Happy Ramadan!

Ramadan began this week for Muslims around the world. Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, is a month of fasting from dawn to sunset. This fasting, or refraining from eating or drinking, is meant to teach Muslims about humility, patience, and spirituality. The breaking of the fast, also known as Iftar, is an important part of Ramadan; every night, families gather to eat, visit, and pray.

However, In some Sahelian countries, this year's feasts may be cut short due to the 2010 Sahel Food Crisis. Frequent food shortages have troubled the Sahel, an area south of the Sahara desert which includes Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan. Niger is said to be hit the hardest by the poor rains at the end of 2009 and failed harvests. 7.1 million Nigeriens -almost half the country's population- now face moderate to severe food insecurity. This food crisis comes at a time when the vast majority of Nigeriens, as well as Africans all across the Sahel, are celebrating Ramadan. When Ramadan ends on the 9th of September, the daily hunger felt by these Africans may persist.

The United Nations World Food Programme and other, more local grassroots organizations are working to alleviate some of the hunger in Niger and other parts of the Sahel. There is even a group of Boston University students and alumni who have created a fund raising effort, called Niger Food Relief, to provide financial support to food-aid groups in Niger, such as the Nomad Foundation. Hopefully these efforts will be effective and improve the quality of life for those living in the Sahel. As Ramadan helps Muslims appreciate their daily food and water, may the plight of the victims of the Sahel Food Crisis help us appreciate ours as well.

The Importance of Sustainability: A Lesson from Niger

One of the things that drew me to Blue Kitabu was its emphasis on sustainability. While studying abroad with Boston University’s International Development Program in Niamey, Niger in West Africa, I was able to work at Centre Koubia, a school and food shelter for street children which is very similar to Blue Kitabu’s free school project in Asebu, Ghana. However, unlike Blue Kitabu’s project in Ghana, I quickly learned that Centre Koubia was not sustainable.

As of 2009, Niger is ranked last on the United Nations Human Development Index, which takes into account life expectancy, education and adult literacy rates of each country. The capital city is full of non-governmental organizations dedicated to improving human development in Niger. Another Blue Kitabu intern, also named Emily, and I decided to do the Community Placement aspect of our study abroad program at VALPRO, a Nigerien NGO which runs Centre Koubia and another similar school named CASE-D. Both of these schools were extremely well-run, had amazing and charismatic teachers who never discriminated based on gender (sometimes a problem in Niger), and served delicious food for the mid-day meal (though sometimes a little too spicy for my weak American taste buds). Their only problem was funding, or the lack thereof.

VALPRO had recently lost funding from UNICEF but luckily, a former BU Niger Alumna helped VALPRO obtain funding from Berklee College of Music here in Boston. When we started working at Centre Koubia towards the end of September, an average of 80 children were attending on Tuesdays and Thursdays and receiving lessons in math, literacy, and hygiene and lunch of rice and beans or rice and fish. However, towards the end of November, we noticed that the number of children showing up at Centre Koubia had been cut in half and the mid-day meal wasn’t always being served. We found out that due to dwindling funds, the NGO could no longer afford to open the school to all children, so classes for only the youngest group of children were being offered and lunch was only served once a week. When we asked what they were going to do next, we were told that we must now wait patiently for more funding. To me, simply waiting didn’t seem like the right solution. If this NGO could create a plan to generate funding for itself, it could go from being a really good program to a great program.

Blue Kitabu promotes sustainability as an essential element to educational development. Our project in Rwanda is a huge success and our Asebu Free School Project in Ghana aims to provide 200 orphans with a self-sustained, year round school complete with vocational training. The school will be used as an Internet café and community center after school hours and the profits will fund the project. We hope to hand the project over to the people of the Asebu community and end the cycle of foreign aid dependence. I hope that someday the schools at VALPRO may be funded by a sustainable project to improve its efficacy.

