Category Archives: Updates

Marlow mothers support AwF again!

Having given Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF) a donation of £500 in 2005, Third World Aid made a second donation to AwF (UK) of £750 recently, following an appeal by the AwF Founder. The Directors of AwF are most grateful for the continued interest and support that we have received from this group of mothers in Marlow (England) and wish them every success in the selfless work that they do for the poor in developing countries.

Third World Aid (TWA) began life as the Ethiopian Aid Project (EAP) in 1974. A small group of young mothers from St Peter’s Church in Marlow responded to a cry for help from Father Gerry Stones, a priest working with the poor and impoverished in Ethiopia. Most of the mothers had young children at Primary School in Marlow.

Aquaculture talk raises funds for AwF

AwF (UK) Director Scott Peddie (sitting, far right) with some of those who attended the presentation and donated to AwF

AwF (UK) director, Rev. Dr. Scott Peddie, gave a talk on aquaculture and the work of AwF to a number of interested individuals at Dromore First Presbyterian Church in County Down, Northern Ireland on Wednesday 9th June. Commenting on the event, Scott said that “at the outset, most of the audience admitted that they had only a vague idea of what aquaculture actually was, never mind its role in alleviating poverty in some of the poorest parts of the world. However, by the end of the presentation people were clearly very impressed by the projects undertaken by AwF and the potential to do more if the resources were available.” 

A collection taken at the end of the presentation amounted to £ 135. Not only that, some of those present at the meeting indicated that they would like to raise money for AwF projects in the future. For his part, Scott looks forward to giving more of these presentations in churches, schools and community groups in the near future.

AwF volunteer provides support to Novus-Heifer project in Vietnam

Novus International is a global leader in animal health and nutrition and has donated US$100 000 to Heifer International, Vietnam to implement a new project in Ben Tre province in the Mekong Delta. The project aims to improve the livelihoods of poor and disadvantaged households in rural communities through sustainable small scale agriculture. Novus has committed to assist in the training of local project partners who work closely with these communities.

Technical experts from the fields of ruminant, poultry and aquaculture were identified to be involved with this project. Reshad Alam is the aquaculture technical specialist from AwF who is providing the “Train the Trainers” (TOT) program for the Novus-Heifer project in Vietnam. In planning for the TOT session, the Technical experts were invited to visit the communities who will directly benefit from this project. The visit included a discussion session which gave the technical experts, project participants, project trainers and project coordinators an opportunity to provide inputs on the training needs and to plan the TOT.

AQUAMEDIT 2010 pledges donation to AwF

AQUAMEDIT 2010, the 5^th International Congress on Aquaculture, Fisheries Technology and Environmental Management, will be held at the Aquaculture & Fisheries Management Department of the Technological Education Institute (TEI), Mesolonghi , Greece , 25-27 November 2010. Its theme is Capture Based Aquaculture: Combining Fisheries and Aquaculture for Sustainable Development. As usual, the principal organiser of this conference is the Panhellenic Society of Technologists Ichthyologists (PA.S.T.I.).

AQUAMEDIT 2010 has pledged to donate one (1) Euro to AwF for every delegate that registers for the Congress, plus the amount from a collection box placed on the registration desk.

PASTI has contributed to AwF several times before in this way and we are most grateful to its President, Michael Chatziefstathiou, for his kind initiative.

Full details about the programme of AQUAMEDIT 2010 are available from http://homepages.pathfinder.gr/pasti/pages_UK.htm.

AwF issues complete financial summary since its founding date

For the first time, the accounts of AwF and AwF (UK) covering the period since their inception in 2003 until the end of May 2010 have been released (see Reports page: AwF Financial Summary 2003-2010. PDF). 

During this period AwF and AwF (UK) have received over US$135,000 in donations.

Total expenses have been $7,160 [mainly bank charges, filing fees and fund-raising costs incurred by AwF; fund-raising costs incurred by AwF (UK) do not appear in the accounts because only net income is recorded].

Total project funding utilising these donations has reached nearly $68,000. In addition, AwF and AwF (UK) have utilised over $174,000 in joint activities with other organisations.

Thus the total funds raised by AwF and AwF (UK) have reached almost $310,000 and the funds already used in our work are approaching $250,000.

New AwF website gets kudos

Since launching on Tuesday, May 18th (12 days ago), the new AwF website has been visited 2,111  times (avg. 176 visits/day). The Board of Directors has received numerous emails and phone calls of congratulations from colleagues and friends; the response has been extremely positive. Below are some examples:

From Peter Edwards, Bangkok, Thailand: The new website looks good and should help the cause.

From Narayanan Kutty, Kerala, India: Have seen the new website. It looks great – now the possibilities of its expansion as needed seem to be infinite. 

From Wagner Valenti, Brazil: I have visited the new webpage of AwF and liked it very much! Congratulations to you and other directors!”

AwF and University of Arizona receive farmer-to-farmer aquaculture niche award from US-AID

We are pleased to announce that the US-AID has awarded $97,528 in a one year grant to administer a Farmer-to-Farmer program sending volunteers to India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago and New Caledonia to work with local aquaculture farmers to implement more sustainable farming techniques.  The original proposal can be seen on our projects page (current projects and field activities).  

Together we can achieve wonderful things

AwF is undertaking a number of initiatives to make itself better known to the glogal aquaculture community and to the public at large.

To the right is an advertisement that appeared in the March 2010 issue of World Aquaculture, published quarterly by the World Aquaculture Society (WAS). The ad space was donated by WAS, which is very much appreciated as all funding received is targeted to development projects.

If your organization has a publication, please considering running one of our ads in it because “Together we can achieve wonderful things.”

Contact us today!

New report on the success of AwF’s work in Nepal

The recently received report AwF – Nepal: Empowering women through small-scale aquaculture covers the major activities of a small-scale aquaculture project with objectives of improving nutrition and income of rural communities by empowering women. The two-year project (Jan 2008-Dec 2009) was funded by Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF) and launched in “Rainas Tar” within the Dhamilikuwa Village Development Committee,of Lamjung, a mid-hill district of Nepal, in collaboration with the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science (IAAS), Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal and a local NGO.

Summer of AwF fundraising in Northern Ireland

In our news item dated 26 September 2009 we mentioned fundraising activities for AwF in Northern Ireland and showed a picture from one of them – John Osprey abseiling in Belfast.

Now we are able to provide more details in the attached PDF, which is adapted from a story in The Antrim Times. A fish health expert, Rev. Dr. Scott Peddie is a Trustee of AwF (UK) and was formerly the treasurer and a board member of the European Aquaculture Society.

It is hoped that this story may give ideas to other supporters of AwF activities!