Outside Innovation

Young Girls Improve their Families' Income in Africa

Another inspiring story submitted (#434)  to Nicholas Kristof's "Half the Sky" contest. 

Here’s an example of 12-to 18 year old girls in Uganda who are increasing their families’ income through their schools’ projects. Most families expect kids to become productive members of society AFTER they graduate from school. At the Uganda Rural Development and Training (URDT) Programme’s Girls’ School, 240 girls increase their families’ incomes every year by training, organizing and inspiring their family members. Here’s one of their stories:

Namata Eva, a student at the URDT (URDT.net) Girls’ School, has witnessed changes at her home because of sustainable income- generating Back Home Project and she had this to share:

“Back Home projects are series of activities we do at home as we have learnt them at school. They are family projects because every member has a role to play in implementing these projects.

Earlier, our family back home projects were growing pineapples, sugar canes, beans, maize and other traditional crops. However, in 2007/2008 we were introduced to organic farming for income generation with a specific focus on Sesame and chillies. Our family chose to grow Sesame but did not abandon the pineapples.

Through back home projects, we have built a permanent house and can afford to save at least four thousand (4,000) per month through a revolving SACCO fund. We make other savings, pay school fees for other children in the family, and provide them with the necessary school requirement – this was not the case before I joined the URDT Girls school. The family is now proud of this saving culture because we meet all our needs without straining so much.

Through back home projects, we can afford a balanced diet because we grow a variety of crops including vegetables. Before these trainings, we used to depend on cassava as our daily meal. In brief I can say that the back home projects have become a backbone of our rural livelihood”.

Submitted by Alida Bakema, Girls' School Curriculum Development

A Lifeline

by Susan Warshauer, Vice Chancellor of the African Rural University (at Uganda Rural Development and Training) -- submitted (#405)  to Nicholas Kristof's "Half the Sky" contest. 

I look up and Odembos, the Human Rights Officer at URDT, is standing in my office door. After a few minutes of chatting, Odembos explains that he has a sad story to tell me. He hands me a photo of a very little girl talking into the microphone at KKCR, the community radio station run by URDT. He tells me she is 8 years old; she looks about 5 or 6.

Apparently, the little girl’s Mother moved away and her Father began abusing her. Although her Father said he would kill her if she told anyone, she told her Aunt. Her Aunt began treating the injuries she sustained from the abuse but would do nothing about stopping it. Finally, this tiny, little girl went to the church in her village. She sat still and waited until everyone finished praying, then told them she wanted to see the Human Rights Officer she had heard on the radio. She said she needed his help and explained what was happening. The good people at her church raised the money necessary to transport her to URDT. While they were making the arrangements, the little girl’s Father came looking for her. The members of the church told him that she was at URDT already.

When the little girl got to URDT she told her whole story to Odembos. He worked with her over several days, getting her lodging and food in the URDT Girls’ School. Odembos kept reassuring her that she was now safe. He went to the police, they investigated, and the Aunt and others from the village came forward. There was more than enough evidence to arrest the man.

The photograph Odembos had just handed me was taken when the little girl decided she would go on the radio to talk about what had happened to her so other children would know that they too could get help from URDT.

For more than 20 years, Uganda Rural Development and Training Programme (URDT) has helped people in rural, western Uganda create better lives for themselves. Besides KKCR, which has over 2 million listeners, and the Human Rights Office, URDT offers many other services. There are primary and secondary schools for girls that use a two-generation approach involving the students’ families in training and back-home projects. URDT runs a Technical Institute for young men and women helping them create jobs for themselves and others, a Land Rights Office, an HIV/Aids Programme, a demonstration organic farm and farmer training, and African Rural University (ARU) for women, focused on creating Rural Transformation Specialists, where I work. http://www.urdt.net

— Susan Warshauer

It Takes an ARU Student to Change a Village!

 Great story by Matt Clark in the Christian Science Monitor on July 5, 2009 about "my" African Rural University for Women (ARU) in Uganda with wonderful photos by Mary Knox Merrill. 

Here, Charlotte Mbaine, who just completed her third year at the University, is being thanked by one of the women in the Village where she did her "senior project"-- spending one month helping villagers articulate their Visions and begin to achieve them by discovering and using their own resources and talents. Check out the full story and video African Academy Empowers Youths.

