Children's photo books

FAVL friend Teresa Jolly Holt sends us to... Sandra Pinkney

Sandra Pinkney received her CDA in Early Childhood Development from Washington, and went on to become the owner and director of a daycare in Poughkeepsie, New York. She is also actively involved in the organizations, which aim to help the development and enrichment of young children, including the New York Association of Early Childhood, and the National Black Child Development Institute.

Myles Pinkney is a free-lance photographer who has collaborated on works with his wife as well as celebrated children's author, Nikki Grimes. Myles graduated from Marist College with a BA in communications, however he has been studying photography since he was a child.

Photography exhibit... if you happen to be in Paris?

Interesting portraits in black and white by Philippe Guionie

“Le tirailleur et les trois fleuves, regards croisés”

Ce projet intitulé « le tirailleur et les trois fleuves, regards croisés » propose un regard contemporain et artistique sur la mémoire méconnue et oubliée des anciens combattants africains. Il est le prolongement du projet “le tirailleur et les trois fleuves” réalisé par Philippe Guionie.

Sénégal, Niger et Congo étaient les trois grands fleuves de l’ex-Empire colonial français. Trois chemins de pénétration et d’influence française que le tirailleur africain a emprunté dans son parcours d’homme et de soldat. Aujourd’hui, il s’agit de reprendre ces trois itinérances africaines pour poser un regard artistique et mémoriel sur ce patrimoine humain méconnu. Pour quelques années encore, ces tirailleurs sont encore nos contemporains. Dépositaire d’une mémoire unique et originale de la francophonie, ils sont devenus des témoins privilégiés des relations entre la France et l’Afrique.Cette valorisation d’un patrimoine humain prend une acuité particulière, à l’heure où se manifeste la nécessité d’ancrer l’immigration dans la mémoire collective et de lui rendre sa juste place dans une perspective d’histoire commune et partagée

Le photographe Philippe Guionie réalise une série photographique depuis plus de dix ans en France et en Afrique en associant le portrait N&B et des enregistrements sonores. En 2006, il publie un premier ouvrage sur ce thème, « Anciens combattants africains » aux éditions Les Imaginayres.

What is the idea of FAVL?

Someone suggested to me that FAVL needs to "get out there" more in terms of networking and messaging. I know we have some regular blog readers, and that even more people casually come across the site, so I thought I would begin regular reflections on what FAVL means, to me, and where we hope to be going over the next decades.

As the last word of the previous sentence suggests, I have always taken a long-term approach to FAVL, and constantly repeat my mantra: we are not a ribbon-cutting organization, we are there to clean up after the party.

I just got off the phone with Lucas Aligire, our coordinator in Bolgatanga area, Ghana. We chatted about each of the libraries. He mentioned that Sumbrungu had received a shipment of science books from Tanya Driechel, a former volunteer. The Gowrie-Kunkua library had also received a nice donation of books, from the Ghana Library Board and from five prominent local residents (who each donated 10-20 books). So this is precisely what FAVL means to me: the institutionalization of a regular network of "friends of" these small village libraries, both international and local. How does the institutionalization happen? Primarily, I think, by making sure that each librarian has a librarian. The primary function of the librarian, in my view, is to assure the continuity of the library as an enduring entity. That is FAVL's role, too: to ensure that each library is there 30 years from now, and is enmeshed in an ever-widening circle of friends and institutions that will nurture the library. A library has to take root for it to grow. The roots of a library are the relationships that each library creates. These relationships are with international volunteers, with local residents, with young and adult readers, with government library and literacy entities, etc. Gradually, and only occasionally, people who have leadership skills, time, and abilities, will take each library to a next level, and if they are cognizant of the fragility of libraries as social institutions, they will also be thinking 30 years ahead.

At the heart of the long-term perspective then is an optimism that the world, and more specifically these small villages, will be around 30 years from now, and people will be reading. Of course, life could go in either direction. Villages and libraries can be swept away by the tsunamis of wars and riots. Alternatively, cell phones could just become so fundamentally fascinating and cheap that no one needs to borrow a book or seek out a quiet special place dedicated to reading. I just don't think either of those are likely to happen in the small villages where FAVL operates.

