Hi Jabou,

Thanks for your e-mail.  I'm glad to hear that you're building a database of
human rights organizations to enable us streamline our upcoming campaigns.  To
save you time and trouble, I suggest you check out Action Without Borders Web
site (http://www.idealist.org).  They have an online database of over 20,000
organizations in 152 countries and, as of this evening, there were 1,416 of them
listed as being involved in human rights and civil liberties issues.  Given the
large number of organizations involved, I suggest you breakup the list into
small groups, and ask people to collect information from their sites.  In
addition, you can narrow your search to reduce the size of the list, to begin
with.

Also, do not overlook the Advocacy Network of Africa (ADNA) list.  ADNA
(http://www.africapolicy.org/adna/) is coordinated by the Africa Policy
Information Center (soon to be merged, if not already merged with The Africa
Fund and the American Committee on Africa), and has over 200 organizations in
it's network.  Saul Khan has been a very good job of attending their monthly
meetings, and we need to continue doing that. In this regard, I encourage
existing Gambian non-profit organizations (e.g. MRDG) to join ADNA, or we should
plan to join ADNA when we have an organization (Concerned Gambians?)
incorporated.

Speaking of my call to Prof. Mazrui's office, I forgot to narrate a really
interesting story that illustrates how small a world we live in.  My first call
today was answered by a lady with an African accent, and because Barbara was on
another line, I gave her my name and number for Barbara to call me back.  As it
happens, I asked her where she was from, and she told Uganda.  I told her that I
was from The Gambia, and after sorting out the obligatory confusion with Zambia,
she told me that she had some Gambian friends while she was in Nigeria.  I asked
her where in Nigeria she was and she told me that she was in Jos.  I then asked,
could it be a Dr. Sanyang she was talking about, she said "Yes!"

But that was not all.  I went to school in Nigeria with Dr. Sanyang ("Olu"), and
we had a number of friends from Uganda, but originally from Rwanda, having fled
the wave of killings there back in the early '60s.  As it happens, the lady know
all three of my Ugandan/Friends, and told me that one was infact back in Rwanda,
and had already established a thriving business there.  So there you have it.
You never know who you are talking to on the phone until you ask where they are
from.

I gotta go.  Have a great week(end) and best wishes.

Katim
----- Original Message -----
From: Jabou Joh <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 3:38 PM
Subject: Re: President Jammeh's trip to Chicago State Univ


> Katim,
>
> This is great, and infact, before we got distracted, I had planned to respond
> to some suggestions you had made regarding writing up a summary page of the
> Jammeh Regime's record, and having this available. This will be useful to
> have on hand to include in faxes and mailings. I have also been working on a
> database of Human Rights organizations around the World, and will contact you
> privately to brainstorm. I will  contact Ablie Saine and many others for the
> same purpose.

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