If you want be kept aware of all of the developments of our program, guest speakers, a special 'early bird' price coming soon and the date and time of an upcoming skype chat for participants in the training, send your email address to us at humanitarianaid@laroche.edu We promise not to blast you with spam but to let you know of important developments in the program!

I find the annual letter written by Bill Gates to be a great way of keeping with development issues, progress in certain areas and new and innovative views of development and education. In this year's letter he has a focus on measurement and the Millennium Development Goals. Interesting reading about a wide range of activities of the Gates Foundation.

Our program is mentioned in Dawns Digest, one of a few great new links and sites that I have been looking at recently. Dawns gives you plenty of news of what is going on in the world, what is happening, including research, reports and news.

PCDN -Peace and Collaborative Development Network is amazing as well. The lists of members there is incredible. You can find people all over the world working in the field as well as news, events and research.

This field is exploding on the web - people using great new tools to communicate and collaborate.

I'll be adding links along with descriptions all along the way here.

Of course, no list of important links would be complete without on the RedR UK. Their course, Essentials of Humanitarian Practice forms the core of our program and it wouldn't even be taking place if I didn't go to England and take it myself, last year, in the spring.

beginnings

It has been a long journey from sitting in the airport in Pristina, Kosovo in the summer of 2011 until now when our new training program has become a reality. In Kosovo working with SPARK, a Dutch NGO, I was thrilled to meet development and aid workers from all over the world. Inspiring me to understand the field more, I soon found what I was looking for: an opportunity. A new imbalance that hadn’t existed before – more humanitarian emergencies around the world funded immediately for relief, but not enough trained aid workers to fill the positions needed.

After taking a RedR UK course in the Essentials of Humanitarian Aid in London, a few months later and I am working with my extremely able colleague, Astrid Kersten developing the program,in partnership with RedR UK for the summer 2013. Now it is a reality and up to you to attend! Let me know if you have questions or keep checking out this blog for more info, background, links and other material related to the field.