- Emily, Intern

Education in Kenya: Bringing together traditional Maasai culture and Western principles of education

The Maasai (also called Masai) tribe is perhaps one of the most famous tribes in Africa, well-known for its distinctive culture and lifestyle that is still prevalent today. Numbering about 800,000, most of the Maasai live in Kenya and Tanzania. The Maasai are traditionally nomadic, herding cattle, and are very proud of their warriors, who protect the tribe and conquered the territories they roamed.

The Maasai have historically had an aversion to Western education, believing that this style of education will strip them of their culture, language, and traditions. During the period of British imperialism, many English schools were developed in Kenya and the Maasai were forced to attend. This disrupted their traditional lifestyle and caused great animosity between the British and the Maasai. As a result of this historical feud, very few Maasai felt the need to pursue a Western education after Kenya gained its independence. They chose instead to follow their traditional system of education and to practice their unique cultural ceremonies. Even after the government of Kenya instituted mandatory primary education for all, very few Maasai attended schools.

The current dilemma for the Maasai is how to retain their traditional culture in the face of modernization. The government, NGOs, and nonprofits are now searching for a way to use education to reconcile the differences between traditional Maasai culture and Western principles of education by creating “bicultural” educations models. These models teach modern skills, such as agricultural skills, along with traditional ideas. The theory behind this model is to allow students to embrace both systems by emphasizing the ways in which they can coexist and work together, rather than forcing them to choose between the two systems. Many of these schools incorporate instruction by teaches and tribal elders, and also place an ethical emphasis on developing students to be role models to future Maasai generations. Some Maasai leaders have argued that education does not require them to surrender to mainstream culture; rather they can change some aspects of their culture- such as the treatment of women and girls- to allow their traditions to thrive in the modern world.

Many organizations are now using this model and searching for ways to make education more affordable and accessible to the Maasai community. These areas are in great need of primary and secondary schools, as most are too expensive and too far away from rural communities. Families are also being encouraged to send girls, who in accordance with Maasai tradition often receive less education than boys, to school to obtain educations. Organizations such as the NGO Maasai Education Discovery, which has sponsored over 800 girls in 32 Kenyan schools since 2006, are working to resolve these gender disparities.

Blue Kitabu is currently building a schoolhouse for 50 children in a very remote Maasai community located in the Loita Hills of Kenya. The nearest school these children presently have access to is 10 miles away; thus very few children have had formal schooling. Blue Kitabu hopes to create a sustainable school supported by a corn mill, which will help offset some of the school’s operating costs. In developing necessary infrastructure, including finding and training educators, Blue Kitabu hopes to bring these two cultures together and help this community to have affordable and accessible education.

Sources:
Maasai Education Discovery (http://www.maasaieducation.org/maasai-culture/maasai-education.htm)
Worlds of Difference: a radio documentary project of Homeland Productions (http://homelands.org/worlds/maasai.html)

The Status of Female Education in Kenya

This summer, Blue Kitabu is expanding to Kenya, specifically Loita Hills, an area that lacks educational opportunity. The closest school to this village is 15km away. We plan to support the school with a corn mill and other small businesses and once open, the school will provide 50 children with an education which they would otherwise not receive.

Female education is a catalytic tool for promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. Current trends of female primary education in Kenya are progressing towards equality, and the statistics for Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi are extremely similar. Gender equality in primary schooling in Kenya and its neighboring countries is extremely feasible for the future if current trends continue.

According to Joni Seager’s Penguin Atlas of Women in the World, over 95% of girls are enrolled in primary school as of 2005 in Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda. Compared to Central and West Africa, these rates are very high. However, enrollment does not necessarily ensure attendance. In Kenya, the percentage of girls enrolled in primary school who make it to grade five, 85.1%, is greater than for boys, which is 80.9%. Only in Kenya’s poorest areas is there a gender disparity between male and female attendance in primary school. Muhuru Bay, located in Kenya’s poorest province, Nyanza, is an example of an underprivileged area and it has the highest incidence of malaria and HIV infection in the country. Non-profits such as the Women’s Institute for Secondary Education and Research (WISER) are working in areas like Muhuru Bay to provide girls with educational opportunities. UNICEF’s projections to 2015 show the expectation that the primary net attendance rate for girls is predicted to keep rising to 90% in 2015. In Kenya, girls make up 47.6% of high school students, so the ratio of girls to boys in secondary school is almost equal. The rate of survival to the last grade, which has risen to above 75% of all secondary students, is the nearly same for girls and boys.