A nice essay by John Ryle, from Granta , in 2005

Introduction: The Many Voices of Africa

Kwani? is a literary and political magazine published in Nairobi. (The name means ‘So What?’ in Sheng.) Although most of the contents of Kwani? are in English, the magazine includes pieces where Sheng gets one of its earliest outings as a literary language. In the same spirit, the editor of Kwani?, Binyavanga Wainaina, has celebrated the visual art of matatus, intricately customized vehicles whose paintwork is startling enough to cause a traffic accident. ‘Brash, garish public transport vehicles,’ he calls them, ‘so irritating to every Kenyan except those who own one, or work for one‘. On the streets of Nairobi the turnboys hang from the doors of matatus, half-cut on miraa (the stimulant leaf favoured by Somalis, grown in central Kenya), calling out destinations at the stopping points and cramming passengers into the vehicle until the wheels splay outward and the transmission hangs a few inches from the ground. Herds of these matatus careen around Nairobi with cool disregard for other road users. It is hard not to be struck by them, or be struck down while trying to make out the intricate typography of the slogans that bedeck them: HARD TARGET, SWEET BABY, HAPPINESS, SLANDER, DOWN WITH HOMEBOYS, TOLERANCE OF LADIES, DESTINATION. And, seeming to confirm the upbeat conclusion of the Commission for Africa, NO CONDITION PERMANENT. Another Kenyan commentator, Joyce Nyairo, compares the traffic in Nairobi to music. Matatus, she says, are jazz.

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In Sierra Leone, by Michael Jackson

Many years ago I was terribly impressed by a book Paths Toward a Clearing by the anthropologist Michael Jackson. I just picked up his interesting short book chock-full of vignettes and anecdotes, centered on Jackson's recent stay in Sierra Leone while he "ghost-authored" the autobiography of S.B. Marah, a very prominent political figure and friend. I knew very little about politics and the war, so everything was quite interesting. Jackson writes at a nice clip, though the seemingly regular asides about how a particular feature of life in Sierra Leone illustrated/deepened a sentence here or there from Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition was disconcerting. Surely she is not the source of all insights into the human condition? Was it deliberate, to refer to her enough times to be noted by the reader? Part of the strategy of this otherwise aimless reflection? Don't get me wrong, the book is fascinating and a great read for someone not knowledgeable about Sierra Leone.

There is a nice meditation on what young men want, when they leave their villages and commit awful atrocities. Power, of course, but what kind of power? "...A vast array of imperatives, any one of which an individual may consider vital to his very existence-- manhood, wealth, work, education, status, strength, renown-- though it eludes his grasp." (p. 147)

Another interesting point is asking why the young soldiers dressed up. "Because no laws or rules applied to them; it was to show that they could do anything," is the answer proffered by a young friend.

I liked S.B. Marah's observation on p. 165: "In some countries you see photographs of all the past leaders, whether good or bad, but in other countries, as soon as a new leader comes along, they drop all the photographs and things associated with the former leader. That, I feel, is not good."

[French] Elisee rapport de Dakar

Nous sommes mardi soir, 25 Novembre 2008, il est 16 heures nous débarquons à l’aéroport Léopold Sedar Senghor de Dakar Koura Donkoui et moi tous deux représentants de FAVL. Nous empruntons un taxi. 20 minutes plus tard nous voici a l’Hôtel du Plateau. Une chambre nous y a été réservée par Michael Kevane, Directeur de FAVL. Que Dakar est beau ! Quand je pense a la canicule et au temps poussiéreux de Ouagadougou.

Sitôt débarbouillés nous voici dans en reconnaissance dans les rues de Dakar. Notre repère : un guide imprimé que tient Michael

L’objectif du voyage est double. Pour moi, c’est une mission de documentation aux archives de Dakar et ce, dans l’optique de la préparation d’un scénario pour la réalisation d’une bande dessinée sur Dim Delobsom, premier cadre voltaïque de la période coloniale. Donkoui quant a lui est charge de rencontrer les structures œuvrant dans la lecture publique notamment les bibliothèques associatives de la ville. Objectif : s’imprégner de leurs réalités ; faire un partage d’expériences ; toute chose qui seront utiles pour la continuité et la pérennité de l’œuvre de FAVL.

