Mondo M4D Activity Update

Mondo has been quite busy during the last months! We have been planning the EYD public awareness campaign, taken part of public events and had several meetings with policy makers. But let's start from the beginning.

• During the first days of May we chose an advertising company to be our partner for the EYD public awareness campaign. All the ideas that three different companies presented were very good, but after long discussions we decided the best bid was presented by a company called Vatson.
  So now for two months we have been busy with planning and reviewing poster drafts. The campaign will show concrete samples of work that has been done in development cooperation or what people themselves can do. On the campaign website we will also introduce wider background and talk about the development aid given by the EU.
  The campaign outdoor and web posters will be public during August. Then we can also post pictures of the campaign!
  The outdoor posters will focus on four main topics: 
• Women's income and financial independence 
• Education
• Hygiene and open defecation
• Responsible and ethical consuming

• In May we also finalised our EYD stickers and bracelets. The bracelets were made in Kenya by two women's groups: ladies of Ikoli and Riziki living in Shianda village. The bracelets are in the colours of the EYD motto and have an ecologically printed tag that explains who made them and why.

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  EYD bracelets and stickers.

• In May we also took part of two big public events on the main event square (Vabaduse väljak) in Tallinn. 

• The first event was European Day (9.05) that had very very many visitors and was also attended by the prime minister. Most of the organisations represented were embassies of different European countries and international schools or education programs. As the crowd was big, we managed to reach much more people than we had expected. We had a EYD-thematic ruffle/quiz where everyone could roll a wheel and then would be asked a question concerning development cooperation. The questions were divided into two groups: easier questions for kids and a bit more difficult for grown-ups. 

EYD thematic ruffle/quiz wheel and roll-up banner at European Day.

We also had a chance to have a quick chat with the prime minister and his wife at European Day and do some lobby work on the run :)

• The second event was World Day (30.05) that had a more clear focus on development issues and most of the organisations represented were NGOs. The day was sunny and people enjoyed our activities. We arranged the same ruffle/quiz as on European Day and had also some other activities - like workshops in writing in Arabic and West-African dance and drumming lessons. There were also two discussion panels arranged: one on education and other on ethical consuming.

Our tent was right next to the MFA's so that gave us a good chance to connect with policy-makers :)

EYD thematic ruffle/quiz at World Day.

MFA's Development cooperation desk officer Helen Ennok with our EYD rollup at World Day.

Education panel at World Day.

• We also had a smaller event at Mondo's office where we arranged a private meeting between an Afghan journalist visiting Estonia and representatives of the Estonian Young Journalist's Club. The discussion was very interesting and both parties learned from each other. Young journalists were mostly interested in how safe it is to work in Afghanistan as a journalist and what are the opinions of local Afghan people on the war and current situation.



Representatives of the Estonian Young Journalist's Club meeting with a journalist from Afghanistan.


• In terms of joint activities with Media4Development partners, we attended two main events: 
• The Helsinki training arranged by VIKES with three journalists: Riin Aljas from Eesti Päevaleht, Külli-Riin Tigasson from Eesti Ekspress and Evelyn Kaldoja from Postimees. All the journalists were more than satisfied with the training. Very big thank you to Maiju from VIKES for arranging such a great event. 
• In June we also attended the development financing roundtable in Riga with one official from the MFA - Tõnis Saar (Undersecretary General of Administrative Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Estonia, Member of Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing (ICESDF)); two politicians and one civil society representative. The roundtable was a success and Inga from Green Libery had arranged everything perfectly. 
• Another big activity for us has been producing and putting together the first development-themed bulletin for policy-makers. You can view the bulletin here.
  The bulletin was posted to several dozen officials in the Foreign Ministry and Financial Ministry and also to all 101 members of the Estonian Parliament (and additionally to the officials working at each of the Parliament's fractions). The PDF version was published on Mondo's website and a public post was made both on Facebook and Twitter.
  The first bulletin covers issues that will be under discussion at the Addis Ababa Development Financing conference and has articles on: 
• ODA and the financing gaps for SDGs, 
• EU's development cooperation 
• taxation issues, 
• micro-financing, 
• the private sector's role in development, 
• Estonia's roles as both an aid donor and aid receiver (upto 1998) and other interesting topics. 

  

  Delivering the bulletins in envelopes to ministries and the Parliament.