True to tradition all the SPES artisans/artists and trainers from our various Rural and Town Training and production units and our small boutiques were on holiday for the first week of the New Year, in order to gain forces to persevere in our 36th year of dedicated Social work to provide Vocational Creative Skills Training including Hi-tec to uplift the underprivileged illiterate adolescents and also to Bridge the Digital Gap.

AGOA II NGO Forum

January 2003 was a very stimulating month seeing that Mauritius hosted the AGOA II USA (Africa Growth and Opportunity Act) Forum and that SPES participated at the open discussions with USA Congressmen with Trade Speakers and Representatives from 35 African eligible countries with Representative from their governments and Private and the NGO Sectors at the “3 day NGO event” which run concurrently to the Ministerial and Private Sectors Forum programmes.

SPES had the honour to contribute at the open discussions with the following Trade schemes suggestions:

• the African Ancestral Bartering Trade system that consists in exchange of products thus saving on foreign money transactions for regional interplay and also to facilitate export possibilities to USA
• Franchising to generate diverse business partnerships and also to facilitate the priority needs of production of pharmaceuticals in Africa for the prevention and treatment of diseases especially HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria
• e-Trade utilizing the latest virtual e-commerce systems, NGO SPES had the opportunity to point out that we can provide our multi-literacy skills training scheme to promote entrepreneurship and International Quality Production respecting ecological and Fair Trade norms

During the AGOA II business learning/sharing dynamic events our NGO SPES regretted not have been able to obtain a stand to display our colourful designer-products at the AGOA II Trade Fair, held at the Mauritian Free-Port in Port Louis.

Stimulating Visitors

It was a with great delight that we received at our Design Hi-Tec Unit the visit of Miss Turner from USA, she is presently on a Trade Mission in Southern Africa.

In early February the SPES Vocational and Multimedia Training Centre had the visit of Mr. Peter Craig who is connected to the Trade Department at the Mauritian Embassy at Washington D.C. he seemed impressed in particular with our Chazal Tapestries and also our e-programmes and solar energy ot propel our Multi-literacy Global Village Project in all Sunny countries.