Our vision | Our team | How this came about
who we are
Last-First Networks is a non-profit resource centre, dedicated to advancing effective community renewal and grassroots development. It achieves this by raising awareness of proven practical approaches to working with the poorest and marginal groups of any society, and by resourcing practitioners and organisations who work with these groups. Our geographical focus is Asia and the Pacific, but we source books from all over the world, and also deliver worldwide.
our vision
The vision of Last-First Networks is
the widespread adoption and use of knowledge, skills, attitudes and practices that promote self-reliance and self-esteem among the poorest and marginal groups of the world.
To this end, we promote activities and methods that:
- address the whole person in her or his society
- empower people by increasing their choices and reducing their vulnerability
- validate local knowledge and solutions
- work towards sustainable improvements in lives and in the environment
our team
Last-First's founders, Tandy and Roland Lubett, worked for 15 years in the Pacific and East Africa, before migrating to Australia and settling in Armidale in 1993. Tandy is from Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, and now works as a counsellor with Aboriginal communities in the New England area. Roland has had a long-time vision of networking community and field workers to share resources and techniques.
Our resources marketing manager, Fiona Ninnes, has also lived and worked in Vanuatu and Solomon Islands.
how this came about
by Roland
In the early 1980s Tandy and I were working in agriculture and community development at a little United Church rural training centre in Solomon Islands. I went to some trouble to design a syllabus for the agriculture component. Imagine my frustration when on a visit to another training centre, I was invited to check out - their new agriculture syllabus!
I soon realised that my experience was one too often repeated, not only in Solomon Islands, but all over the world: local fieldworkers busy designing programmes from scratch, "re-inventing wheels", isolated from others with experience that could help them. If there was a clearing-house of recent, relevant, practical information, techniques, and approaches, then we could be better fieldworkers with more effective programmes, and the communities we work with could benefit hugely from the best approaches in grassroots empowerment. Last-First Networks has grown out of that vision.