Appraisal forms almost due

Hello mentors! As you know, Appraisal Forms are due this Friday. You can hand them in at any point from now until 5pm on Friday. Note that we have a Mini Seminar on the same date (3pm, Kinbu assembly hall); if you're coming you can hand them in then, or you could use the seminar as a last minute opportunity to speak with your mentees. I would recommend this especially for those who have been having a hard time getting a hold of your mentees.

We've been reading...

From student to UN chief
UN -- Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had an emotional reunion yesterday with the woman who hosted him in the United States nearly five decades ago when he was a young student on his first-ever trip outside his home country of the Republic of Korea. Libba Patterson, 93, beamed with pride as she hugged Mr. Ban, who spent 8 days at her home in Novato, a city outside of San Francisco, California, in 1962. “You are so wise for your age,” she recalled telling a solemn 18-year-old Mr. Ban...

Guinea headed for free election, analysts say
Africa: The Good News -- Former members of a government that took power after a 2008 coup will be allowed to run in next month's landmark election, underlining the difficulty of staging the first free polls in Guinea since independence more than 50 years ago.The military has long held near-absolute power in this West African nation. Still, analysts say the ex-junta candidates announced late Monday are only a minor setback and that they cannot stop the momentum for democracy after decades of dictatorship. "The mood is optimistic. People are putting their faith in the fact that a relatively clean election will take place," said Michael McGovern, an anthropologist at Yale University who studies Guinea and was recently in the country...

UN and UNICEF urge all countries to adopt measures protecting children
UNICEF -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake and other child-rights advocates came together at UNICEF headquarters in New York this morning, calling for all countries to take extra steps aimed at protecting children from violence and exploitation. Ten years ago, the UN General Assembly adopted two Optional Protocols supplementing the wide-ranging human rights protections of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC. The protocols offer additional protection for children who are vulnerable to armed conflict, or to being sold or exploited for purposes of prostitution or pornography.

In South Africa, an unlikely leader on AIDS
NY Times -- In a nation ravaged by AIDS, a disease still hidden in shadows of stigma and shame, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa has begun to engage in an extraordinarily open conversation about sex, AIDS and H.I.V. prevention, one ignited in part by his own recent admission that he had unprotected sex during an extramarital affair. Last month, as he announced a vast expansion of H.I.V. testing and AIDS services, he publicly took an H.I.V. test and disclosed that he had tested negative for the virus. Then in a frank interview on Thursday, Mr. Zuma said that he had been circumcised and had encouraged his sons to undergo the procedure, which can reduce a man’s risk of contracting H.I.V. by more than half...

Mini Seminar coming up

Another quick message for all mentors! We have another Mini Seminar coming up on the 4th of June (now confirmed). This is the same day the Appraisal Forms are due. If you need to use the seminar to talk to your mentes, you may do so at the end. I will have copies with me on the day, so you don't need to worry about printing them out. As usual the seminar will take place in the assembly hall at Kinbu at 3pm. Harry McNinson, a Databank employee and former Kinbu student will be talking to the mentees to encourage and motivate them.

See you all next Friday!

47 Years of African Leadership for Africa

Yesterday, 'Africa Day', marked the 47th anniversary of what is now the African Union (the AU was formed in 2002 to replace the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) which was established on May 25th, 1963). Forty seven years of united leadership from the 53 member states that make up the Assembly of the African Union have seen their fair share of ups and downs. The AU's initial handling of the crisis in Darfur, for example, was severely criticized. However, the 2008 invasion of Anjouan to oust separatist leader Colonel Mohamed Bacar and the 2003 peacekeeping intervention in Burundi are widely acknowledged as successes.

Click here for a detailed account of the AU's history - from the people behind the OAU to what it is today - and here for more information about their activity to date. Acknowledgment to allAfrica.com for the information.

Below, you can find an excerpt of Jean Ping (Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union)'s address to journalists earlier in the year, which has a brief run-through of the progress the AU is making on various countries. The full speech can be found here, and the full-text article can be downloaded from the AU website.

