National NGO Network Summit to be held at Hilton Hotel

The National NGO Network, in collaboration with the Barbados Vagrants & Homeless Society, will be hosting a National NGO Network Summit at the Hilton Barbados Resort on June 1st, 2016, commencing at 9:00 a.m.

The National NGO Network summit, which will be held under the theme “Connecting NGOs for One Common Purpose”, is aimed at creating a charitable NGO network on the island, with the intention of assisting local NGOs in attracting international funding and creating a national support system.

Spokesperson for the National NGO Network Charity Summit Kemar Saffrey indicated that NGOs have played a critical role in Barbados’ social development from before the island’s Independence in 1966 and in the new millennium, the resources provided by these various organisations have become even more necessary, he said, with the negative change in the economic climate subsequently affecting the social sphere of the island, in many adverse ways.

“International research has shown that having an NGO network that meets regularly and shares information, experiences, and puts collaborative effort into resolving their common problems and issues, attracts large international NGOs such as UN agencies, governments, foundations, trust and grant funders as partners to implement their programmes and projects and this gives the NGOs the opportunity to become more developed and experienced,” the organisers have pointed out.

“The formation of a National NGO Network will therefore aim at shifting local organisations from only focusing on their own goals, to taking the opportunity to communicate, coordinate and/or cooperate with other NGOs, with similar scopes of work and being in a better position to attract the support of international organisations,” they add.

Participants attending the NGO Summit will get the opportunity to engage in panel discussions with top funders/donors, gain information from experts in the NGO sector, gain knowledge on what attracts funders/donors, improve the capabilities, knowledge and technical expertise of their NGOs and also gain knowledge on how best to deal with Barbados’ Government agencies as well as private sector entities, effectively, amongst other things. Participants will also get the opportunity to set-up a table to display the work of their NGO.
Invited panelists for the event include representatives of commercial banks, local trusts, international funding agencies and corporate Barbados. (RSM)