Are these problems or challengs

Dance competition

Book writing course in Kitee

On Monday the 1st June until Friday the 5th I attended a book writing course in Kitee. In this course we wrote a book about our experiences as North -Karelians in Africa and Africans in North –Karelia. The book will be published by North–Karelian – Africa Society based here in Finland.

The course was led by M.A. Eija - Helena Kettunen. We were hosted at a beautiful school of Folk High School in Kitee near the border with Russia where we had the opportunity to meet and mingle with people and children from Eastern Finland. Many wonderful activities were organised for us which included visits to .... the Othodox Church, sauna, watching Finnish baseball and many other wonderful activities!

Boy did we eat!!!

Arctic Circle Forest Camp: 11- 12 May, 2009

This University of Joensuu and University of Lapland organised event was meant to look at areas of cooperation between the two universities and where possible with their South African counterparts. The seminar was held at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi. Different themes for cooperation were presented by faculty members from the two institutions.

These are some of the papers presented:

• edTech delta: Technology for Losers, Prof Erkki Sutinen,
• Designing a Tool to Automate the Assessment of Programming Assignments, Dr Mike Joy, University of Warwick
• Multidimensional information science, Ilkka Kamaja and the Team, University of Lapland
• Some Insights on New Luxury in the Context of Tourism", prof.Minna Uotila, University of Lapland
  
• Towards CaPreTo – a tool for learning prepositions and grammar case system, Dr Maxim Mozgovoy, University of Joensuu
• 
  eHeritage, Ms. Anne Ihalmo, University of Lapland
• Pervasive Learning Environments to Support Distance Learning, Mr Teemu Laine (PhDc), University of Joensuu

A team from these institutions will be arriving in South Africa in June/July for three months led by Ms Anne Ihalmo and Anna. Part of this cooperation is to work with the University of Limpopo in areas beneficial to the three institutions.

During this trip we also visited the Arctic Museum in Rovaniemi not that far from the university. This museum depicts the life of the people of Finland.

UniPID virtual studies programme: 14-15 May, 2009

The UniPID Quality Assurance and Lessons Learnt Virtual Studies Workshop at Skärgårdscentrum Korpoström Saaristokeskus! [Korpo] This workshop was held in one of the most beautiful places in Finland on the Island of Korpo in the

Archipelagos. The aim of the workshop was to improve the quality of UniPID virtual studies programme. This was an attempt to improve the coordination and future planning of UniPID Virtual Studies programme.

• Asianet presentation
• Forest Restoration and Rehabilitation
• Human rights and development
• ICT for non-IT Students
• Perspectives to Global Social Development
• Project Cycle Management

Mosedi in action

Africa Karjalia weekend

This weekend there Africa-Karjalia meeting was held in Kitee from the 25-27 April, 2009. Unfortunately, I could only manage to attend on Sunday.

Sunday started with some seriously palatable breakfast followed by a church service. Can you believe that I was asked to read from Hebrews 13:20-21. After the mass we went to the community hall where we attended a concert by the Folch choir.

After the concerned we were treated to some tasty lunch. This was followed by more music from the community and the attending groups from the University of Joensuu. The Africans had also invited to this weekend meeting their student friends from from Russia, Karzakstan, Maldives, and Napal.

After lunch and music the formal Africa-Karjalia began starting with the board meeting followed by the AGM. Supper followed and immediately there after we got into the cars and headed back to Joensuu. What a beautiful day