A cloud of grannies

Quoting Arthur C. Clarke, "If children are interested then education will happen",  Professor Sugata Mitra has repeatedly shown that this happens.  He is Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University, and has demonstrated that children will learn with minimal help using computers.

Have you seen "Slumdog Millionaire" or read the book?  That was inspired by Sugata Mitra's first experiment in this direction, when he installed Hole in the Wall computers in Delhi.  There, without any instruction, children learned to use computers.  You could call this minimally invasive education.

To take this a stage further, mediators can guide the children using the grandmother method.  What is the grandmother method?   Standing behind them and admiring  them all the time, little more than that.  So now they have 200 volunteers admiring students around the world (India, Africa, Columbia) using Skype, a webcam, and a microphone.

There are many places where for various reasons teachers don't want to go and they aren't all in developing countries.  They are often the places where teachers are needed most.  It could be that minimally invasive education could be part of the answer.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
~William Butler Yeats

Do five cuckoos make a spring?

From Chris Romeiks/vogelart.info via Wikipedia

 
"For one swallow does not make the summer" [Aristotle], but could five swallows know that spring is in the air?  It seems unlikely in this snowbound part of the world but possibly they have sensed a change.
The excitement over hearing the first cuckoo in the spring really might have given me a clue, but I really hadn't taken in the fact that cuckoos migrate to warm places during the winter, never mind where those places could be.  In fact they migrate to Africa although very little was known about where.  One bird was found in Cameroon in 1930, and that is just about all.
Until recently.  Last year the British Trust for Ornithology decided to find out more about cuckoos' migration by catching and tagging.  The birds proved hard to catch but in the end five from various parts of East Anglia were fitted with solar powered tags which transmit for 10 hours then recharge for 48.

The first surprise was that the birds started leaving the UK in June and all five had left by the end of July.  Two then flew south via Spain and the others via Italy.  At times their routes were 3,600 km  apart and yet they all ended up together in the Congo by the end of November.

But here is the good news and another surprise - three of them have started moving north!  Has spring already started?

Read all about it.

The dangers of water

We probably all know that many people in Africa, usually women and children, have to collect water from rivers, several times a day. Not only is it incredibly time consuming, the danger is that the river water is often contaminated and can spread diseases.

But there is another danger - wild animals.   Agnes, who lives in Malawi, has a terrible story to tell of the day she was attacked by a crocodile.

Photo from flickr/Ramy Alaa

"When the crocodile caught me, I started screaming as it was trying to pull me into the water, and then my two sons rushed into the river – they had a spear in their hands and they put this into the crocodile's mouth so it eventually released me.

"Then they rushed me to the hospital as my hand was broken. I had a deep wound here, so I had to go back to the hospital three times to try and get them to repair it."

It has left her with a terrible injury, unable to work, and terrified of fetching water.  Fortunately her village is one where WaterAid has installed a safe water point.  Not only are the risks of disease reduced enormously, people no longer  have to risk meeting a rogue elephant along the way, or a crocodile by the water.  Children now have time to go to school, and women can work.

Agnes' story from WaterAid

Earth Day

Residents in the Langue de Barbarie section of Saint Louis in Senegal create rock or sand bag barriers to hold back the advancing sea

Photo IRIN/Phuong Tran

You may or may not think that the changing climate has anything to do with human activity on this planet.  You may or may not think that there is anything we can do about it.  The fact remains that the climate is changing,   and that the people who suffer the worst are those who can least afford to do anything about it.

The photo above shows the efforts of local people in Saint Louis, on the coast of Senegal, to combat steadily rising sea levels.  They think about it all the time.  Further north, the Sahara Desert is growing by 1000 sq km a year and people are having to travel further and further in desperate search of water.  In Mozambique, the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers flood with increasing frequency.  In Chokwe, people are learning to build grain silos in trees to keep the crops safe from floodwater.  Some communities are being moved to resettlement sites but then no longer have access to their farms or livelihoods.

Earth Day is not only about the environment, it's about people too.  People need to be able to live.

To those who have hunger, give bread.
To those who have bread, give a hunger for justice.

Madonna and child

Ten points to ponder

1. What does the adoption of one child do for the good of Africa?
2. Why a four year old who will have made relationships?
   
3. Is a celebrity lifestyle going to give any child a balanced life?
4. How often will this child realistically be able to return to Malawi to keep contact with relatives?
5. How soon will she find it hard to relate to those relatives and her country of birth?
6. What sort of an impression does a celebrity give by flying into a country, with full entourage and press coverage, expecting to fly out again with the baby of choice?
7. How many children could be helped to live with their relatives if the time, energy and money had been spent in different ways?
8. How many mothers could have life-saving medical attention so that there were fewer babies without mothers?
9. How many families could be kept together if they had access to some microfinance?
10. Is any of the focus of attention on Malawi’s needs rather than on the celebrity’s?

