The Nonprofit Center at La Salle University’s School of Business launched its new program of 100 educational opportunities for staff, board members, and volunteers of nonprofit organizations in the Greater Philadelphia region.

For more than 25 years, The Nonprofit Center has been providing workshops, trainings, and certificate programs in skill areas of fundraising, communications and marketing, human resources, financial management, planning and evaluation, nonprofit management, and board of directors’ leadership and governance. The new workshop schedule begins in mid-September and runs through May, with programs held in various locations around the region, including South Jersey.

The academic year begins on September 16 with a program tailored to nonprofit executive directors and board members on how they are uniquely equipment to support fundraising from corporations. On September 17, The Nonprofit Center offers a reprisal of one of its most popular events, a panel discussion featuring four of the region’s most influential funders. The Connelly, Lenfest, Philadelphia and William Penn Foundations discussing current trends in philanthropy for the region.Copies of the catalogue, which include articles by nonprofit experts in finance, fundraising, human resources, and board leadership, are available by calling 215-951-1701 . Programs descriptions and online registration are also available online at The Nonprofit Center’s website.

 “We continue to expand our educational programs to include emerging areas of interest,” said Laura Otten, Ph.D., director of The Nonprofit Center, “such as dealing with the generation gap in the workplace, breaking down communication barriers, conflict resolution, Internet strategies, and more,” she added.

The Nonprofit Center strengthens nonprofit organizations throughout the Delaware Valley so they can better serve their constituents. Through educational programs, leadership development, training and consulting services and an information and referral network, the center’s team of experts’ works with thousands of organizations to enhance their ability to govern, manage and perform more effectively in a competitive environment.

Contact

The Nonprofit Center at La Salle University’s School of the Business Loan Mintz Ulmer, (215)951-1710

Children in post-conflict areas are being abused by the very people drafted into such zones to help look after them, says Save the Children.

After research in Ivory Coast, southern Sudan and Haiti, the charity proposed an international watchdog be set up.

Save the Children said it had sacked three workers for breaching its codes, and called on others to do the same.

The three men were all dismissed in the past year for having had sex with girls aged 17 - which the charity said was a sackable offence even though not illegal.

The UN has said it welcomes the charity’s report, which it will study closely.

Save the Children says the most shocking aspect of child sex abuse is that most of it goes unreported and unpunished, with children too scared to speak out.

No support

A 13-year-old girl, “Elizabeth” described to the BBC how 10 UN peacekeepers gang-raped her in a field near her Ivory Coast home.

They grabbed me and threw me to the ground and they forced themselves on me… I tried to escape but there were 10 of them and I could do nothing,” she said.

“I was terrified. Then they just left me there bleeding.”

No action has been taken against the soldiers.

The report also found that aid workers have been sexually abusing boys and girls.

“In recent years, some important commitments have been made by the UN, the wider international community and by humanitarian and aid agencies to act on this problem,” said Save the Children UK chief executive Jasmine Whitbread.

However, all humanitarian and peacekeeping agencies working in emergency situations, including Save the Children UK, must own up to the fact that they are vulnerable to this problem and tackle it head on.”

After research involving hundreds of children from Ivory Coast, southern Sudan and Haiti, the charity said better reporting mechanisms needed to be introduced to deal with what it called “endemic failures” in responding to reported cases of abuse.

It also said efforts should be made to strengthen worldwide child protection systems.

Heather Kerr, Save the Children’s Ivory Coast country director, says little is being done to support the victims.

“It’s a minority of people but they are using their power to sexually exploit children and children that don’t have the voice to report about this.

They are suffering sexual exploitation and abuse in silence.”

Save the Children says the international community has promised a policy of zero-tolerance to child sexual abuse, but that this is not being followed up by action on the ground.

A UN spokesman, Nick Birnback, said that it was impossible to ensure “zero incidents” within an organization that has up to 200,000 personnel serving around the world.

What we can do is get across a message of zero tolerance, which for us means zero complacency when credible allegations are raised and zero impunity when we find that there has been malfeasance that’s occurred,” he told the BBC.

24 July 2008 – Women’s rights ministers from 11 countries across Africa’s Great Lakes region are gathering today in Kinshasa for a United Nations-organized conference to take steps to set up a regional research and documentation centre on women’s rights.

The two-day meeting in the Congolese capital, jointly organized by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Ministry of Women’s Rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), will also be attended by representatives of the African Union, the African Bank of Development and the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region, as well as several UN agencies.

If established, the research centre in the Great Lakes region will be modeled on a similar women’s rights centre created in 2006 in Ramallah in the occupied Palestinian territory, also at the initiative of UNESCO.

The Great Lakes centre would have a particular focus on the role of women in the reconstruction of countries emerging from conflict, which has plagued the region.

Women’s rights ministers from Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic (CAR), the Republic of Congo, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia are expected to attend this week’s conference.

By: Erin Maguire

Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY), a Philadelphia-based children’s welfare advocacy group, cited in its 2008 report, The Bottom Line is Children, that the federal government’s investment in children has declined by 10 percent over the past five years. PCCY, in its examination of local child poverty statistics, found that 168,718 children in the five-county region are living in poverty, a 25,016 increase (more…)

A new report by the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) at Columbia University shows a rapidly changing demographic portrait of American fathers and a surprising level of activity in the states to promote agendas for responsible fatherhood. Much of the new activity reported in Map and Track: State Initiatives to Encourage Responsible Fatherhood, is in response to welfare reform and the new demographic realities facing today’s fathers and families. Yet there are many issues–such as the rapid increase (more…)