"Ladies and gentlemen,

"In 2009, conflicts and crises have again spilled a lot of ink. However, we hope 2010 will be the year for durable solutions and the culmination of processes begun to entrench peace, safety and well being for people in Africa. As I like to say, our ultimate aim is to preserve African citizens from fear, and poverty.

"As you are aware of, the crisis in Madagascar [sic] has given us a hard time. Neither the adoption of the Transitional Charter nor the agreements of Maputo and the Additional Act of Addis Ababa were enough to dissolve the Gordian knot of the distribution of ministerial portfolios. I just returned from Madagascar where my mission was to present compromise solutions to the Malagasy parties. The Commission's initiative was welcomed, but no positive conclusion can be announced as of now.

"In Somalia, President Ahmed Sharif has opened dialogue with the armed opposition and the hard-line insurgents. Notwithstanding this, Al Shabaab and Hisbul Islam continue to undermine the national reconciliation process by repeated attacks. This further deteriorates the humanitarian and security situation in the country. AMISOM whose mandate was renewed for a period of 12 months has still not attained the authorized effective of 8,000 men. I hope that the promised troops will be on the ground in 2010. In the meantime, it is clear that Somalia is still a major concern throughout Africa and the world.

"In Sudan, considerable progress has been made. In January 2010, the process of implementing the global peace agreement has celebrated its 5th anniversary. However, many challenges remain. National elections will be held in April 2010. They will be followed by the referendum for southern Sudan and the Abyei region in January 2011. Regarding Darfur, I hope that the implementation of the Mbeki Report will be a lasting solution.

AfricanAgenda2010 Survey

African Monitor has been working on getting the voices of Africans heard at various summits held at organisations such as the African Union and United Nations. They have recently launched an the AfricanAgenda2010 Survey to widen the scope of people they are able to reach. If you have a little spare time, please take the survey and make your opinions count! Don't let the first page scare you off (as it almost did me!); it only takes about 10 minutes to complete. Here's some information about the survey from their website:

"2010 is a critical year in Africa’s development, and as we head towards the United Nations Summit on the MDGs in September 2010 in New York, it is important that African stakeholders develop a set of priorities for engagement and advocacy in Africa, and towards building a redefined relationship between African countries and the international community.

African Monitor and a number of partners, including ONE and the Southern Africa Trust, are facilitating citizen consultations around the continent to develop a citizen-driven agenda for Africa in the second decade of the 21st century. The aims of these consultations are to:

1. Develop an African agenda wholly owned and promoted by governments, civil society, business and academia;
2. Identify high impact priorities for implementation between 2010 and 2015;
3. Identify key evidence that demonstrates the effectiveness of partnerships (among Africans and between them and the international community) in programme implementation;
4. Galvanise shared expectations and excitement about prospects for Africa;
5. Generate commitment and renewed energy to drive local and international support for democracy and development in Africa.

Recognising that there are ongoing continental processes to review progress towards the MDGs, as well as identify priorities for international community engagement, these consultations will also review the existing continental processes and submit recommendations to them. Realising how limited physical consultations are, it is critical that an e-consultation is undertaken to poll a broad cross section of African citizens, particularly young people, on these issues."

Conselling based education

One of the tools that we aim to promote through the YLMP is Counselling Based Education (CBE). Below is a brief description of what CBE entails and hopes to achieve. It was written by Seth Tandoh, who works with Media Youth Project:

"CBE is a style of sharing information that utilises the trainee's own curiosity and life experiences. Unlike a typical Ghanaian classroom set-up where students are "lectured at" from rigid, inflexible notes, the trainee is required to give something of himself.

Here are some of the unique aspects of CBE as practiced by Media Youth Project. The first four relate to training methods:

1. We throw away conventional 'chew and pour' teaching.
At Media Youth Project the trainee himself becomes part of the learning process.

2. We keep learning groups small so we can give everyone individual attention.
By keeping the numbers small (between 3-10), the leader can give each individual attention and, in love, help him or her to chart a consistent course of self-development.

