CYBERCAFE SESSION

Our local highlight for Craftspeople was the organisation on 14 November of another special SPES Cybercafé session to create a “Distributed Learning Environment” in view of the need to bookbind the children’s stories of of the 6-12 year old group that were accepted designated as having fulfilled the creativity and environmentally-friendly criteria of the Crafted Animal Toys Story/Play Competition.

During the Cybercafé morning we tried to demonstrate that optimization of IT (Information Technology) resources leads to human-capacity building through global village interaction. To be noted, that the SPES High-Tech Unit technicians monitored Internet access to focus mainly on Bookbinding for our special participants from Vivre Debout, who are excellent bookbinders although they have some motor problems.

All present had the “hands on” possibility of operating several Macs and PCs and some enriching Web site contacts were established with Bookbinder specialists from other continents, and we were pleased that direct e-mail communications have ensued in this Arts and Crafts field.

Members of Vivre Debout participating at the SPES Cybercafe on Bookbindin

12th INTERNATIONAL EUROPE AWARD FOR QUALITY

On the international scene we are delighted of all the Awards some of the young crafts Designers who had training at SPES won in 1998 due mainly to our combined approach of traditional and high-tech applications.

SPES was honoured that the Selection Committee of the 12th INTERNATIONAL EUROPE AWARD FOR QUALITY, yearly granted by the “editorial ofice” Madrid publishing house and the TRADE LEADERS’ CLUB found SPES worthy of receiving this prize in tis 1998 presentation. Apparently their decision is based on information provided by the 14,000 entrepreneurs members of the TRADE LEADERS’ CLUB, coming from 112 different countries.