Update VEGA with AwF

Update VEGA with AwF

Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance (VEGA) manage programs all over the developing world. VEGA believe that increasing economic growth is the best way to help people lift themselves out of poverty and improve their quality of life.

Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF) are the only specialist Aquaculture group within VEGA and we aim to engage with VEGA’s programs which are committed to serving women, youth, and others who are ready to be entrepreneurs or learn new business skills. AwF are working hard on their collaboration with VEGA and hope to see more activities as a result.

Recently two AwF volunteers Marty Riche and Pablo V Cisneros agreed to engage in VEGA Sponsored Training ‘A Successful Transition to 2 CFR 200/700’ which will assist VEGA members with the December 2014 changes to the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). VEGA is sponsoring a 3-day customized workshop which will be held December 8 – 10, 2015 in Washington, DC. 

AwF Continues to Diversify

Mary Larkin

Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF) Executive Director, Roy Palmer, announcing a new Board appointment said “We are absolutely thrilled that Mary Larkin, Executive Vice President of Diversified Communications, has agreed to join our Board of Directors.“

Mary joined Diversified in 1995, has been involved with the seafood industry since early 1996 and continues to oversee Seafood Expo North America in Boston and the world’s largest seafood event in Brussels – Seafood Expo Global.  She has held the role of Vice President since 2004 and was recently promoted to Executive Vice President of US operations.

Award for an Aussie Champ

Our October Award for AwF Woman of the Month is announced on the day an FAO Round Table Meeting entitled ‘Shaping an International Network for Women in the Seafood Industry’ is taking place in Vigo, Spain.

AwF congratulates Dr Ann Fleming for her selection as our October Woman of the Month.

Ann was the Manager of the Aquaculture Unit, within the Fisheries Group of the NT Government for over six years. In this role she managed the Unit’s activities to actively encourage and facilitate the development of the aquaculture industry in the Territory. A significant part of her work involved leading the R&D programs and daily operational activities of the Darwin Aquaculture Centre, including research and development projects, commercial production of juvenile stocks, farm extension service, and collaborative projects with Industry, Indigenous clients and partner research providers.

AwF Fundraising Dinner 5 February 2016

AwF is grateful to the GOHWell Foundation for enabling us to have a Charity Dinner on Friday 5 February at the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium as part of the GOHWell Summit. Our group of AwF Melbourne volunteers is aiming to make this a very special night to raise funds for some specific projects we are organising.

If you are interested in supporting or donating to the event, please contact:
comms.awf@gmail.com

Tickets are available by clicking GOHWell Charity Dinner. 

AWARD FOR COLOMBIAN CHAMPION (Premio para el campeón colombiano)

The story of Ruth Uribe Quintero in aquaculture began in 2007. Through her passion, training and hard work Ruth became the president of the association AMENM (Asociación de Mujeres Esperanza Nueva La Murraposa) (Women’s Association the Murraposa Nueva Esperanza).

AMENM began as an initiative of 60 rural women in the city of Ibagué, Tolima, Colombia, aimed at improving the quality of life of the members and their families by generating revenue through the implementation of aquaculture projects.  This Association promotes value added tilapia aquaculture in the rural Tolima Region of Colombia, and is a platform for other aquaculture family farm producers (with limited resources) to increase farming capacity and process, income and nutrition. This is a women only project with fish ponds and one building for processing.  They created a collective and include other producers in the Tolipez region.

First Award for Latin America

Veronica Esquivel Medina

Aquaculture without Frontiers is very pleased to announce that Veronica Esquivel Medina from Mazatlán, Mexico is our Woman of the Month for July. This is the first such award presented to anyone in Latin America.

A current leader for all women who are working in the fisheries and aquaculture sector in Mexico, Veronica is an example of hard work, honesty and collaboration. She is always involved in young professionals’ career development and everyone seeks her out for her advice.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

The AwF Women’s Network decided to break with the regular Woman of the Month Award for June and dedicate the June 2015 award to Paula Kantor, someone who has made the ultimate sacrifice in her untiring efforts with WorldFish on the gender transformative approach and specifically through work in Bangladesh and Zambia.

We appreciate the link with aquaculture is somewhat tenuous but our Network was greatly saddened to read about Paula’s death on May 13, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on the hotel where she was staying in Kabul, Afghanistan. Authorities said she was staying at the Park Palace Hotel when it was stormed by Taliban gunmen, sparking a siege that left 14 people, including nine foreigners, dead.

We therefore announce this special posthumous award in lieu of Woman of the Month.

Celebrating Buddha’s Birthday

Aquaculture without Frontiers has a big week being an affiliate of World Aquaculture Society and heavily engaged in WA2015 which starts on 26 May in Jeju, an incredibly beautiful and popular island in South Korea.

We happened to have arrived in Jeju at the beginning of South Korea’s 4-day birthday celebrations for Buddha. There are many quotable sayings from Buddha but perhaps we will focus on “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” This epitomizes the AwF spirit.

The AwF week in Jeju starts on 27 May with our involvement in the session on The Women in Aquaculture/Fisheries session which includes AwF/WAS-APC Travel Grant awardees Nantaporn Sutthi, Gladys Ludevese Pascual, Mya Zin Oo who will be involved in a panel session with Jennifer Cobcroft, Maymyat Noelwin, Bibha Kumari, Arlene Nietes-Satapornvanit, Pui Amornat Boochuay et al and this will be followed by Presentations by AwF for Women of the Month Awards to Dr Jennifer Cobcroft (Dec 2014); Dr T.V. Anna Mercy (Feb 2015); May Myat Noe Lwin (March 2015) and Ass Professor Arlyn Mandas (May 2015). Unfortunately Dr Flower Ezekiel Msuya (Apr 2015) will not be in attendance. At this event we will also announce the June 2015 winner.

Award for Filipina Champion

Arlyn with fish farmers

Professor Arlyn Mandas has been selected as the AwF Woman of the Month for May 2015. We honour Arlyn in working with the Aquaculture Department, College of Fisheries, Mindanao State University in the Philippines for the last 20 years, engaging with the aquaculture students and assisting the rural and urban people whose livelihood is fish farming.

Arlyn works with the objective of helping the fish farmers attain continuous improvement in both production and profit. Through the Consultancy for Agricultural Productivity Enhancement (CAPE) Program of the Government of the Philippines-Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Arlyn has helped over 250 fish farmers in Region XII alone, excluding her involvement in other regions of the country. Constantly and actively involved in the on-going aquaculture research of the United Nations-Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO) in the Philippines as a national consultant Arlyn is ‘making a difference’.

Travel Grant Selection Finalised

Three well deserving female candidates are now planning their trip to Jeju as a result of this excellent competition but regrettably many other excellent applicants missed out.

The applications roared in and the judges completed their task. Their report states “We all remarked on the high standard of all applications making the contest extremely close and thank all those who entered as they made our task as Judges extremely difficult.”

The two students selected were Nantaporn Sutthi and Gladys Ludevese Pascual and the mature age person selected was Mya Zin Oo.