Outside Innovation

The Path to Peace: Integrated Rural Development

Led by Visionary Leaders, Young Women, and Community Radio

December 20, 2007

I’ve just returned from a productive and inspirational week on campus at the African Women’s University (ARU) in rural western Uganda. It seems fitting to write about innovation in education and in integrated rural development during this holiday season. “The new name for peace is development,” Father Matthiew (Matayo Baylebuga) quoted Pope Paul VI, when he introduced the ARU students to the 60 villagers in the small isolated village of Kabamba last February (See "Customer Co-Design in Rural Uganda: How URDT Empowers Grass Roots Creativity," March 8, 2007, by Patricia B. Seybold, http://www.psgroup.com/detail.aspx?ID=806). 

It is inspiring to witness the dedication of these young women—many of whom have left husbands and families in the care of others in order to attend the University in rural Kagadi full-time.

I spent the week teaching my “Introduction to Customer Scenario Mapping (CSM)” course to 51 first- and second-year ARU students and to a key faculty member, Agnes Kadama, who is also the Acting Vice Chancellor of the university as well as the Dean of Students. Agnes, who has experience providing business and non-governmental organizations (NGO) consulting services, is enthusiastic about the applicability of CSM to the rural development challenges in Uganda and the rest of Africa. She likes this participatory approach to consulting and appreciates the quick wins and strategic leverage that a half-day interactive co-design session provides. “This is an entirely new way to do consulting,” she observed. “It’s powerful and delivers results quickly. I’m excited that we’re able to give our students this powerful tool,” she exclaimed.

First Two Days in Uganda-Getting Started in Kampala

Arrived in Kampala yesterday. Tomorrow, we leave for the campus of the Uganda Rural Development Training programme (URDT) and the African Rural University about 5 hours southwest of Kampala. We have already had a pretty satisfying and educational experience.

Jacqueline Akello met us at the Entebbe airport when we arrived on Saturday morning with the amazingly talented URDT driver, Laurence. (It takes talent to negotiate the rutted dirt roads and mudholes in the rural areas as well as to dodge the motorbikes, pedestrians and other vehicles in the chaos that is downtown Kampala. Laurence does this all with great aplomb while listening avidly to the catch up conversations we are having about politics in Uganda and the US, the economic situations, and the latest news of people he knows on both sides of the Atlantic.).   

                                                               Jacqueline Akello                                                   
We were dropped off at a brand new hotel--one we recommend wholeheartedly--the Protea on Acacia Avenue, near the golf course. While it is on the north-eastern side of the city, and far from the airport (about a 45 minute ride thru Kampala). it's a lovely hotel, perfect for westerners who want to break themselves in gently to 3rd world conditions. It was early, so the room wasn't quite ready, but we enjoyed complimentary coffee overlooking the gardens and Koi pond and watched the guinea hens strutting in the Japanese-style garden with until our room was ready. There we had about an hour to verify that the WIFI indeed worked, the bed was comfortable, the air conditioning worked and the flat panel TV was showing Al Jazeera in English -- all for $120/night for two people!                                             

Courtyard of the Protea Hotel, Kampala

Around 11 am, Jacqui returned with Mwalimu Musheshe, to greet us.

We spent a pleasant hour catching up and gave him all the books we had brought for him--he's an avid reader--including several about Dennis Littky, the founder of the Big Picture Company and the Met School -- an amazingly successful inner city school program. We met Dennis two weeks ago, through the auspices of Stan Goldstein, the founder of CVS. Tom remarked about the similarities between the educational programs that Littky and Musheshe have pioneered -- one in the inner city in Providence, RI, the other in the rural community of Kagadi, in the Kibaale District of Uganda. The motto of the URDT is "Awakening the Sleeping Genius within Us." The motto of the Met School is something like "Bring out the Genius within You." Both educators focus on lighting a fire of passion and vision within each student and empowering them to achieve their own personal visions.

At the Met School, students spend 2 days a week apprenticing in their chosen fields of interest. They explore their own passions deeply studying and preparing an "exhibition" that they present as part of their studies.

                                                                                                Dennis Littky

At URDT, students compliment the traditional school curriculum with visionary leadership, create their own visions, learn how to achieve those visions and teach their families and communities how to envision the future they want to have and to create it themselves. Their projects are "back home" projects. They work with their families and communities on a project to improve the health and livelihood of their families and communities and present their results to a visiting group of teachers and staff each term. 

We talked of getting the two educators together, perhaps bringing Musheshe to the States for the annual Big Picture/Met School workshop in which educators from the 50 networked schools in the US that are using the techniques and curriculum pioneered at the Met School to give a presentation. Both of these visionary educators are not content to transform secondary education in their respective countries, both have launched universities. Mwalimu Musheshe launched the African Rural University for Women two years ago (I am on the ARU Council).

Mwalimu Musheshe

Dennis Littky is planning to open the doors of his college in the Fall of 2009, in partnership with another, existing university degree program, but with an educational experience that differs profoundly from the traditional academic experience--one that offers students more applied learning, among other attributes. The African University for Women launched in the fall of 2007. It is also designed to offer a completely different educational experience--one that is tailored to educate young women to be powerful community leaders and social and business entrepreneurs, so they can change the face of Africa, starting in the rural villages.

Amazon’s E-Books Sold Out!

I’m disappointed. Amazon’s Kindle is the first e-book that has caught my interest. But they sold out after only three weeks on the market! So I ordered mine, but it won’t be here for in time for Christmas.

To be honest, I just haven’t paid much attention to the various iterations of handheld e-books that have been introduced and mostly languished over the past few years.

I have been aware of the Sony Reader eBook and considered checking it out, but didn’t have a compelling reason to do so, although the airport billboards were beginning to pique my interest.

The idea of yet another electronic gadget to juggle (along with cellphone, blackberry, iPod) is pretty daunting. It’s not just the gadgets. It’s the cords, battery charging, and so on, that gets old. One of my great pleasures in life is lying on the couch in the sun with a good book.

But once I saw the Kindle on the Amazon home page, I could actually picture myself curling up with an e-book, and my reservations dwindled. It didn’t take much research before I hit the 1-Click button, even though I knew that they were backordered. (I wonder if that was intentional—create a scarce resource so that more people crave it.)