STAFF NEWS
Ms. Alison Mead Richardson has joined COL as Education Specialist, Skills Development. An experienced distance education manager, practitioner and consultant, Ms. Mead Richardson has worked on more than 21 international projects in Botswana, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa and Zambia. She has also worked for international development agencies including the African Development Bank, the European Union, the New Zealand Agency for International Development and the U.K. Department for International Development. She holds a Masters degree in Distance Education from the University of London and is currently carrying out doctoral research with the University of South Africa.
www.col.org/ameadrichardson
Ms. Trudi van Wyk is COL’s new Education Specialist, eLearning. She has worked for the South African Department of Education for the past 13 years, most recently as Director of Curriculum Innovation where she focused on information and communications technologies (ICTs) in education policy, applications and its implementation in education and training. Ms. van Wyk was COL’s Focal Point in South Africa and managed various international ICT collaboration projects. She holds a Master of Education degree from Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg).
www.col.org/tvanwyk
Colleagues pay tribute to COL staff who have left recently to pursue other career opportunities:
Ms. Helena Fehr, former Board Secretary and Gender Officer: In addition to her education and experience, Helena brought passion, a smile and a ready ear to all her work at COL over the past ten years. This contributed to her diplomacy and success working with COL’s Board and sister organisations, as well as being key to forwarding gender mainstreaming at COL as our Gender Officer. In her earlier years at COL, she had great success expanding our Youth Internship programme, sharing her love of international work with young Canadians.
Helena is now taking her diplomacy, passion and ODL expertise to the British Columbia Industry Training Authority to tackle the 21st century challenges of scale and quality in lifelong learning, as well as keeping her toe in international waters through consultancy.
By Ms. Alex Hennig, Designer
Dr. Tanyss Munro, former Education Specialist, Governance: Tanyss worked in the relatively unexplored area of non-formal ODL as a means to support community development with a special focus on governance, both at the local level as well as within organisations and institutions. She made important contributions in moving the focus away from print towards the use of folk and more traditional media such as video and radio, which have far greater relevance in poor and marginalised areas that form a special mandate for COL.
Tanyss is an active and thoughtful listener, a skill clearly evident in the type and strength of partnerships that she developed in her tenure at COL and which continue to bear positive results. She brought a sharp wit and wonderful sense of humour. We miss her laughter in the hallways.
By Mr. Ian Pringle,
Education Specialist, Media
Mr. Joshua Mallet, former Education Specialist, Learning & Livelihoods: Joshua came to COL in early 2004 on secondment from the University of Education, Winneba, Ghana. As an educator, Joshua has always had a passion for providing opportunities for low-income and rural populations – and especially for young women – to help improve their livelihoods through open and distance learning, literacy, vocational and entrepreneurial training programmes.
Never without a smile and a positive spin on anything confronting him, Joshua built a significant network of likeminded partners who worked with COL on many successful programmes throughout the Commonwealth. He also is known for delighting audiences and conference participants with valuable presentations that he delivered with flair and often accompanied by eye-catching attire, which could be anything from traditional Western African to modern Western Cowboy.
By Mr. Dave Wilson,
Communications Manager