The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa is pleased to announce the 2010 session of its Advanced Research Fellowship Programme and to invite interested scholars based in African universities or research centres to submit applications for consideration for an award.

The 2010 session of the CODESRIA sub-regional methodological workshops will explore the conditions for the employment and validation of qualitative perspectives in African contexts. To this end, the workshops will be open to all the social research discipline. The East and Southern Africa edition of the methodology workshops is designed for doctoral and masters students and young, mid-career African researchers resident in East and Southern Africa.

African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), a project of the CGIAR Gender & Diversity Program, is now accepting applications for its 2010 fellowships. The deadline for all applications is 22 March 2010.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) adds its voice to the many in wishing its Honorary President and former President of the Republic Nelson Mandela well on the 20th anniversary of his release. Nelson Mandela whom the NUM conferred an Honorary life Presidency long before his release in 1990 is a symbol of hope to many hopeless and impoverished people across the globe and continues to inspire hope amongst mineworkers.

Sixteen years after the Rwandan genocide, many women are struggling to come to terms with the violence they endured. According to the association of genocide widows NGO, Avega Agahozo, sexual violence was used to humiliate, degrade and abuse women during the 6 April to 16 July 1994 killings. In many cases, the violence was meted out before, during or after the women had witnessed the killing of a relative.