3. We place great emphasis on practicals.
Emphasis on putting what one has learnt into immediate use.

A little housekeeping

Afternoon all! It's been a while since I personally addressed you, and I'd like to take a minute or two to do that. To all of you who have followed the blog since we started, thanks for sticking with us. And to those of you who have recently joined, welcome!

The blog has gone through a number of changes since it was first created. The first - and probably the most significant - was the removal of the privacy settings to read the blog, which made it more accessible to everyone. More recently, I removed the settings that required you to be a member of the blog in order to leave a comment. These changes should (hopefully) make it easier to get around and should improve the exchange of ideas.

The content of the blog itself has been evolving since it's conception and will continue to do so. The tag cloud, 'We've been reading...' pages, and the Facebook group widget are all products of this. What I'd like to do now is to involve you in this process. Is there anything you would like so see that is not on here? This can include anything from applications to the contents of the posts themselves.

While it's impossible to guarantee that every suggestion will be implemented, I'd love to hear from you. Now the restrictions of commenting have been lifted, no excuses :)

Developing a culture of reading (Part 2)

Last night, various junior and senior mentors met to decide on which programme we are going to implement at Kinbu. As mentioned earlier, we wanted to pick the most effective and sustainable idea that would benefit the largest number of students.

To start with, everyone present shared their ideas on which idea they thought was the best to implement and why. From this, we came down to about five ideas. In the end, we decided that it made most sense to go with the Library Club idea. A point was raised that it would be unrealistic to target the whole school to begin with. If we're able to implement the club successfully and make it attractive enough, eventually a large number of students would benefit. Better start small with high levels of success than to start too ambitiously and end up with little progress.

Another point was that providing incentives to the students would work well, and this could work quite well with a Library Club. One of the most attractive features of the Library Club is that it is flexible. Several ideas can be integrated together for the Library Club to organise. Out of the ideas we came up last week, these include:

• Termly quizzes/competitions based on set books. Internal (within Kinbu) and external (involving other schools) reading competitions
• Members get exclusive benefits, i.e. watch movies (e.g. The Book Club, The Debaters), go on trips etc based on attendance to meetings
• Have speakers periodically come and talk to students about the importance of reading (e.g. Ama Ata Aidoo).
• Arrange books in order of difficulty. A ‘reading marathon’ could then be introduced. Students must finish one book before advancing to the next. Can create positive competitiveness
• The club could organise writing and debating events
• The library could be emphasised at orientation – new students could be given a tour of library and encouraged to join the library club

Instead of completely scrapping the idea of having students make drama productions from books, we decided that if there was an 'outside' production happening, students could read the book and then go see the play as one of the Library Club trips. This would be at the discretion of staff at Kinbu.

The issue of students only joining the library Club for benefits (i.e. to hear speakers, to go on trips, etc) was brought up. We decided that events such as speakers talking about the importance of reading should be open to both members and non-members of the club as withholding this would be counter-productive. However, there will be a 'discounts' based system for events such as trips. The more club meetings students attend, the cheaper the trip will be for them.

Feel free to drop a comment if you've got any additional suggestions.

We've been reading...

Where is Obama's foreign policy heading?
BBC -- Mr Karzai was seen in Washington as very much part of the problem in Afghanistan. This week, in contrast, he has had the red carpet rolled out for him in the US capital. Indeed, the apparent flip-flop in approach to the Afghan president seems to be a theme running through much of the Obama administration's foreign policy. Think how tough the Obama team were on Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over settlement building, only to back away from an all-out confrontation without any really convincing evidence that settlement construction had been halted. So what is going on? ...

The wavering war on AIDS
NY Times -- The global war on AIDS has racked up enormous successes over the past decade, most notably by providing drugs for millions of infected people in developing countries who would be doomed without this life-prolonging treatment. Now the campaign is faltering. Donations from the United States and other wealthy countries have leveled off while the number of people infected with H.I.V., the AIDS virus, grows by a million a year. By one informed estimate, only $14 billion will be available of some $27 billion needed this year to fight the disease in the developing world. Fewer than 4 million of the 14 million people infected with the AIDS virus are getting drug treatment — far short of the goal of universal access set by the United States and others...