Photo: Mary Knox Merrill, Christian Science Monitor

I'll be heading back to Uganda for a visit with these recent grads in early November. These young women went to ARU to become rural Community Transformation Specialists, rather than to head to Kampala to work in business. They are raising the economic productivity of each village they work with. We are seeking funding to provide them with paid internships, laptops, Internet access, cell phone minutes, and solar energy starter kits. They come to each village with knowledge of local agricultural techniques, brick-making, sanitation, road-building, and visionary leadership. They inspire the villagers to articulate their own visions, to pool their talents and resources and to achieve their visions. Read more about this innovative program for customer-led innovation.

When Customers Take You to Unexpected Places

This week I attended a series of panel discussions at Harvard University at the Education in Africa conference and the Kennedy School Bridge Builders program. There were two great stories that really struck a chord with me.

Girl Entrepreneurs

Viola Vaughn is the executive director of 10,000 Girls, a program she founded in Kaolock, Senegal in West Africa. Here’s the story she told about how that program started. Viola is a black American who grew up in Arkansas. She has a doctorate in education from Columbia and spent her career in education in the US and Africa. In 2001, Viola and her husband, Jazz musician Sam Sanders, emigrated to Senegal with their extended family. She said, “I was just planning to sit back and watch my banana trees grow.” But a little neighbor girl kept showing up at her house and asking Viola to teach her. Viola told her she was retired and didn’t do that anymore. Besides, she said, “I don’t teach, I educate.”

But the girl was persistent. She had heard that Viola’s granddaughter was being home-schooled. She wanted home schooling too. Finally, Viola went to visit the girl’s mom to find out why she wasn’t in school. The mother explained that her daughter was “too dumb to go to school.” Viola’s response was “well, she was smart enough to find me!” She relented and invited the girl to come over for lessons. When she arrived, she brought a bunch of other little girls—all of whom had dropped out of the local schools. (In Senegal, Viola explained, if you fail twice, you’re excluded from the public education system.)

Soon, the home-schooling program was outgrowing Viola’s home and she needed to hire more staff. She told the girls they would need to raise money if they wanted to continue their education. They responded by saying, “in America, girls sell cookies to earn money. Do you know how to bake cookies?” The next thing she knew, the girls had set up a bakery operation and were producing and selling enough cookies to hire a few teachers. Later in the story, she said the bakery led to a tea plantation. The girls found got someone to donate the land, and began planting and growing tea. When they applied for Fair Trade certification, they were originally denied because the Tea Plantation used “child labor” – the girls were working on the plantation after school. Viola explained to the officials that the girls weren’t the labor; they were the owners of the plantation. The money from the plantation went into their bank accounts. In fact, they hired young men to do much of the work. So they got their fair trade certificate.

Football; Not Roads

Jacqueline Akello, the program director at Uganda Rural Development and Training Programme (URDT), talked about the surprises that occur when you follow customers’ lead. Her URDT team went to a village that had invited them to help the community do some development work. As they arrived on site and got a tour of the village, it became obvious to the URDT staff that the thing the villagers really needed the most was an improved road that would let them get produce to market and to gain access to local healthcare. They had mobilized other villagers who wanted to improve their roads, so they were expecting that that would be the project the people in the village wanted. But when everyone started talking about their visions, the idea that popped to the top of everyone’s list was to be able to play football (what Americans call soccer). Their community hadn’t been able to field a team. They didn’t have a place to play. They weren’t participating in the district league. So, the villagers decided they would do what it took to get a football team off the ground. Soon, they had not only cleared a field, organized a team, and gotten uniforms, but they began to win some games.

Jackie reported that, within a season, many of the people in the village were socializing in ways that they hadn’t been before. The football club had created a missing social network. Soon, they began to think about improving the road so that visiting teams would have an easier time getting to their field to play. Sure enough, within a year, they mobilized community members to improve the road leading to the village and to the football field.

But they didn’t stop there, Jacqui reported, within two years, the same group of villagers had worked together to build a school which now houses 1200 students! The moral of the story? Let customers lead. They’ll take you on a surprising and interesting journey!

Celebrating Change Agents in the Developing World!

At a time when demonstrators are thronging the streets of London in protest over the global banking crisis and its impact in deepening the divide between first world and third world countries, a group of 3rd world entrepreneurs and innovators are convening across the ocean, right here in Cambridge, MA. This week, I am delighted to be hosting Jacqueline Akello, from the Uganda Rural Development and Training Programme (URDT). I can't wait to get an update on all the activities that have taken place on campus since my last visit. Jacqueline Akello has been named a Harvard University International Bridge Builder in 2009. She is one of 10 social entrepreneurs to receive this distinction. She will be participating in two exciting conferences at Harvard over the next 10 days.

EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA

The first conference is Creating Opportunities: Education for Development in Africa. 

This is a one-day conference (Saturday, April 4th, at the Harvard School of Education). Jacquelyn Akello, from the Uganda Rural Development and Training programme (URDT) will be presenting on the topic of Girls' Education in Africa. She'll describe URDT's innovative Girls' School with its 2-Generation Education. These girls from disadvantaged rural families quickly become knowledgeable and respected community leaders, armed with practical know how about organic farming, solar energy, water sanitation, carpentry, and construction. Their families' incomes increase while the girls are at the boarding school because each family undertakes a "Back Home Project" that improves their living conditions and generates more income from cash crops, livestock, or a home business. Jacqui will also describe the African Rural University which is just completing its successful pilot phase, with the first class having co-designed and completed three years of study and practicum to become Rural Transformation Change Agents and Entrepreneurs.

Unlike other universities in Africa, ARU is unique in that its degree program prepares graduates to be rural leaders and social and business entrepreneurs; not to head to the big cities for jobs! Other notable speakers at this one-day conference include Calestous Juma who is Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director, Science Technology & Innovation, at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Marie Da Silva, a former nanny, who returned to her native Malawi to open a school for AIDS orphans and was recognized by CNN as a Hero of 2008. Here's a link to a video in which she describes that project. You can see all of the speakers' bios here.

HARVARD BRIDGE BUILDERS CONFERENCE

Each Spring, the graduate students at the Kennedy School of Government, many of whom come from all over the world, select a handful of change-agents/bridge-builders to honor and to learn from. The students manage this event, including raising the funds to bring these role models to Cambridge, MA. Here's how they describe these Bridge-Builders on their Web site:

"The 2009 International Bridge Builders Conference invites innovative pioneers from around the world to share their successes in fostering positive social change within and beyond their communities. These leaders are the ‘Bridge Builders’: rare individuals who cultivate solidarity between the multiple stakeholders involved in international development, grassroots movements, and social justice campaigns. This year, the 10 Bridge Builders exemplify commitment to public service and bring to Harvard a wealth of practical experience on many critical issues. The Conference, organized entirely by students, aims to broaden understanding of diverse cultures; inspire the translation of ideals into action; and contribute to a rich dialogue between theory and practice in international development."

This year's 10 Bridge Builders will be attending a customized-for-them/by-them conference at the Kennedy School of Government next week. They will be presenting and learning from each other as well as from development professionals and luminaries. The schedule has been organized to enable the public to participate in some of these discussions. Every day, there's an open panel, luncheon, or presentation. Here's the schedule of these open events for the week of April 6-10, 2009. All of these events are open to the public and will be held at the Kennedy School of Government.

One Laptop per Child XO

What’s special about the One Laptop per Child XO (http://laptop.org/en/laptop/) computer is that it is designed for children in third-world countries. The XO is a very impressive piece of consumer electronics engineering. It includes a number of breakthrough implementations: low power consumption, a display that’s easy to read in the sunlight, a built-in camera and microphone, a flash disk, child-friendly user interface and applications, and mesh networking – each laptop acts as a wireless network router as well as receiver.

I ordered my OLPC computer using the Give One/Get One program. For $399, you receive one XO laptop for yourself and sponsor one for a child somewhere in the developing world. Mine arrived before Christmas. It would have been great to know where the “sponsored” one went and when it arrived.

My goal: test the XO laptop to see whether it might be useful for the Girls’ School (http://urdt.net/girlsSchool.html) in Kagadi, Uganda – where 240 girls (8 to 17 years old) from low-income, rural households participate in a unique, successful, and proven educational program. Their co-curriculum includes the approved national curriculum plus applied courses in organic farming, appropriate technologies (solar, computers, internet, water treatment, sanitation, etc.), radio programming, journalism, drama, music, gender/sex education, and visionary leadership training. The curriculum also incorporates a two-generation approach – students empower their parents with the skills they learn and, through “back home” projects, work with their families to improve their family’s living conditions and increase their incomes. This seems to me to be an ideal application for these hardy, laptop computers that the students could use on campus and take home with them to enrich and empower their communities.

How did it do?