no qualifications - and there simply is not enough provision of basic education. They get literacy training if they need it and they learn a skill to be employed or self-employed ... although many of them end up in the garment industry.

When I meet great organisations like this - I just want to give them all my money and help them to do more ...

Port Vila

Vanuatu must be the nicest Pacific island nation (although I quite enjoyed New Zealand - does that count?) There are good roads and everything seems to work pretty well ... they speak English and they have French chefs! What more could I want? It's pretty hot and humid but I'm used to that and after the dreary weather in Wellington - this is quite a change.

I'm here to work with the Vanuatu National Training Council - and some people from Samoa, PNG, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. From Sunday, I am facilitating a workshop to help develop vocational literacy courses in these countries. Before that I've got lots of meetings with people who work in skills development here. They've also arranged to take me out to a rural training centre - looking forward to that - I always enjoy meeting students and seeing how things happen in situ.

Go here if you want to learn more about Vanuatu!