African leaders unite to fight malaria
The East African -- For decades, malaria was the disease of sad contradiction. With a sense of fatalism, Africans accepted it as the leading single killer of pregnant women and children under 5, even though those one million deaths a year were fully preventable and treatable. In the last five years, the international community has awakened to combat this needless killer, pumping billions of dollars in foreign aid for bed nets, miracle drugs, and other interventions to save lives...

Developing countries stepping up action against climate change
World Bank -- Despite the global financial crisis and the resulting economic downturn, the past year has witnessed unprecedented demand from developing countries for World Bank Group support in their efforts to address development and climate change as interlinked challenges, according to a new report. Released today, the Progress Report on the Strategic Framework for Development and Climate Change documents the Bank Group’s growing response to these demands.

Sponsorship letters

As you might know, sponsorship letters were handed out to the junior mentors who attended yesterdays meeting. During the meeting, we discussed the procedure for handing out the letters. The guidelines are:

• Junior and senior mentors should only hand out letters to people they know personally
• Mentors should let Foundation staff know where they are taking the letter to before they do so
• Once a letter has been delivered, mentors should please let Foundation staff know so that no one else goes back to the same place
• If more letters are required, mentors can contact the Foundation for another one. This will be given provided that the person they are going to ask has not been given one before

If you were not present at the meeting, you can drop a comment, call or send an email and we will work on getting one to you.

Deadline approaching: CIPE Essay Contest

If you were thinking of entering the 2010 CIPE Youth Essay Contest that I mentioned earlier last month, you might want to start working on it now if you haven't done so already. The deadline is coming up in 5 weeks time.

To remind you, the titles are:

1. Democracy that delivers
2. Entrepreneurship and society
3. Women and participation

You can click here for more information as to how to go about answering each title. All entries should be between 2000 and 3000 words in length, and should be submitted online via the official submission page on their website by the 18th of June.

All the best!

News for mentors

This is a quick post to remind mentors that we're having a meeting this Monday. The meeting is for all junior and senior mentors, so please make it a point to be there. We're going to be deciding on the initiative we will implement to help encourage and motivate Kinbu students to read more. Please come ready to share your thoughts on which idea you think will be most effective and why. If you've not had a look at the ideas we came up with in our previous meeting, click here or refer to the minutes that were emailed to you on on Tuesday.

We will also be handing out sponsorship letters during this meeting so that we can kick-start the fundraising process. We have to raise over GH¢ 30,000 by the end of June at the latest - so we need to get the ball rolling as soon as possible.

Finally, due to the fact that most of you are busy with exams at this time, the deadline for submitting the Appraisal Forms has been extended until Friday 4th June**. Please ensure that you have completed them by then as the deadline cannot be extended past this date. If you have already completed some (or all) of the Forms, you can still bring them along to the meeting on Monday.

See you all then!


** Because this deadline has shifted, you'll need to arrange to discuss them with a member of the Foundation staff from the week beginning on the 7th of June. If, however, you have already completed the Appraisal Forms for all your mentees, you can arrange for a meeting prior to this date.

We've been reading...

The nation full of strong women
NY Times -- When she pleaded for her life, as taunting rebel soldiers vowed to bury her alive, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, now the Liberian president, remembers defending herself with her most basic strength: “You can’t do this. Think of your mother.” To this day, she is not sure why they spared her, but since she was jailed in a coup uprising in 1980 and later watched Liberia shattered in a bloody 14-year civil war, Mrs. Sirleaf has turned to mothers and women for popular support and to rebuild a country that essentially failed...

World movement for democracy: Dealing with corruption
CIPE Blog -- At the Sixth biennial assembly of the World Movement for Democracy, this year held in Jakarta, Indonesia, I heard a recurring theme in many of the workshops and conversations in between sessions – corruption is a large and growing problem for democracies around the world. Corruption effects established and emerging democracies in strikingly similar ways; it decreases the legitimacy of existing institutions and creates a high level of cynicism among voters. Perhaps the issue was always there, but advances in information technology and greater access to a multitude of channels of communication has brought the issue out of the shadows...

