Martin Luther King Day

For Martin Luther King Day we have a special guest post from Elinam Adadevoh, our Programme Manager. Enjoy!

In honor of the life and service of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (a civil rights activist), we have posted one of his famous speeches and perhaps one of the best speeches ever given. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Dr. King once said, “Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'What are you doing for others?”. In 1994, Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act which encourages Americans to volunteer on that day. Each year Americans use this day to serve their communities. I encourage you all to serve your community not only today but throughout the year. When we serve others, we are contributing to making the world a better place.

To read a transcription of Dr. King's famous "I have a dream" speech, click here.

We've been reading...

Nigeria's top banker wins international recognition
BBC -- Nigeria is frequently cited as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, but its central banker has won two international banking awards. Mallam Lamido Aminu Sanusi has been named as the Central Bank Governor of 2010 for both the African continent and the entire world, by the prestigious Banker Magazine. The editor of the magazine, Brian Caplen, says that few candidate names generate an overall consensus on judging panels, and yet, when it came to finding the best global central bank governor of the year, Mr Sanusi was chosen unanimously. The 49-year-old was appointed head of the Bank of Nigeria in June 2009. He has been praised for salvaging a crumbling Nigerian financial sector, including implementing reforms that have put Africa's most promising market back on the map for global investors...

South African university receives international award
SA Good News -- The University of the Free State in South Africa has been honoured with the award for Best Practice in Higher Education in 2010 for its fresh approach in promoting racial harmony and academic excellence. The award, presented by the World Universities Forum, is based on a strict set of criteria, including innovative curriculums; quality of research projects; and student services. The forum said the award recognised a number of positive reforms at the university over the last year following a culture of "racial division, student failure and academic stagnation". Campus-wide student integration, reinvigorating academic culture and nurturing the most promising young students through the vice-chancellor's prestige programme are among the innovations made, according to university spokesperson Lacea Loader...

Southerners in North Sudan fear future after break
Washington Post -- The young mother of three bids her neighbors farewell as they pack up and leave the Khartoum slum where they have lived for years to return to their homeland in south Sudan, jubilant at the imminent realization of their dream of independence. But Ajak Majak is not joining the celebrations - she's staying. The 27-year-old Majak says she can't leave the north for the time being. Her kids are in school and she has a decent job. In the meantime, she's deeply afraid of attacks by northern Sudanese angry over the south's imminent secession. She has locked herself in the safety of her home for the week of voting in the independence referendum that began Sunday in the south and among southern Sudanese in the north...

New law to protect Congo indigenous people
IRIN -- The Republic of Congo is set to become the first country in Africa to provide specific legal protection for its indigenous peoples. Members of the Baaka, a minority indigenous tribe in the Republic of Congo"We are looking forward to the adoption of this law because we know it will change many things, especially with regard to our emancipation," Jean Ganga, chairman of the Association for the Protection and Promotion of Indigenous Peoples. Almost seven years in gestation, the government-backed bill was passed by both the senate and national assembly in late December and will take effect once signed into law by the president. Indigenous people, some of whom are known as Pygmies, make up about 10 percent of Congo's population and live in almost all regions of the country...

School meal makes learning possible for ambitious Haitian girl

A great post from the World Food Programme:

Marie Anika, 8, says she’d like to work in a bank when she grows up. She has never actually been in one but her aunt has told her about banks and she thinks they sound interesting.

For the moment, Marie Anika is living with her parents and her sister in a tent where their old home used to stand before the earthquake. It is located on a small hill overlooking the Ecole Rosalie Javouhey in Port-au-Prince. The earthquake claimed the lives of 21 pupils and damaged or destroyed many classrooms.

Like most of the students, Marie Anika does not always get to eat at home – there simply isn’t enough money for that. That’s why she so looks forward to getting a daily hot meal at school.

“It would be terrible if we didn’t get a meal at school,” she said. “I really wouldn’t like that”.

The basic ingredients – rice, beans and oil – are provided by WFP as part of its contribution to the Government’s Programme National de Cantines Scolaires (National School Meal Programme).

The religious order that runs the school tries to add some meat, fish or vegetables. The preparation is all done in a small, tin-roofed kitchen in the back yard.

With cholera a real threat, the children are made to line up and wash their hands with soap and water. The food is served by school employees, with some help from the children themselves, between 10 and 10.30 each morning. After saying grace, the girls eat sitting at their desks.

The rations are delivered to the school by non-governmental organization BND, one of 25 local and international partners that assist WFP with the school meals programme in Haiti.

“They’d simply be too weak to study if they weren’t able to eat something at school,” says the principal, Sister Bernadette. “It’s important for them to have a meal here, most of them come from very poor families”.

WFP’s target is to feed more than one million school children in the current school year in Haiti. Children also sometimes receive take-home rations to share with their families.

Coming soon: Better viewing from your mobile

I realise that quite a few of you like to check our blog on your mobile phones while you're on the go. I also realise that current settings do not make phone viewing very pleasant. I'm pleased to let you know though, that Blogger is working on the situation and templates to optimize mobile viewing will be available soon. I'll be experimenting; any feedback would be appreciated!