Mais le soir, changement de programme. Compte tenu des conditions strictes de l’accès aux archives de Dakar, Michael qui a réussi à s’introduire a jugé bon pour moi de patienter deux jours. Donc il est convenu que j’accompagne Donkoui dans les différentes courses.

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To a student thinking of volunteering in Tanzania

I wrote the following...

Most of your time in Chalula will be very quiet. At daybreak donkeys bray and roosters ... well, make noise. You and your host family wake, wash up, drink tea, and then you would head off to the library, spending much of the time helping children reading, organizing activities. Life in a village without electricity is very slow. Plenty of time for walks, naps, conversation, and your own reading (preferably novels set in Tanzania or East Africa, or Africa-related non-fiction). The nicest part about an extended stay is to gradually get to know a few people well, and spend time chatting about life in a village.

In Burkina Faso and Ghana we usually arrange for a volunteer to have a young woman (if volunteer is female) live with the volunteer for the stay. She helps with cooking, everyday chores (surprising how many things need to be learned, like how to wash pots and pans when there is no running water), and companionship, and safety. I am sure that could be arranged in Chalula. We pay a modest stipend to the person, so it is a desirable "job" (and the work is usually much less than they do at their own homes, and they get a chance to practice English, etc.).

The danger spot in a village stay, is precisely illness. When you arrive, we strongly encourage you to take the time to figure out and visit various local health clinics. You should definitely bring a mosquito net. A cell phone is an inexpensive help, because you can quickly call the librarians, or your family, and get advice and comfort. After receiving a call at 2am several summers ago from two volunteers in the Ghana libraries, one with a bad fever, I also encourage you to make sure you have a couple thermometers and aspirin. "My fever feels very hot," was not a helpful medical symptom in the Ghana case. ;-)

Contes Du Pays Des Moose: Burkina Faso

My colleague Nina Tanti is translating another colleague's book, Stories of the Moose country, by Alain Sissao. It is a collection of folktales that Alain collected over the 1980s and 1990s. Curiously, many of them are reminiscent of folktales I've read that were collected in northern Sudan. Lots of arbitrary killing of animal, ogres, chiefs, women and children. The hyena is the figure of ridicule, the hare of cleverness. I'm sure there is a deep logic to it all! I enjoyed Alain's crisp rendering of the tales: for an advanced French reader (though hardly fluent) who is also very comfortable with Burkinabè French style, it is a pleasure to read. Nina's translations should bring the book to a wider audience.

Good holiday news! Grant to make two village libraries more relevant and accessible to girls

We're very excited about this small grant provided by the New Field Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation. The funds will be used to establish special reading corners that will be targeted at girls in primary and secondary school, print four “microbooks” featured themes relating to the lives of girls in villages, build two latrines in each library, one for girls and one for boys, hire two female reading coaches in each library to tutor children, and build two outdoor reading circles in each library.

