Greeting from Angela and James

The 3-months Information Exchange Program has now come to and end. Here is a greeting from the two of us - to all of you!

My name is Angela Kaonga. I was born in Zambia in 1976. I started school in 1983 and completed my high school in 1996 and in 1999 I was employed by DAPP Zambia as a sales assistant. In 2004 I was given a scholarship to Zimbabwe for a year, and now here I am in Norway, participating in the 3-months Information Exchange Program run by UFF Norway.

The main task of the program is to exchange knowledge and information about the work we do in Africa and the work we do in Europe. As we are both doing fund raising by the selling of second hand clothes in Africa and Europe - it is good to exchange knowledge about this, so that everyone can do better. I have learnt during my practical tasks a lot more about e.g. customer relations, how to display the clothes in a good way. I have been able to directly inform the customers about our work to fight poverty in Africa.

The program has been divided into courses and events. I can mention some of the courses such as: "How to make a budget and accounts" - so that you can see if you have made a deficit or a profit. Now I am able to make the annual budget for the whole project. Another very useful course was "How to make a good presentation with the Power Point-program". We were taught how to make the presentation "short & sharp". I and my colleague James were invited to present the work of DAPP in Zambia and the work of UFF in Norway to a branch of the Municipality of Oslo. It was so encouraging and we managed. We have even learned how to read and make statistics, layouts for newsletters and posters - which will also be very useful to us when we are back in Zambia. Some of the events have been to arrange the seasonal shifts in the shops, going swimming in a swimming hall, sight-seeing in Oslo - we even went skiing, but this was the only thing I failed at ........ I have learnt a lot of new things from both the courses and the events.

Parts of the program has taught me how to work efficiently, how to be better organised and to be a good leader by leading by example. Actually it was a big experience for me and I will make sure that I put it into practise when I come back to my work in DAPP Zambia.

My three months in Norway was so short because of the ever smiling Norwegians. They always made me to feel at home, especially the bus drivers and the train conductor whom I met every day when going to and from town. I wish Norwegians could inspire the Zambian civil servants. One thing I have still to understand about this rich country is why there are so many drug addicts in the streets and so many people smoking cigarettes when they know full well that this is not healthy. My three months stay in Norway was too short - but I have gained a lot. Thank you very much - hope to see you again!