Thank you for your patience!

Five months later, the World Cup brings new hope to SA

South Africa and football governing body Fifa have unveiled a 2010 Fifa World Cup Legacy Trust aimed at boosting education, health, humanitarian activities and football development in the county following the successful hosting of the first Fifa World Cup on African soil.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup Legacy Trust was unveiled by Fifa, the South African government and the SA Football Association (Safa) in Johannesburg on Monday.

Making good on its pledge to ensure that the country continues to benefit from the 2010 World Cup, Fifa has injected US$100-million into the legacy trust. The trust will be administered by international auditing firm Ernst and Young, while trustees from Fifa, the government, Safa and the private sector will evaluate projects for investment.

Projects aimed at benefiting the public will be submitted to the trustees for review and will be selected in the areas of football, education and development, health care and humanitarian activities.

As a first project financed by the trust, Fifa purchased 35 of the World Cup team buses and a fleet of 52 vehicles, which were handed over to SAFA for transport of their regional teams.

You have outshined: Blatter
"We've achieved our goals with regard to the successful hosting of the Fifa World Cup event, and now remains a difficult but most important task - to ensure a lasting legacy and to build world-class national teams at both youth and senior level," Fifa president Sepp Blatter told journalists in Johannesburg on Monday.

"This is also a reward for South Africans for having been such great hosts," Blatter said. "In 2004, when we took a decision to give you the right to organise the World Cup, you were still a young democratic republic, but you've outshined in delivering a great event."

President Jacob Zuma said Monday's occasion "enables us to proudly look back on 2010 as the coming of age of our young nation".

As part of the bidding process for the 2010 World Cup, Zuma said South Africa had signed 17 guarantees with Fifa, and undertook that these were to be used as a catalyst to meet the developmental needs of the country.

Education 'a life-long investment': Zuma
"Being a developing country, we wanted the tournament to be about more than just football," Zuma said. "We wanted Africa's first World Cup to be a continental showpiece that was owned by all Africans, and we wanted it to leave a developmental legacy. We achieved our goals," he said.

One tangible legacy that had to come out of the World Cup was education, Zuma said, adding that the One Goal Education Campaign should not be seen as having been a once-off promotional campaign that died with the World Cup.

"Linking soccer with education takes the beautiful game to the youth and ensures its future. The game of football is in the main played by the youth, and education is in the main about investing in the youth, and therefore to put education as one of the key legacy projects is very important."

Zuma said education was a life-long investment that could break the chain of poverty in the country and in Africa.

"We want the children of Africa to remember the first Soccer World Cup on African soil as one that planted the seeds of true universal access to education and a better life."

(Source: BuaNews - Nthambeleni Gabara)

Mini Seminars this term

Morning all! It's that time of the year again... our first Mini Seminar of the year looms just over the horizon. As you know, this term also comes with our first mentor-mentee sessions. Exciting times! I want to give you a quick overview of this term's schedule. Most likely we'll be getting copies with more details to you individually as time goes on. For now though, here's what you can expect this term:

Friday 21st Jan - Mini Seminar: Overcoming negative peer pressure
Friday 28th Jan - Mentor-mentee session
Friday 11th Feb - Mini Seminar: Sex-Sense & Relationships
Friday 18th Feb - Mentor-mentee session
Friday 11th March - Mini Seminar: Managing your personal finances
Friday 18th March - Mentor-mentee session
**Wednesday 23rd March - Appraisal Forms due

Each Mini-Seminar and mentor-mentee session will take place at Kinbu and will start at three o'clock. Communication with your mentees is important at all times - especially so with the mentee-mentor sessions. Remember to plan ahead so at least one mentor in your group is able to meet with your mentees each session.

Africa: Open for business like never before

Here is an excerpt of an article from Africa - The Good News, a website I have found to be a great resource over the years. It was written by Carol Pineau, a film producer, director and journalist. She talks about various entrepreneurs - including our own Ken and Keli! - and how they have contributed to the African society. You can have a look at the whole article here (although it is slightly repetitive, it's worth the read).

Africa's new generation of entrepreneurs show extraordinary ingenuity. They are determined visionaries who find solutions to seemingly impossible challenges and strive to succeed against all odds. Not only are they pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. They are pulling up an entire continent as well.

The stories of Africa's entrepreneurs are the stories of Africa's heroes. While the media focuses on adversity, they are missing another great story: that of Africa's entrepreneurs who are busy getting down to business.

Take for example Ken Ofori-Atta and Keli Gadzekpo, founders of Databank, an investment group in Accra. The two are ivy-league educated Ghanaians, had top jobs on Wall Street [and with KPMG], but left in the early 1990's to return to Ghana and be part of building the nation. A few years later they launched Epack, Ghana's first mutual fund, which invests in more than half of Africa's stock markets and averaged a whopping 60% annual returns since the fund started.

One of their friends, Hermen Chinery Hesse, a software developer creates software specifically produced to withstand hot and humid climates. He is now launching a new business, Black Star Line, an African version of Paypal, and already has several million dollars backing his venture.