Leaders
BBC -- Leaders are strategic thinkers, planning ahead and anticipating difficulties. They quickly spot inefficiency and organise people to make improvements. Leaders like solving problems at the organisational level, but would rather leave the detailed work to others. Leaders enjoy discussing complex issues and will challenge people's views to spark a debate. They admire people who defend their beliefs by arguing persuasively...

Lead:ology - What is leadership?
Leading Blog -- “If leadership is defined as ...” began an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. Most leadership definitions have an agenda. This is not to say they are bad, but that they reflect the bias of the writer. Narrow and sometimes cumbersome definitions may help to make a point or clarify what the writer considers good leadership should be, but they shortchange our understanding of leadership overall. The fact that there are so many and assorted definitions of leadership speaks to the very human aspect of leadership. It is as varied as there are leaders and leadership needs. A good definition needs to allow many perspectives. It should create awareness. It should include leaders at all levels...

Developing a culture of reading

Last night, the Library campaign group and members of the Support Team met to discuss ways in which we could develop a culture of reading amongst Kinbu students. Like I mentioned earlier, it's all well and good renovating the library, but if the students do not use it our efforts would have been in vain.

We met in order to brainstorm both ways we could motivate students to go to the library (aside from the refurbishment) and also to make reading in general something of a habit. We came up with quite a few ideas, and now we need to pick one main area to focus our energies on. 'Minor' initiatives that will not require too much initial effort to start up can run alongside the main idea. It has to be something sustainable so it can run without Databank Foundation needing to be there at all times (or every time it needs to be run).

We'd like to open up the discussion to all the groups of the Programme. Here is a list of the ideas we came up with:

--> Termly quizzes/competitions based on set books. Internal (within Kinbu) and external (involving other schools) reading competitions
--> Book/library club - Members get exclusive benefits, i.e. watch movies, go on trips etc based on attendance to meetings
--> Notice board in library – announces local essay competitions, new books (reviews), etc. Students have to go into the library in order to check it
--> Have speakers periodically come and talk to students about the importance of reading (e.g. Ama Ata Aidoo). Can also show movies that demonstrate this (e.g. The Book Club, The Debaters)
--> Arrange books in order of difficulty. A ‘reading marathon’ could then be introduced. Students must finish one book before advancing to the next. Can create positive competitiveness
--> Library ‘scavenger hunt’ – event where students must hunt to find specific items in the library
--> Kinbu could join Readwide Club
--> Create a writers and debaters club
--> Organise drama productions based on specific books
--> Reading linked to grades, i.e. have an exam/section of an exam based on a book
--> The library could be emphasised at orientation – new SH1 students could be given a tour of library and encouraged to join the library club
--> Games competitions (e.g. scrabble) twice a term. First prize could be one term’s fees paid, second prize a scrabble game, third prize a citation… etc. There should be a reading based qualification system; the more students read, the more prizes they are eligible to apply for

Which do you think is the most practical, effective and sustainable idea? We'll be meeting up again this Monday (17th May) at Databank at 5pm, and we should reach a decision by then. In the meantime, especially if you're part of the Clean Up campaign or the Support Team (formerly the School Fair campaign), please leave comments with your suggestions. If you prefer, you could email me or Elinam instead.

Mini Seminar: The Power of Positive Thinking

As you might know, we had a mini seminar for mentees today (Friday 7th May) on the Power of Positive Thinking. The seminar was led by Mr K. B. Nyantekyi Owusu, a business consultant with a passion for the youth and youth development.

Unfortunately, we were unable to start at the allocated time, and many mentees left before we had a chance to speak with them. It was nonetheless a great seminar. Mr Owusu spoke with enthusiasm and purpose, first engaging the mentees by asking for their take on the words 'power', 'positive', and 'thinking'. From the answers he was given, you could tell Mr Owusu had already set his audience thinking. He went on to give an enlightening overview of how the power of thought affects our lives. The heart of the message was based around the idea "as a man thinketh, so is he".

