Who are you?

[Joitske Hulsebosch]

Dear participants, we are very pleased to get to know you already online, so that contacts in July will be easy to make. Can you tell us a little bit about your background: what's your name, the country, the work you are doing?

You can tell us by clicking on 'reply to this' below this post, typing in the box, and click on Add Discussion. Simple enough! To start with myself, my name is Joitske Hulsebosch, I live in the Netherlands (in the Hague). I have worked in Kenya, Mali, Ethiopia and Ghana so you can see I have some African bias.. but I went to Chile too. My work is advising on online interaction, that's why I'm one of the facilitators of the online discussions.

[Wim Goris]

Hi there, my name is Wim Goris and I live in Arnhem NL. My work is at Agri-ProFocus support office (check www.agri-profocus.nl). I do like this picture of this Friesian cow lost in a herd of African cattle herd very much. You can really see the dilemma of scalingup in her eyes!

[Shpresa]

My name is Shpresa Arbi, I am living in Albania (Tirana). I have worked for 15 years in improving dairy industry in Albania under the international organizations and now I am working as a SNV agriculture advisor for dairy sector. My works is advising and have a value chain approach with the actor working in this sector. I love my work and I enjoy very much when I am traveling and meeting our client and for me the network is very important. Lets make this online communication real and lets help to create a virtual bridge between the experts from different countries.

[Joitske Hulsebosch]

Hi welcome Shpresa and Wim, I hope the Friesian cow will feel less lost in the African herd after we've dug into the cases.. And Shpresa, I really like the way you see this forum as a virtual bridge between experts in different countries!

[Fejzo Begaj]

My name is Fejzo Begaj and I live in Tirana, capital of Albania. By proffesion I am a vet with a long experience and for 12 years I have been working for Heifer Albania which is a humanitarian organization supporting farmers to reduce poverty through livestock development. The most of Heifer Albania project is focused on small scale dairy development farm.
Right now, my position is Country Director of Heifer Albania.

[Joitske Hulsebosch]

Welcome Fejzo! By coincidence I watched a program on television yesterday about Albania.. it showed amongst others the making of the program Pirtukani (= orange) and the modernisation of Tirana.

[Joep van Mierlo]

I am Joep van Mierlo, co-facilitating this platform and co-organisaing this Learning event.

I started as a dairy development project coordinator in a peri-urban setting with Heifer Cameroon and was able to follow its development for nearly 2 decades, later on I could add the experiences from Albania, Bosnia, Ghana but also indirectly from Romania, Kenya etc.

It intrigues me how effective dairy development can be as a tool for rural, community development. But if this tool is wrongly used it becomes a liability to the families instead of an asset!

[Gori Stefi]

Hi, i like to help register Miço and Spiro. Can you send the link for them to my adress?

[Joep van Mierlo]

Dear Gori, if you look at the top of this page, you will see a "Invite"-tab. If you click on it, you come inot a page with as second option: "Enter your e-mail addresses here". There you can invite Spiro and Miço.

Else, if you want to do it for them: you can subscribe in their name, using their email address. For that you will need to sign out (see at the top of this page), and than use the "sign up" posibility at the home page http://apf-dairy.ning.com (you have to be signed out to see this possibility!).

Good luck! Joep

[Gori Stefi]

Hi Joep,
Dhimiter and Spiro are registred.

[Gori Stefi]

Gori STEFI- Livestock Specialist, Program Director of heifer Albania.

[Johan Koeslag]

Hello, I am Johan Koeslag. live now in the Netherlands but I worked for 15 years in Latin America. Thereafter, I was a lecturer in Tropical animal Production at a Professional University and did dairy projects in many countries. Now I am retired but write Agrodoks for Agromisa and are a livestock coordinator for PUM, the Netherlands Senior Experts organisation.

[Sonam Wangchuk]

Hello Everyone,
First of all I would like to thank Madam Lucy for sending me the link to join this group. I hope I can learn and also share with the livestock experts here.

My name is Sonam Wangchuk. I work in the Department of Livestock, Ministry of Agriculture in Bhutan. Presently I am studying in Germany. Previously, before coming here I was working as the Country Team Coordinator (Bhutan) for the South Asia Pro Poor Livestock Policy Programme and also the coordinator for the Regional Rangeland Programme in Bhutan under ICIMOD. Prior to my department from Bhutan we had also initiated on the development of the National Dairy Development Plan for Bhutan in collaboration with the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) India. I wish to continue to work towards dairy development in my Country.