Now it is that time of a year again when the Finnish Volunteer Programme Etvo, GLM Finland and GLM Zambia together are looking for a new volunteer to join GLM Zambia for the year 2014! The volunteering period varies from six to twelve months.

A detailed description about the volunteering opportunity at GLM Zambia can be found at the website of the Etvo programme: Zambia/GLM (in Finnish). Read also the stories by our current volunteer from her lovely blog!

If you have any questions, please contact GLM Finland: terhi.hytonen@gmail.com or the Etvo programme: etvo@kepa.fi. Before getting in touch with us, please read the information about programme at www.etvo.fi.

On Sunday 18th August, GLM Finland will set up a restaurant, Amatebeto Kitchen, for one day as a part of the global Restaurant Day. GLM Finland will serve a lunch full of exciting flavours from Zambia and Swaziland! The price of the lunch  is 8 euros. All of the proceeds will be used for community projects in the rural villages of Zambia and Swaziland.

We’ll start at 12 o’clock and serve the lunch until we run out of food (around 15 or 16 p.m.)! The event will take place in a charming wooden house in downtown, on Läntinen Pitkäkatu 15, Turku.

Do charity by eating! Welcome!

GLM Finland serves exciting flavours from Zambia and Swaziland on Restaurant Day.

GLM Zambia has been collaborating with Kepa, the Finnish Service Centre for Development Cooperation, for several years. Through Kepa’s volunteering programme ETVO, the organisation has hosted about twenty Finnish volunteers over the past years. In 2013, two new volunteers are working with GLM.

The first volunteer, Emma Liljeström, a student of Environmental Science, arrived at the beginning of the year and will stay for six months. She spends a major part of her volunteering period in GLM’s rural partner communities, monitoring and reporting on the progress of GLM’s projects and facilitating the communication between the locals and the organisation.

The other volunteer, Pieta Seppänen, will be working at GLM for almost the whole year. Pieta has a degree in languages and international relations and has previously worked mainly in the field of communications. At GLM, her main tasks include creating communication and advocacy strategies, drafting project proposals, developing the website, and at times, also going on field trips to the rural communities.

Read more about the Etvo volunteering programme here.

GLM volunteers Pieta and Emma on a Women’s Day March in Lusaka with their colleagues Patricia and Sylian

GLM Finland participates in the World Village Festival on the 25th-26th of May in Helsinki. The festival is the biggest NGO platform in Finland, as around 300 NGOs as well as other actors attend the festival annually. Last year, there were approximately 105,000 festival visitors.

Come to say hi to GLM Finland! You’ll find us at the big NGO tent in Kaisaniemi Park!

More information: World Village Festival

GLM Swaziland’s first project on capacity building has started smoothly. In February, GLM organised several
workshops on organisational leadership and management skills in the urban community of Msunduza and in the rural areas of Dlangeni. Training of trainers has kicked off in Dlangeni, and another series of workshops shall be organised in both communities later in May and June, with the support of Mr. Mutamba from Zambia, one of the founders of GLM. These workshops will focus more on practical skills such as project proposal writing and fundraising.

The next project proposal is currently being drafted. A baseline study team has carried out surveys in several communities around Mbabane, scoping out fertile ground for a new sanitation and waste management project. The project is planned together with the Global Dry Toilet Association of Finland and the local university.

Join our project to support global education and grassroots work in Zambia and in Finland!

GLM Zambia and GLM Finland are looking for additional partners for the new Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Project.  State support will be applied by the end of May 2013 and the 3-year project is planned to start in 2014.

The project aims to build community resilience to the impacts of global warming in the project communities, especially among farmers. It will promote sustainable innovations and introduce climate-smart practices to the farmers. The project will enhance the communities’ knowledge on the causes and effects of climate change through theatre and radio in order to build their mitigation and adaptation capacity.

If you interested to work with us, please contact us for more information:

GLM Finland: terhi.hytonen@gmail.com
GLM Zambia: chibuleclive@gmail.com

From 29th November 2012 to 30th January 2013, Zambian small-scale farmers are sharing their experiences on sustainable agriculture on television and radio. The Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) will be running a series of documentaries on the experiences of the farmers working with Green Living Movement (GLM) from the past 12 years of implementing sustainable farming methods.

Agriculture as a way of life for small-scale farmers in Zambia has gone through ups and downs. The use of synthetic fertilisers has not helped matters, if anything it has made the farmers’ productive capacity less and less sustainable by the year. Working with GLM has, however, given a glimmer of hope to the small-scale farmers in the rural areas in Luanshya and Serenje districts where the organisation is supporting the implementation of sustainable agricultural practices.

Tune in to the Chintobentobe programme on ZNBC every Sunday at 14:05 hours and Radio 1 every Thursday from 13:45 to 14:00 hours for the life-changing stories from the farmers!

ZNBC journalist Musonda Lombe interviews agroforestry farmer Mr Allan Spider Mbulo from Serenje.

ZNBC journalist Musonda Lombe interviews a dairy farmer Dorothy Manda from Luanshya.

Green Living Movement Swaziland in partnership with Green Living Movement Finland has received funding from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland for the years 2013 and 2014 for a project called ‘Organisational Capacity Building for Environmental Education and Community Development’.

The project will strengthen the organisational capacity of GLM Swaziland and impart knowledge on environmental issues to the local communities of Dlangeni and Msunduza. The project involves conducting training in areas such as waste management, sustainable natural resources management and safe sanitation practices.

GLM Swaziland strives to become an influential NGO actor that can link the local people and local authority towards sustainable development.

Mrs. Futhie Shabangu – a member of GLM Swaziland