IASE, IASE, Baby

At a time when there's lots of icky, hot-button acronyms being bandied about in the news and media (ISIS, ISIL, NIH, CDC, FOMO, STBY, DILLIGAS, the list goes on - or, TLGO), I thought it would be a good time to post a quick shout-out to the IASE or International Association of Special Education, four little letters that rep The Toa Nafasi Project in a super-good way.

I first hooked up with the IASE back in 2009 when I sought out the advice of Mary Gale Budzisz, past president of the organization.  I had just started thinking about the Project and MG (another great two letters!!) was more than happy to pass along her words of wisdom.  Since then, we've kept in touch and visited each other often (see my blog post, "Southern Comfort," from November 2012), most recently this past July in Moshi when MG and current IASE president, Iris Drower, visited The Toa Nafasi Project at Msaranga Primary School.  Traveling with them was educational and behavioral consultant, Meghan Gallagher, who had first visited Tanzania a few years back.  She volunteer-taught, coincidentally, at the Irente Rainbow School in Lushoto, the old stomping grounds and dissertation research site of our very own Angi Stone-MacDonald!  IASWAA!!

IASE's vision statement is "to improve the quality of life and service delivery for all individuals with special needs."  Additionally, they have established a Volunteer Service Committee "to facilitate the identification of special educational needs in nations with developing economies, and to connect a volunteer resource person who is an IASE member."  You can find out more about IASE on their website, http://www.iase.org/, and if you look under Volunteer Service Projects in Tanzania, you'll see Toa Nafasi listed as a service site!

Finally, the 14th Biennial IASE Conference will be held in Wroclaw, Poland in June 2015 and, while I'm not sure whether I'll be able to attend, I am fairly certain Angi has submitted a proposal on behalf of the Project.  More on this to come....

Also, I can't remember whether I announced this on the blog previously or not, but NHD (no harm done) in doing it again:

I am very pleased to announce that The Toa Nafasi Project consultant Angi Stone-Macdonald will be repping the program this Spring at the annual convention and expo for the Council for Exceptional Children with a presentation titled "Assessment and Curriculum Supports for 1st Grade Students With Mild Disabilities in Tanzania."  Hongera sana, Angi!! 

TTYL, everybody!!