Details
FAVL will supplement its standard library model in five specific ways:
1. Provide a larger number of books oriented toward girls (featuring girls as central characters and/or written by female authors) and have them displayed in a special “corner” area with girl-oriented mural designs. Currently FAVL provides a generous selection of children’s books and novels for young adults that are available in bookstores in Ouagadougou. Most reading material is in French, the language of instruction, and there is limited reading material available in Dioula, the “national language” spoken in much of southwestern Burkina Faso. There are titles available that features themes for young and adolescent girls; the recent bande dessinee (BD) Aya, by Marguerite Abouet, comes to mind. FAVL would purchase 40 such books for each library, build a special display bookcase using local carpenters, paint a corner of the library with appropriate murals, provide the corner with a large woven mat (made locally) and cushions (made locally).
2. Publish twenty-five copies of four micro-books oriented around the activities of girls in the village of Dimikuy and Boni. In Spring 2008, FAVL piloted a new model for volunteer activities in the libraries of Burkina Faso involving the creation of micro-books for children in French and national languages. Our pilot project was carried out with funding from the Santa Clara Rotary Club. Chelsea Rangel, a student at the University of Montana. Chelsea worked with village librarians, teachers, and students to conceive of and take photographs for three children’s books in French and Dioula. FAVL volunteers did the graphic design and layout. The books were printed in San Jose in a small print run of 100 copies each. The books were distributed to FAVL libraries and other educational entities in southwestern Burkina Faso. With funding from the new Field Foundation, FAVL volunteers who will be in Burkina Faso in summer 2009 would produce and publish four books with themes related to girls and women, and print 25 copies of each for distribution to FAVL libraries. If there is further demand for the books, a larger print run can be made.
3. Firmly establish a variety of reading programs for children by staffing for one year two female “reading coaches” in each library who will work during after-school hours and who will promote and conduct outreach activities in the villages. Currently, FAVL only has funding for one librarian for each village library. Village librarians are typically women who have completed some secondary schooling and have remained in the village. They often have very little experience with reading programs, and have limited time to sustain reading programs that are initiated by volunteers who spend time in the libraries. Greater funding would permit each library to hire two reading coaches who would spend 2-3 hours per day helping younger children read, by giving one-on-one reading help and by holding story hours and other fun activities for primary school students. Female reading coaches would serve as positive role models for girls in these rural villages, who in many cases withdraw early from primary and secondary school in order to marry and work in agriculture.
4. Build two latrines (one for girls and one for boys) for use by library patrons. A variety of sources (for example, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/international/africa/23ethiopia.html?pagewanted=all) suggest that providing separate latrine facilities is an important practical and symbolic step towards ensuring that educational facilities are “girl friendly.” FAVL would build two latrines for each library, designating one as the girl’s and other as the boy’s latrines. This would be very unusual for Burkina Faso villages, and will be sure to generate interesting discussions regarding “equal treatment” of the genders.
5. Build “reading circles” for use by girls and boys to read outside and play children’s games. Children reading in libraries very often want to enjoy their books outside of the building, whose interior can often reach uncomfortable temperatures (buildings are made of mud bricks and roofs are tin). FAVL has tried to build a “reading circle” outside of every library, involving a circular bench shaded by a traditional straw shelter (a “summer hat” as they are known in Ghana, or a “hangar” as they are known in Burkina Faso. These areas are quickly dominated by children, since the libraries typically stock large games in these areas (mankala, for example). These games are played by both girls and boys. Our current funding level for the new libraries is limited, and with the grant from New Field Foundation we would be able to build two reading circles for the outside of each library. Note that these reading circles are often sites where community members hold meetings outside of library hours.

The Story of a Library: Research and Development in an African Village

New [gated] article by Kate Parry — 2009

Background: Although education in Africa is expanding, little is being done to support learners’ literacy outside the school. Rural people have little access to books and so cannot develop their reading skills.

Purpose of Study: The project described here has both an educational and a research purpose: to complement formal schooling by making reading material available to students and others, and to document the development of new literacy practices by investigating and recording readers’ preferences.

Setting: The site is near the trading center of Kitengesa in Masaka District in Uganda. It is a rural area where most people depend on subsistence farming and the sale of food and cash crops. Many have been to school, however, and basic literacy is widespread.

Go to link to article...

Bryn Mawr College student, alumna establish Baobab Prize to encourage African literature for young readers

November 3, 2008

Deborah Ahenkorah '10

As a child, Deborah Ahenkorah ’10 was a voracious reader; she practically wore out her library card. But despite the fact that she was born and educated through secondary school in the West African nation of Ghana, she had little opportunity to read the work of African authors until she took a course in African literature here at Bryn Mawr.

Young readers’ lack of access to African literature is a problem, Ahenkorah explains: “Without access to books by and about Africans, young people grow up not knowing much about the diverse cultures of their vast continent. And especially when all they read is Western literature, they have very little reason to feel proud of their national identities and continental heritage.”

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[French] News from Koura Donkoui in Bereba

Je t'informe par la meme occassion que j'ai pu rencontré la famille ALLIOT qui a fait un don de livres important à la bibliothèque de BEREBA dont le depouillement n'est pas encore fait.Les premiers cartons que nous avons vu contiennent les romans policiers SAS et autres très lus des agents. Ils ont trouvé que la bibliothèque constitue une continuité de leurs objectivité c'està dire un don ou un appui qui ,permet à des gens de s'instruire,de réussir, et sortir de la pauvreté.