The school that Blue Kitabu is building in Loita Hills will benefit both female and male students and will further contribute to the encouraging status of female education in Kenya!

A recent NY Times article cited a Save The Children's report, which names Norway as the best place to be a mother and Afghanistan as the worst out of 160 countries, including 43 developed nations and 117 developing ones. Both the NY Times and Save The Children highlight the importance of trained healthcare professionals present during childbirth, and notes that in very poor countries, survival of both mother and child is contingent on whether or not there is a trained female healthcare worker present during the birth. In many of these countries, husbands prevent their wives from seeing male doctors, and without the presence of any trained healthcare worker, the probability of mortality for both mother and child increases significantly. Without the presence of a male doctor, trained female midwives, nurses and doctors can play a crucial role in decreasing maternal and infant mortality rates.

In order for women in developing countries to participate in fields such as healthcare, education is a necessary component. However, in many of these lower income countries, female education is just not a priority. Many communities do not see the value in education, especially if their communities are labor intensive and require the manual labor of all members of the family. But education, as seen from the above article, can be the key in significantly decreasing maternal mortality, which remains one of the most staggering collection of statistics in international health today.

Many people and organizations worldwide are beginning to recognize the importance of women as contributors to society:

-One NY Times blogger, Nicholas D. Kristof, has written several articles about the situation of women all over the world.
-Studies have been done that show how female education improves maternal health.
-Organizations such as Build A Nest worldwide, Rencontre et Action in Niger and others focus on involving women in economic activity separate from their husbands so that they too have a say in economic life for their families.

We can also support these women by recognizing the importance of female education in our own societies by looking at what is working and what we can improve. Supporting organizations such as the ones above that focus specifically on women is a great way to become involved in the lives of women all over the world. Women can and should be an important part of society and this realization is crucial if countries want to fully develop in all aspects of society. Once, when asked if Saudi Arabia would reach one of the top 10 countries in the world in technology by 2010, Bill Gates replied to an audience that was 4/5 men and 1/5 women: "Well, if you’re not fully utilizing half the talent in the country, you’re not going to get too close to the Top 10".

Earth Day 2010: 40 Years Later

Earth Day 2010 marks the 40th anniversary of the modern environmental movement. The idea behind Earth Day was conceived of by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (a Democrat from Wisconsin). In 1969, Senator Nelson announced his plan to create a nationwide teach-in day on environmental issues. He hopes that creating a grassroots movement focusing on the environment would show Washington D.C. that Americans cared deeply about the vast harm being done to the planet.

The first Earth Day was observed on April 22, 1970. Approximately 20 million Americans participated. Protests and events were staged around the country and once unrelated groups lobbying against causes as varied as the extinction of animals and wildlife, oil spills, toxic materials and general deterioration of the environment came to realize they shared very similar goals.

Senator Nelson explained the power behind the movement:

“Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.”

Earth Day participants have grown in huge numbers over the last 40 years and today more than one billion people in 190 countries are taking action for Earth Day. While it’s important for all of us to observe Earth Day each April 22, it’s even more important to make an effort the other 364 days of the year. Here are a few small things that you can do to help out the planet:

*Buy local- shop at a farmer’s market and purchase organic food.

*Pay bills online.

*Use a reusable water bottle.

*Buy environmentally friendly cleaning products.

*Use public transportation, walk, ride a bike or buy a hybrid car.

*Skip the plastic bag, use a reusable canvas one instead.

Here at Blue Kitabu we’re getting into the Earth Day spirit too! We received some beautiful fabric samples which were going to be thrown in the trash and we’re turning them into adorable handbags and clutches. It’s an example of one easy way to turn something that was headed to the dump into something that can be used for years to come. Do you have ideas about ways to re-use old fabrics or household goods? We’d be happy to hear from you if you do!