It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Wouldn't it be great to bring together MRDF partner organisations from across Africa to learn from and share with each other - and to add in some workshops from MRDF on financial management, strategic planning, HIV/AIDS and a host of other topics?

Two years, and a lot of hard work, later - this idea has become a reality.  We still think it's a good idea, but didn't realise quite how complicated it would be to get 58 representatives from 29 partners in 11 countries (and a handful of MRDF staff from the UK) to Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa for MRDF's first capacity building conference, called Strength to Strength.

For the last few weeks and months, the MRDF office has been humming with activity - planning workshops, selecting suitable African clothing, fitting everything we need into limited luggage, sorting out last minute visa panics in French across long distance phonelines and organising jabs against a range of nasty diseases.  But now we've done as much as we can and we are ready to go.

As MRDF's Media and Communications Officer I'm excited about this rare opportunity to meet and speak to people who, up until now,  I have only e-mailed or read about.  Many of those coming to the conference will be meeting other MRDF partners for the first time and may have never travelled internationally before. 

Several partners are running or contributing to workshops, including Francis Njuakom from Cameroon, who will be sharing his knowledge of working with community-based volunteers. He will also be sharing his immense enthusiasm for MRDF and for the conference itself, as he's already said: "it will be such a lovely and enriching experience to have MRDF's most trusted partners across Africa to come together and share the magic of differences that we are all using in our various organisations to transform lives and communities."  That sounds pretty good to me!

Do you have questions for any of MRDF's partners?  Is there something you've always wanted to know about a particular project or country?

I'll be posting again on Thursday, from Ethiopia, once the conference formally begins, so please add your questions or comments now....

For more about MRDF, visit www.mrdf.org.uk