Am I alone in wondering about these points?

Travelling toilets

Picture from WaterAid/Caroline Irby

Convenient conveniences

Portable privies

Sileshi Demissie, a successful singer in the USA, wanted to do three things for his native Ethiopia

• improve the environment
• create jobs
• mobilise the community

It soon became obvious that one major source of pollution was caused by lack of sanitation. So the team involved approached WaterAid, and came up with mobile toilet. A small charge is made for use, the environment is improved and the previously unemployed attendants have a means of earning some money Most are kept in one place but they can be moved by lorry to places where they are needed and these often have a small kiosk attached, giving an additional source of income.

"My main income is from the kiosk," says Fasika a mobile toilet attendant who sells women's accessories at her kiosk, "I also keep this area clean - I feel it is my responsibility. Before I had this job I was a homeless street kid begging for money from passers by. "Thanks to God, I now have a child who is able to go to school, I can rent my own house and I have a savings account too and so I am living comfortably. I have bigger visions now. My first priority is that I never want my children to see the things that I saw on the street, or to have to go out begging. They will have money instead."

"When I came to Addis Ababa I had no work and as living on the street" explains Eskender Tadesse, pictured above. "Then I got involved with helping to clean and green the area. Then, when this part was finished I started with the mobile toilet. "There is a big difference between the life I was living before and the life I have now. Before I was homeless and I didn't have an income to support myself. Now, with the toilet I have an income and am saving 50birr (£3.25) a month."

Tough women

Photo from Flickr/khym54. Creative Commons licence.

Like tens of thousands of other grandmothers in Malawi, this "Go Go" is taking care of her grandchildren because their parents have died of AIDS.

Photo from Flickr/khym54. Creative Commons licence.

This is Harriet -- one of millions of Go Go's in Sub-Saharan Africa. Harriet is a grandmother in her early 70s. She is taking care of 16 children who have no parents. Only one of Harriet's own children is still alive. The rest have died.

14% of the population in Malawi has HIV/Aids. There are 84,000 more orphans every year. Very often these children, roughly half of them, are taken in by grandmothers, sometimes leaving these older women with several children from different families to support.

Like Harriet above, most are of an age when they might be enjoying a more peaceful and restful life. Instead they are struggling first with the grief of having lost their sons or daughters, then to raise young grandchildren, often HIV positive, on a meagre income and with little or no support. They are unsung heroes.

Look again at those women above. How many of us could raise, or have raised, our own children in those circumstances? And yet these women are taking on their HIV positive grandchildren and at times other children as well.

There are so many courageous and tough women in the world, often struggling quietly in difficult circumstances. Not all of them perform spectacular feats which catch the eye or the attention of the press, but they are every bit as deserving of our recognition and, more to the point, our help.

You change your wife the way you change a car in Kano

Photo from Flickr/MikeBlyth. Creative Commons licence.

In northern Nigeria, according to the Population Council, 45% of girls are married by the age of 15, and 73% by the age of 18. Most marriages are arranged by the family to men who are on average 12 years older than their wives. Girls are brought up to believe it leads to freedom, independence, but the sacrifice is education and real independence.

Kano is an ancient city in northern Nigeria, the second largest in Nigeria. There is a high divorce rate here, where a new bride is considered a status symbol, adding to the vulnerability of the young wives. A girl can be divorced by the age of 18 and have children to support. "The way you change a car is the way you change a wife in Kano. You give birth to a few children and you can find yourself divorced for the slightest excuse," says Salamatu Da'u, a worker with a Nigerian AIDS service organisation, the Society for Family Health.

So they find themselves with limited education but having to earn in income. Inevitably this leads to menial jobs, but can also lead the way to sex work in a region where condom use is very low. Kano itself has an HIV/Aids rate that is below the national average, but among the brothel based sex workers in the city, this rises to 49.1%. These sex workers were also least likely to use condoms with their customers, and had limited understanding of how to prevent HIV transmission. Almost all the women working in the brothels had either been divorced or had run away to avoid being forced into marriage.

Northern Nigeria is very conservative, where discussion about sex is less open and literacy is low. The Society for Family Health workers are encouraging traditional leaders to promote the use of condoms. Some have, others lend silent support, but there is a long way to go, and so many different but inter-relating strands. to the problem.

Source IRIN: Underground sex in the conservative north
Child marriage
Education: the social vaccine

Lesotho

Photo from Wikimedia/Tjeerd Wiersma. Creative Commons licence.

