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Pontypridd Overseas Networking Trust

           PONT stands for Partnership Overseas Networking Trust. It has been set up to link the town of Pontypridd with a town in Uganda called Mbale. The project aspires to link as many professionals and organizations in Pontypridd with their counterparts in Mbale. The purpose of this is to build a multitude of direct personal relationships between interested individuals and organizations with the express purpose of increasing the capacity and governance of individuals and organizations in Mbale to accept and distribute aid to the poorest communities. At the same time we believe the Ugandans have much to teach us about family and community values along with a rich cultural heritage, so the partnership is very much a two way link. To date over 180 visits have been made by folk from Pontypridd , and 34 folk have visited Pontypridd from Mbale.

           The concepts behind PONT go back as far as the Ethiopian Famine of 1985. At that time a team of Medics volunteered to work in refugee camps in Ethiopia, whilst another team of medics and church leaders visited camps in Sudan. We realised that many folk in our community were willing to support this, so it affected most sectors of our community. As a result the amount of aid raised in our town was much more significant and many people from all walks of life "bought into the vision." Furthermore, because people in our town were able to hear first hand accounts of the work, they became much more informed as donors.

           The current project was conceived in 2001 when a small group of people with experience of working overseas met together to think through ideas for a longer term town partnership overseas, developing the concept of setting up a framework that interested people could fit into at grassroot level. We therefore set out to identify a town in a third world country where English was widely spoken, it was relatively safe to travel, and where we would be welcomed by both government and non-governmental sectors. In 2002 the first visit was made to Mbale, where we felt we had found exactly what we were looking for. Mbale town is of a similar size to Pontypridd, but serves a region of 760.000 people, most of whom live in poor rural villages. They are amongst some of the poorest in Africa, with average income less than $1 per day, average life expectancy of 46, and infant mortality rates of about 200 per thousand.

          The first step was to identify the key indigenous NGO's who were seeking to maximise the aid work amongst the poorest communities. This was greatly facilitated by contacts provided by international NGO's who had worked in this area previously. We then visited the projects they already had in operation and asked them how they felt we could best serve them. From the outset the concept has involved identifying local partners who are already doing a good job, then empowering them to deliver more effectively, at the same time increasing capacity by training and setting in place monitoring systems to audit and improve governance. An important part of this is involving local government officials in the planning strategy and also in the monitoring and certification of the voluntary workers. By doing this we set up a network between existing NGO's and integrating this with local government. All along we have been careful not to impose our own agenda, but to identify a consensus amongst our partners on their priorities. We have also been keen to avoid setting up any new structure or organisation, but simply to work through those already in existence and doing a good job. As a result we have an inbuilt method of audit and assessment of the effectiveness of our aid, by comparing outcomes of autonomous organizations in terms of their ability to deliver agreed outcomes with equal amounts of funding. The key steps have been firstly to identify trustworthy individuals already doing a good job, then build up relationships with them. Next to jointly identify worthwhile projects. Only then do we seek to raise funding which is always specifically targeted at pre-costed projects.

         All this was put in place over a series of 3 visits. On the fourth visit, in May 2005, we felt we were ready to go live with the projects, so held official twinning ceremonies with both local and regional politicians in both towns. The key projects we have started with are medical links, schools links and church links. The medical work has centered on setting up a basic primary care service to villages which have little or no access to medical services. Our partner organizations have identified motivated volunteers from each village to act as health workers. We are committed to funding the training of these individuals up to a level than provides them with a government certificate. We have then piloted a survey which acts both as a family registration record and also provides baseline statistics so that the effectiveness of any interventions can be measured. Once families have completed this they are provided with a mosquito net for their children. We are also keeping a control study of families without nets so we can document any decrease in malaria morbidity and mortality, and also provide these statistics to the government. Later this year we plan to introduce anti-malarial drugs at village level to further decrease the effects of this dreadful disease. The other project running alongside this is to provide each family with orphans and vulnerable children with especially bred goats to increase their diet and through breeding the goats, to increase income.

         The school link involves linking each of the comprehensive schools and many of the junior schools in our area with a twin school in Mbale district. This will allow relationships to develop between pupils in each country, increasing awareness of global citizenship and promoting appreciation of each others cultures.

          The church links have been formed by taking church leaders of all denominations over to Mbale to link with churches of similar denominations and persuasions. This is important since a lot of the social improvement programs in Mbale are church based. It has also helped to increase awareness of our moral obligations amongst the congregations in our town.

           Currently we are adding on other projects, including a recent visit by an engineer to look at providing clean water to villages, and a visit by a consultant from our local hospital, which has led to an interest amongst other hospital consultants in linking with their counterparts in Mbale district hospital to promote developments in the secondary care sector.

             In terms of fundraising, our emphasis is on introducing people into regular giving by standing order. This has the advantage that it can be augmented by tax refunds. More importantly it gets away from us making repeated appeals for charity within our town, based on pity or guilt. Instead we hope to develop a committed  donor base who receive regular updates in how their money is being spent, have regular opportunities to hear firsthand accounts of team visits, and give from a sense of friendship and long term commitment. This also enables us to budget a predictable amount that  our partners in Africa can depend on.

             Finally all members of PONT are volunteers, all expenses are met by themselves, all visits abroad are totally self funded and all administration and publicity is done without incurring any costs. This means that all funds raised can be passed on in full to our partners in Africa where it can be put to maximizing the impact of relieving the burden of poverty to the most needy.