FAVL friend Shane Auerbach writes:

I really like your list of West African novels on Amazon. I think that you should consider adding Massa Makan Diabate from Mali to that list. Like L'etrange destin de Wangrin, Diabate's novels are an incredible bookmark in Malian history. The humor in his novels is unbeatable, and it's also fascinating to consider his development as a writer, given his family's tradition as a family of griots (Described well in an biography of Diabate written by Cherif Cheick Keita). Although he wrote several Sunjata fasas, for me his most important work is his trilogy of novels:

Le Lieutenant de Kouta
Le Coiffeur de Kouta
Le Boucher de Kouta

They're all based in Kita, Mali. I think all of them merit being on your list. If you had to pick one, however, I would probably stick with the first, Le Lieutenant.

Anyway, keep up the good, and important, work that you do.

[French] Obama will not go to Ouagadougou

From Patrice Nganang for Africultures:

Il irait plutôt au Caire. Voilà la conclusion d'une enquête préemptive publiée dans le New York Times,'A la recherche du lieu idéal pour tenir un discours'. (1) C'est que le prochain président américain a besoin d'un lieu symbolique pour tenir ce discours paradigmatique sur l'Islam que tout le monde - y compris les terroristes parait-il - attend, et dont depuis au moins ses propos du 18 mars 2008 sur la race, chacun le sait capable. Un discours donc, qui serait aussi vrai que sensible, et qui en des mots plus intelligents que le binarisme brutal de Bush, résumerait la complexité du contentieux qui oppose l'Occident à la religion musulmane qui fut celle de son père, et le dépasserait. Il n'est pas besoin de lire cette enquête-là jusqu'au bout pour se rendre compte que, si les stratèges d'Obama, qui ont cet art si subtil de toujours tâter le terrain avant de prendre une décision, ont d'emblée effacé la capitale du Burkina Faso de leur liste, parce que pas suffisamment'high profile', en un tour du destin, et surtout de toutes les capitales de pays islamiques du monde (Ramallah, Jakarta, Bagdad, Téhéran, Amman, etc., etc.), ils seront revenus sur un pays africain. L'Afrique, ah, ce continent qui tétument insiste pour rappeler sa présence à l'Amérique, même quand celle-ci dit et veut parler d'autre chose ! Ce continent qui attend l'arrivée sur son sol de ce fils qu'il sait sien, mais surtout qui attend une fondamentale redéfinition des relations des États-Unis avec elle.

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End of a library... birth of a muscle room?

While in Senegal, Donkoui and Elisee, FAVL Burkina coordinators, visited a number of libraries around Dakar. One depressing visit was to a community library started by a youth association. The library was no more, just empty shelves, and the association had switched to promoting a weight room. What would Arnold Schwarzenegger say? Room for both, one would hope!

Goree Island, Senegal

It was my second time on the island (previously a short trip accompanied by noted Africanist historian Sara Berry... who could ask for better company?). This time, about ten days ago, was an ever greater pleasure, accompanying our FAVL coordinators Koura Donkoui and Saré Elisee. It was their first time on a motored boat (as opposed to a canoe), and we were all agog at the giant container ships in Dakar Port. We were gaga over the neat and clean and friendly Goree Island was- just beautiful. La vie tranquille was a refrain heard a lot. Everywhere there were little displays of art for sale, especially what they called recyclage, using recucled materials tp make collages and sculptures. The visit to the "slave house" was an especially good learning moment, as on the boat ride over we had read the sceptical Lonely Planet guide, so when we got to the museum we appreciated both the slave trade history and the economics of slave trade tourism!