Lesotho is a small country surrounded by South Africa. The census of 2006 put its population at less than 2 million. It has one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the world.

As I was watching the news this evening I learned that Prince Harry and 20 or so of his army colleagues were in Lesotho to refurbish a special needs school. Apparently this school cost $165,000, say £85,000, funded in part by a local charity Sentebale. He said that the problem was huge but that they could definitely handle it "as long as we can keep the funding coming".

And how much did it cost to have the whole thing filmed for television?

Was it only last week that it was announced that Prince Charles' personal income had risen by £1.1 million to over £16.2 million? And that his tax bill had reduced?

I'm sorry to say that I find it obscene.

A more personal charity

Young children in school. Ghana. Photo: Curt Carnemark /World Bank. From Flickr, Creative Commons licence

Yesterday I had to do some fairly extensive research on the internet, looking at various education-based sites. One had an appeal in the sidebar for teachers and schools to consider sending surplus textbooks to a school in Ghana.

Following the links, as you do, I found Friends of Tafo, which operates in Kwahu-Tafo, the ancestral home of Gyearbuor Asante, who played Matthew in the Channel 4 comedy, Desmond's.

The charity works on a more holistic approach than many. It concentrates all its efforts on this one small town (pop. 5,500) in rural Ghana, where unemployment is about 80%. This means many children can't go to school because they can't afford books or uniforms, and the schools themselves are in poor condition. All of which leads to further unemployment.

The projects undertaken aim to encourage self-development in education, health and infrastructure, and employment.

· Funding teachers for and renovation of the Senior Secondary School
· Enabling training workshops in soap-making, tie-and-dye and textiles
· Starting training courses for the Disabled Association in leatherwork and tailoring
· Establishing an eye care programme
· Setting up bee-keeping cooperatives for income generation
· Founding a music academy for promotion of talent and musical culture
· Establishing school twinning programmes between Tafo and the UK
· Funding school fees for 'needy pupils'
· Repairing wells to improve water quality and safety
· Encouraging Ghana's first Edible Almond Oil project, being developed in Tafo
· Resourcing the town's first computer classroom, for pupils and townspeople
· Rebuilding the Islamic Primary School
· Providing in-service Teacher Training
· Equipping the town's first Science Lab
· Building a Community Library
· Improving sanitation in schools and the community's wells

They are supported in a number of different ways and donors provide not only money but also much-needed equipment, hence the appeal for surplus text books from teachers. They can find uses for many things and will often fund a project that is of particular interest to the donor.

Iness was born with two club feet. They got so bad she eventually could not attend school.

If she had been born with club feet in the UK, as 1 or 2 in 1000 British children are, she would have undergone extensive surgery and possibly been left with scarring and in pain. This sort of surgery and subsequent treatment isn't available in countries such as Malawi, where they just don't have the medical or financial resources to support it. Nor can the patients cope with long drawn out treatments. Iness' mother said, “It was such a burden for me to come every week. I am poor and to find transport money was like struggling for breath.” A different way to treat babies in their first year of life, while it is still possible to avoid complex surgery, was urgently needed.

Photo from Flickr/MikeBlyth

Here in the UK, the BBC is currently showing a series of television programmes (Superdoctors) which looks at various high-tech medical procedures, but one of these programmes is instead looking at the work of Steve Mannion, an orthopaedic surgeon from Blackpool, who spends two out of every four weeks in Malawi in southern Africa. When he first started visiting Malawi, he was one of only two orthopaedic surgeons for a population of about 12 million. He had to find a solution for the children with club feet using the resources available in the area. He found a low-tech method of treating the condition using a type of physiotherapy which would allow non-medical officers, not doctors, to treat patients. The results have been so successful, better than those in the UK, that this low-tech method is being introduced into this country.

The cost of the surgical robots featured in the television programme is about £12 million or roughly $24 million. How many children in the third world could be treated for that sort of money to enable them to walk again, to go to school and earn a living? As opposed to a robot which does work normally performed out by a surgeon. The hospital carrying out this project was built with support from the Beit Trust of the UK, and is managed by the American CURE International, paying the running costs.

I tend to be wary about faith-based charities but this one says it will not turn away a patient due to an inability to pay, ethnic background or religious affiliation. All children are treated free of charge and as a result Iness is now able to attend school again. Chisomo, another patient, and his family are Moslem. His mother said, “I have been encouraged. I think God deserves all the glory. I will leave to testify to people and even tell my son as he grows up that a Christian hospital healed him, a hospital without discrimination.” That warms my heart - a secondary but very important benefit of better trust and understanding.