After the seminar was over, we had a brief session for mentors to have a chat with their mentees.

As promised, you can find a short clip from the seminar below. For photos, see the previous post (or click here).

Mini Seminar: Photos

Here are some photos from the mini seminar we had today. I'll post a brief rundown of the days events and maybe a video soon, so look out for those!

Library Campaign: Budget update

We've received the amended budget, and although it has been whittled down considerably, it still stands rather high at GH¢32,000. It's quite a lot, but we hope we'll be able to meet (or at least come close to) the target. We have till the end of June to raise everything we can, so we'll just have to work as hard as we can until then.

With the budget now confirmed, the sponsorship letter is complete and will be given to all junior and senior mentors. If you have a particular person or organisation you'd like to approach and need a sponsorship letter, you can shoot me an email at either infoYLMP@gmail.com or odoley90@hotmail.com and I'll get one to you. Alternatively if you are a member of this blog, you can simply comment on this post. Please note that if you are not affiliated with the YLMP or Databank, your request will have to be reviewed and approved by the Programme Manager before a letter can be sent.

We're also trying to get the mentees involved in raising funds so they feel like they are a part of the project. 'Support cards' have been created and will be distributed to them this Friday at the mini seminar. They contain a few details about the Programme and what it is we're hoping to get done. Although we're not expecting to raise a significant amount from this, we hope that the mentees will be able to get involved and feel a sense of pride in playing an integral role and making a practical contribution towards project.

In the meantime, we also have to think about projects we can start in order to create a culture of reading among Kinbu students. It's all very well and good refurbishing the library, but if students are not in the habit of reading our efforts will have been in vain. Once again if you have any ideas, just let me know and I'll pass the information on.

Plastic waste management: How you can help

The following is an article on plastic waste management written by Aba Tetteh, one of our senior mentors. Thanks for your contribution Aba!


When they first came in they were great. Thinking about convenience and affordability, we ignored the havoc it could also create: the Menace of Plastic.

Less than five years ago, the use of plastic was not the norm; now, you cannot buy anything without being given a plastic container or bag to put it in. It is important to note that despite the fact that plastics have made life easier for us in terms of being convenient and affordable, plastics do not disintegrate or decompose easily, and as a result we are battling with how to get rid of our plastic waste in an environmentally friendly way.

Here, I seek to illustrate some things we as individuals can do to manage our plastic waste. In the absence of a nationwide management of waste, we can reduce our plastic use by following simple principles of management.

As a nation, we need to learn how to sort out our refuse. Sorting makes it easier for waste management companies to pick up our waste and recycle it without having to pay extra for people to sort them out. Ghanaians are willing and able to dispose of rubbish in containers that are provided, and this is evident by the fact that when waste bins are packed with waste that have not been picked up, most people still go out of their way to cramp rubbish into the container. When we get into the habit of sorting out our waster materials, the two recycling companies we have operating in the Ghana, namely, Ghana Waste Recycling and Zoomlion Ghana Limited, will find it easier to pick up the sorted plastic waste. Getting people to adapt a habit is tedious especially if there is a lackadaisical attitude about it. It is a matter of principle, self-awareness and individual policing. In order for this change to take place, we will have to inculcate the habit of sorting our rubbish, starting in our schools and homes.

In the meantime, we can look at reducing our use of plastics by applying the 3R’s: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. How many times do you buy stuff from the market or while walking in town? How do you normally carry such an item or items? Is it in your handbag, carrier bag etc, anything reusable? Oh, here is a thought, you probably would buy a plastic bag or be given a plastic bag by the seller; this is what we would typically do. When we get home, we throw the plastic bag away without a second thought. How about instead of throwing that bag away, we fold it up and keep it stored away. Plastic bags vary in texture and durability. You can use the less durable bags to line your rubbish containers or for wrapping certain items. With the more durable plastic bags, you can reuse them as carrier bags. Remember to keep a carefully folded plastic bag in your handbag or wallet ready for use whenever you find that you need it. This bag can be used for about four or more times before being finally discarded.