Nearby is Kingsly Awuah-Darko, who came up with new wire transfer technology that is faster and more versatile than existing services. The company, Money Systems International is giving Western Union and Money Gram a serious run for their money. Awuah-Darko explains that with newer technology he was able to leapfrog past long-established competitors to a far more functional and versatile system. The company started in 2002 with about $700,000 transferred that year. Within five years, the total in transferred was over $140 million. Awuah-Darko predicts within the next few years his company will be transferring over a billion a year.

These aren't just Africans solving African problems. Databank's E-pack and other investment services have helped Africans invest in Africa's markets, but also allowed international investors to get into the high-growth phase of Africa's nascent markets. Chinery Hesse's software is good for computer users in Africa, but also for those in any hot and humid climate. Black Star Line will help Africans to buy and sell products [and] also facilitate individuals and companies from all over the world to trade with Africa. Money Systems International doesn't just help Ghanaians in the diaspora to send remittances back home, it also helps Pakistani diaspora, Afghani diaspora, and more.

What is most impressive about today's entrepreneurs in Africa is their determination not to be stopped by even the most insurmountable road block. Ask most people to put a nail into a plank of wood and they will ask for a hammer. If there is no hammer, most will give up. Ask these entrepreneurs and they will say, "Here is a rock, there's a brick, I have my shoe."

Read the entire article here.

Off-grid power solutions in rural Kenya: Pt 2

Here's a great article from the New York Times. It's a bit long so I've posted it in two separate parts like they did. It's a great read though!

**Update: Check out the corresponding picture slideshow here!

“There are many small islands of success, but they need to go to scale,” said Minoru Takada, chief of the United Nations Development Program’s sustainable energy program. “Off-grid is the answer for the poor. But people who control funding need to see this as a viable option.”

Even United Nations programs and United States government funds that promote climate-friendly energy in developing countries hew to large projects like giant wind farms or industrial-scale solar plants that feed into the grid. A $300 million solar project is much easier to finance and monitor than 10 million home-scale solar systems in mud huts spread across a continent.

As a result, money does not flow to the poorest areas. Of the $162 billion invested in renewable energy last year, according to the United Nations, experts estimate that $44 billion was spent in China, India and Brazil collectively, and $7.5 billion in the many poorer countries.

Only 6 to 7 percent of solar panels are manufactured to produce electricity that does not feed into the grid; that includes systems like Ms. Ruto’s and solar panels that light American parking lots and football stadiums.

Still, some new models are emerging. Husk Power Systems, a young company supported by a mix of private investment and nonprofit funds, has built 60 village power plants in rural India that make electricity from rice husks for 250 hamlets since 2007.

In Nepal and Indonesia, the United Nations Development Program has helped finance the construction of very small hydroelectric plants that have brought electricity to remote mountain communities. Morocco provides subsidized solar home systems at a cost of $100 each to remote rural areas where expanding the national grid is not cost-effective.

What has most surprised some experts in the field is the recent emergence of a true market in Africa for home-scale renewable energy and for appliances that consume less energy. As the cost of reliable equipment decreases, families have proved ever more willing to buy it by selling a goat or borrowing money from a relative overseas, for example.

The explosion of cellphone use in rural Africa has been an enormous motivating factor. Because rural regions of many African countries lack banks, the cellphone has been embraced as a tool for commercial transactions as well as personal communications, adding an incentive to electrify for the sake of recharging.

Off-grid power solutions in rural Kenya: Pt 1

Here's a great article from the New York Times. It's a bit long so I've posted it in two separate parts like they did. It's a great read though!

**Update: Check out the corresponding picture slideshow here!

For Sara Ruto, the desperate yearning for electricity began last year with the purchase of her first cellphone, a lifeline for receiving small money transfers, contacting relatives in the city or checking chicken prices at the nearest market.

Charging the phone was no simple matter in this farming village far from Kenya’s electric grid.

Every week, Ms. Ruto walked two miles to hire a motorcycle taxi for the three-hour ride to Mogotio, the nearest town with electricity. There, she dropped off her cellphone at a store that recharges phones for 30 cents. Yet the service was in such demand that she had to leave it behind for three full days before returning.

That wearying routine ended in February when the family sold some animals to buy a small Chinese-made solar power system for about $80. Now balanced precariously atop their tin roof, a lone solar panel provides enough electricity to charge the phone and run four bright overhead lights with switches.

"My main motivation was the phone, but this has changed so many other things," Ms. Ruto said on a recent evening as she relaxed on a bench in the mud-walled shack she shares with her husband and six children.

As small-scale renewable energy becomes cheaper, more reliable and more efficient, it is providing the first drops of modern power to people who live far from slow-growing electricity grids and fuel pipelines in developing countries. Although dwarfed by the big renewable energy projects that many industrialized countries are embracing to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, these tiny systems are playing an epic, transformative role.

Since Ms. Ruto hooked up the system, her teenagers’ grades have improved because they have light for studying. The toddlers no longer risk burns from the smoky kerosene lamp. And each month, she saves $15 in kerosene and battery costs — and the $20 she used to spend on travel.

In fact, neighbors now pay her 20 cents to charge their phones, although that business may soon evaporate: 63 families in Kiptusuri have recently installed their own solar power systems.