See also Feet First, a charity set up by Steve Mannion himself in 2004.

One into ten - ?

Photo from Flickr user jackace. Creative Commons licence.

Volvic, owned by Danone Waters, have launched a campaign to encourage people to buy bottled water. For every litre bought, Volvic will "generate" 10 litres of safe, clean water in Africa.

Yet again big business is "helping" Africa for its own purposes (cf P&G, Unilever).

Bottled water has had extremely bad press recently, with several campaigns pointing out that the water in our taps is as good if not better than bottled water and doesn't use up unnecessary energy. So to make us feel good about it, they have started this marketing campaign in the UK, apparently following successful similar efforts in France, Mexico, Germany and Japan.

They, bizarrely to my mind, compare the carbon emissions from the production of a litre of Evian or Volvic with the production of a kilo of chicken #!@#!! Why are they comparing water with a chicken? So you're better drinking water than eating a kilo (2.2 lbs) of chicken? Why are they not comparing bottled water with tap water I wonder?

My first thoughts are that I would rather donate money directly to a charity, WaterAid for instance, and do without Volvic and their cut altogether.

Related articles

• Britons begin to lose thirst for bottled water [via Zemanta]
• Tread lightly: Give up bottled water [via Zemanta]

Commitment to development

Image in public domain from Wikimedia Commons.

Africa is the poorest continent but how committed are wealthy countries to developing countries in Africa? Foreign aid is often used to compare the help given by the developed world but there are other factors as well as aid to take into consideration:

• trade
• investment
• migration
• environment
• security
• technology

David Roodman of the Centre for Global Development compared 21 wealthy nations on all seven factors and created a chart demonstrating the commitment to development.

Interesting points:

• Sweden came out on top because of high levels of aid and commitment to security.
• Ireland came second thanks to high levels of aid and a large peacekeeping force in Liberia.
• Portugal came sixth because of an openness to Africa migrants.
• The UK is strong in investment and security.

In spite of these, all countries could do much more to help development in Africa.

The full report can be downloaded from the Centre for Global Development.

Don't be deaf to Darfur

Bloggers for Darfur

Five years ago the conflict in Darfur started. Since then millions have been displaced and hundreds of thousands have died. So far there has been little action to end the situation.

Yesterday in London 3,000 protesters gathered outside the Sudanese Embassy as part of a global day of action. A group of children, survivors from the war, went to 10 Downing Street to meet the Minister for International Development.

British officials have been in contact with the Sudanese government and rebel groups to propose London host the peace talks on Darfur.

Photo from Flickr user thatsparklychick. Creative Commons licence.

Each flag represents a person killed in Darfur. The Prime Minister has said

"The effects on children of the violence in Darfur have been nothing short of devastating: one million children have been forced to flee their homes and now live in crowded camps in need of basic food and water; two million children depend on humanitarian aid to survive; and half of all children are not receiving any education."

Words are not enough.

Killer fungus

Photo from IRIN.

Recently a disease that affects wheat, caused by a fungus called Ug99 because it was first discovered in Uganda in 1999, has been detected in Iran. It spread from Uganda to Kenya and Ethiopia and in 2007 was found in Yemen. It is liable to spread still further.

This wheat stem rust results considerable reduction in the yield of crops, so giving yet another boost to the already high prices of food in many areas. It can mutate very rapidly and has been able to overcome the resistance bred into existing strains of wheat.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned in early March that the major wheat-producing countries to the east of Iran should be on high alert. Other areas likely to be affected include the Mediterranean region, north Africa, southern Europe, eastern Europe and Russia. Agricultural scientists have warned that this disease could be a serious threat to world food security because 90% of all wheat varieties could be susceptible.

Stocks of wheat have fallen recently because of extreme weather in 2007 in areas of major production. In addition, land which used to be used for wheat has been given over to biofuel crops. But not only have the stock levels fallen, rising oil prices have added to the upward pressure so prices have risen very sharply.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given US$26.8 million to Cornell University in the USA for a new global project to fight the disease.

Playground power

Photo from Flickr user Maitri. Creative Commons licence.

Just like the PlayPump, a seesaw has been developed to harness children's energy in a productive way.

Coventry University design student, Daniel Sheridan, has drawn up plans for a seesaw which will generate electricity when children play on it. He thought of the idea when he was working in Kenya as a volunteer, and saw the immense need for electricity to enable development.

Now that he has won a £5,500 prize for his idea, he hopes to build a working prototype and attract further interest and investment.

As an example, he has calculated that five to 10 minutes use on the see-saw could generate enough electricity to light a classroom for an evening. He says, "Ultimately I would love to design a whole playground of different pieces of equipment that could enough generate electricity to power a whole village."