John Abdul Kargbo seems to be the "library guy" in Sierra Leone

From his article, "Promoting Reading In Schools In Sierra Leone":

Not withstanding school libraries in Sierra Leone are not given much recognition as the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST)has no clear-cut policies on these institutions. Their development depends on the enthusiasm of head teachers and the quality of service rendered by the few existing school libraries depends on the type of school the library is serving. In primary schools the provisions of libraries are inadequate as compared to those in secondary schools where the level of organization is dependent on who is sponsoring the school. For example old well established mission schools like the Sierra Leone Grammar School, the Anne Walsh Memorial Secondary School for Girls and Saint Edwards Secondary School in Freetown, and a few government maintained schools like the Government Secondary School in Bo, have better collections than the majority of schools in the country, especially those that started as self-help schools. These schools have poor library collections because of the uncertainty of funding. Old Students Associations fund some schools and in turn have good collections. A few private schools, especially those run by internationals such as Lebanese International School has good collections. The majority of government supported schools offer the poorest quality of education especially those run on commercial enterprises. These hardly have libraries and pupils of these schools have to rely on the services of the Sierra Leone Library Board (SLLB) and other libraries like the British Council and the United States Information Services (USIS),where available. Some of the few existing school libraries are fast disappearing making way for classrooms because of increased intake.

Most schools lack qualified staff to run their libraries because of the non-availability of funds to pay professional librarians. The trend has been to employ library assistants who in most cases are school leavers with or without West African Secondary School Certificate of Education (WASSCE). Some schools put the library under the charge of a teacher.

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Like mushrooms? I keep coming across library support organizations

This one is called People United for Libraries in Africa

2008 marks PULA’s 5-year anniversary as an organization devoted to providing libraries and books to needful communities in Africa. Since its inception in 2003, PULA has, with your generous support…

… donated funds for the construction of a library for Malawi Children’s Village (an AIDS orphanage) to serve both the orphanage and the surrounding community. In addition, PULA shipped 3,000 pounds of books to the library and provided funding for librarian training. Since its completion, the MCV Library has been designated “best library in the region” and has been awarded several computer study stations by the American Embassy in Malawi.

‪ …partnered with Murumba Uganda to build a community library in Butiru, Uganda, and secured a $5,000 grant for the purchase of new library books, most of them with African storylines and themes.

‪ …worked in cooperation with the Children’s Centre at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka to set up primary school libraries throughout the area. Over twenty schools now participate in this ongoing program and receive African children’s literature, textbooks, and educational books, courtesy of PULA.

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Great interview with Chinua Achebe

"Where one thing stands, another thing stands beside it." I love that proverb... Achebe interprets: There are no absolutes.

Devil on the Cross - Ngugi

On the plane to and from Senegal I had the pleasure of reading Devil on the Cross, by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. It is an excellent "experimental" and polemical novel, supposedly written on toilet paper while in prison. "Searing" is the adjective I see a lot on websites, and it does move through an indictment of Kenyan capitalism at brutal speed. Sometimes a little overbearing, and the contemporary reader wishes that the "laying it on thick" were a bit more subtle or ironic. Here's a neat article from a Ghanaian newspaper.












Here's a video clip of Ngugi:

Bibliothèque Lecture Développement in Senegal

FAVL regional coordinator in Burkina Faso, Koura Donkoui, visited the offices of this very similar library and reading promotion support organization in Senegal.

According to their website:
Bibliothèque Lecture Développement est une association sénégalaise fondée par des professionnels du livre, des sociologues et des pédagogues. Elle veut promouvoir la culture et l’éducation en mettant des bibliothèques à la disposition des populations et en facilitant l'accès aux TICs.

“Twenty Challenge” program in Kitengesa Library, Uganda

Kate Parry writes:

Dan Ahimbisibwe, the Kitengesa librarian, has just sent a report on the first month of the library’s “Twenty Challenge” program, which was in October. Nineteen secondary school students signed up for the “Challenge,” which meant that they undertook to try and read twenty books in the course of the month. They were promised a certificate and a small prize if they succeeded. Five of them didn’t make it, two because they were sent away for school fees, and one because she was ill, but of the fourteen who did make it, four read over forty books, one more than thirty, and five more than twenty! So it seems that they were really enjoying all this reading. Their English teacher also says he sees an improvement in their English, so now I’m planning a research project to try and quantify this improvement.

Another Peace Corps volunteer in Niankorodougou

And his parents are running a blog, that has some great pictures of elephants, and a nice shot of PCV Brian in front of the village library.