Thanks to J. for pointing out the BBC article to me.

World Water Day

Today, World Water Day, will be the first showing of Ali Hobbs film, To Begin. It tells the story of the women in Ethiopia who have to collect water every day for their families.

Photo from Flickr user gordontour. Creative Commons licence.

66% of the rural population in Jarso, southern Ethiopia, are still using unsafe water from rivers and ponds, and it is women and girls who are responsible for fetching the water.

It takes anything from 30 minutes to four hours to make the round trip with a wait of up to 50 minutes to fill the container. The film shows the women as they tell their stories.

Part of the film can be seen on The Guardian website. I urge you to watch it and then visit WaterAid to see their work to help.

Be careful what you blog about

I grew up in Africa on a porridge made from something called mealie meal. I loved it and can still remember the taste all these many years later.

This same mealie meal, ground white corn, can be thickened further into nsima (Malawi), nshima (Zambia), ugali (Kenya), or sadza (Zimbabwe). All of these are basically the same thing with slight regional variations. It is a staple of the diet mainly in southern and eastern Africa, but found elsewhere too. According to this BBC report, wars have been fought over it.

Photo from Flickr user Equi. Creative Commons licence.

So perhaps it's not surprising that there has been something of an uproar in Malawi about a young European woman who was visiting the country, and who made some pretty derogatory remarks about local food, nsima in particular but also goat, in her blog. She has upset so many people it has even been reported in the Nyasa Times. The original post on her blog has been removed and replaced by an apology, but a copy of the text is still available on Stories from Malawi. The comments on both the Nyasa Times and Stories from Malawi give an indication of the feelings roused.

The behaviour described is bad enough, but then to post it on a Travel Pod blog for all the world to see shows a complete lack of .... something. The whole purpose of travelling, I would have thought, is to learn about other countries and cultures, to broaden your horizons, to open your mind to new ideas, and most certainly not to ridicule anything about your hosts' way of life.

It is distressing to think that this could be taken by Malawians as representative of all European behaviour.

Spirit groves

Photo from Flickr user King Coyote. Creative Commons licence.

Once Malawi was covered in forest. Various pressures have cut back the forest area further and further.

• Tea plantations
• Tobacco plantations
• Maize fields
• Timber for building
• Firewood gathering
• Wood for making charcoal
• Wood for curing tobacco

From time to time though, you come across large patches of original forest still standing untouched. These are spirit groves, or cemeteries. The local people believe that if they cut them down, they will be haunted by spirits.

These groves are the remnants of once-extensive tropical evergreen forest (the forest is evergreen, not the individual trees). As a result of protecting these cemeteries, species of trees, plants and wildlife have also been preserved. They are an important part of conservation and can have other cultural values too. In Ghana, 80% of spirit groves act as watersheds for clean drinking water.

Nevertheless, even though these groves exist, for the sake of the planet, there have to be considerable efforts to help reforestation such as Trees for Africa, One Parisian, One Tree.

Since tobacco appears to have dealt the forests a double whammy (does that translate?), it would be nice to think that from their wealth, they could play a very large part in replacing what they have helped to destroy. I can find no evidence of it, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

Sources: Kim in Malawi, EPOW

World Book Day

Two stories for World Book Day.

Doris Lessing

Last December, Doris Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In her acceptance speech she described a childhood in Africa which was not totally unlike mine, living in a house without electricity but full of books. She describes life in Zimbabwe today where children clamour for books and knowledge. "Please send us books, please send us books," while we in the developed world don't make the most of what we have and libraries are underused.**

As a result of her very moving speech, and in recognition of her prize, HarperCollins, the publishing house, has announced the donation of 10,000 books to Book Aid International for schools in Zimbabwe.

BookAid helping to make poverty history

Channel Four recently listed BookAid as the top way to help Make Poverty History on their website. As they say education whether formal or informal, can help people out of poverty, but nearly a million cannot read a book. In Africa few people own books and school text books are often shared between six pupils.

Providing books, information and so knowledge, to people in need helps them realise their potential and contribute to their communities.

**One disagreement with Doris Lessing

She said: "How will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by this internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc."

I'm afraid I can't agree with that. The internet has opened up horizons we never knew existed a handful of years ago. We are communicating in ways that once couldn't have been understood, and where there is communication and exchange of ideas, there is education and understanding as we learn about each other.

Like anything, the internet may not be used to its full potential, or in trivial ways, or it may be used in unpleasant and disturbing ways, but on the whole, on balance, I will have to agree to differ with Doris Lessing.