A video tour of UTRT's Mpigi Community Library!

FAVL's partner, Under the Reading Tree, has posted an enjoyable and well-made video capturing the activities at the Mpigi Community library in Uganda! Take a look!

Read UTRT's blog post about the library and the video here.

Reading Fatou Keita in a village...

Fatou Keita's book, Le Billet de 10.000, is definitely one of the most popular in the libraries. What an awesome cover illustration. Click on the photo to see it in larger size. Photo: Madelyn Bagby.

Kwale Community library in Kenya

Apparently being supported by Oakville Library in Canada. See their flickr photos...

Easterly's forefather... Ivan Ilich... crusty, nasty, but ultimately like a teddy bear

Yikes I would have hated to have been in the audience... but he's right of course in emphasizing a the end of the speech that the idea is to be humble... reminds me of the wonderful but completely forgotten book by B. Traven, The Bridge in the Jungle...

IN THE CONVERSATIONS WHICH I HAVE HAD TODAY, I was impressed by two things, and I want to state them before I launch into my prepared talk.

I was impressed by your insight that the motivation of U.S. volunteers overseas springs mostly from very alienated feelings and concepts. I was equally impressed, by what I interpret as a step forward among would-be volunteers like you: openness to the idea that the only thing you can legitimately volunteer for in Latin America might be voluntary powerlessness, voluntary presence as receivers, as such, as hopefully beloved or adopted ones without any way of returning the gift.

I was equally impressed by the hypocrisy of most of you: by the hypocrisy of the atmosphere prevailing here. I say this as a brother speaking to brothers and sisters. I say it against many resistances within me; but it must be said. Your very insight, your very openness to evaluations of past programs make you hypocrites because you - or at least most of you - have decided to spend this next summer in Mexico, and therefore, you are unwilling to go far enough in your reappraisal of your program. You close your eyes because you want to go ahead and could not do so if you looked at some facts.

It is quite possible that this hypocrisy is unconscious in most of you. Intellectually, you are ready to see that the motivations which could legitimate volunteer action overseas in 1963 cannot be invoked for the same action in 1968. "Mission-vacations" among poor Mexicans were "the thing" to do for well-off U.S. students earlier in this decade: sentimental concern for newly-discovered. poverty south of the border combined with total blindness to much worse poverty at home justified such benevolent excursions. Intellectual insight into the difficulties of fruitful volunteer action had not sobered the spirit of Peace Corps Papal-and-Self-Styled Volunteers.

Today, the existence of organizations like yours is offensive to Mexico. I wanted to make this statement in order to explain why I feel sick about it all and in order to make you aware that good intentions have not much to do with what we are discussing here. To hell with good intentions. This is a theological statement. You will not help anybody by your good intentions. There is an Irish saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions; this sums up the same theological insight.

The full speech is here... worth a read.

Easterlyisms... poverty tourism

Bill Easterly had a casual blog post about a serious subject, poverty tourism. In his post, he lampooned some effort by the Millennium Village movement to extract more money out of frequent visitors. Now, I could see myself, at some conference in Rwanda, thinking it might be interesting to go visit a Millenium Village, because after all, according to the website, they "are proving that by fighting poverty at the village level through community-led development, rural Africa can achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and escape from the poverty trap." So it would be interesting to see. And why not have the MV charge me for that visit, instead of making it a freebie. After all, if I'm taking up project participant time while they explain their latest crop technology, why not earn something on the side? Is there really something wrong with this?

In Burkina Faso, all the guidebooks point visitors to the village of Tiebele, near the Ghana border, where women paint fantastic geometric designs on the houses. It is pretty clear, when you visit the village, that the steady stream of tourists means houses are painted more often and better, and that plenty of people make decent livelihoods through the tourism. I grew up in Puerto Rico, a tourist destination par excellence, and remember vividly the government's efforts to educate the population about what is in everyone's collective self-interest: Smile at the tourists! Is it such a big deal? Safeway famously does it in the U.S.; heck, my "customers" (the students at the university) get the treatment all the time. We want you to be happy so you give us your money.

But Easterly has a big problem with this- he thinks its sick. He's really worried about "patronizing attitudes towards Africans." As if a book (his) called "The White Man's Burden" wasn't a patronizing attempt to separate readers' from their money. Or have you noticed the paperback cover of "The Elusive Quest for Growth"? An old-time compass and map, patronizingly reinforcing the illusion that "explorers" read about darkest Africa... and the Amazon jungle too... Cast first stone, etc.

Easterly concludes, "Try looking at the poor Rwandans living in the MV not as anonymous and interchangeable exhibits for a “poverty trap,” but as individuals who possess rights and human dignity just like us. Then we maybe we will understand that the most impressive, knowledgeable, and motivated soldiers in the war on poverty are usually poor individuals themselves." But he's so hopelessly misrepresenting the MV or other development projects, which are usually 99% local (with a couple expatriate directors or experts or low-level volunteers or grad students etc.) At FAVL, for instance, 95% of the work on the ground in the libraries and camps is done by locals. And they, like in MV, are the ones explaining to visitors what is going on, and making sure visitors understand the purposes of the libraries and how they work. How can it be dehumaizing for a village resident who works for FAVL (or MV) to be explaining to an outsider what the project is doing in terms of reading or farming or whatever. What exactly does Easterly think is dehumanizing? Does he think a village resident is "dehumanized" when he or she sees a bunch of rich people step out of an air-conditioned bus and point at a goat sitting in a tree and take pictures?

To answer my own rhetorical question, an anecdote; When I lived in a little village in Sudan for a year back in the 1980s, one day a "development worker" came by to promote bee-keeping. He was a wild guy, with a big long beard. The NGO called a meeting, and everyone in the village came and sat around. Everyone politely listened. Afterwards, not a single person grumbled about wasting an hour. They all completely dismissed the bee-keeping as pie in the sky. But that weird khuwaja (westerner) with the BEARD... he was HILARIOUS. He was talked about for weeks. So where was the dehumanization?

Stickers arriving...

Thanks to some generous and kind folks, we've been receiving envelopes full of kid stickers, that we can use for summer reading camps and everyday activities to encourage reading. Thanks so much!!!!

Uh oh... wizards in Gowrie-Kunkua in Ghana

From librarian Jennifer's monthly report on the library, explaining why visitors at night hours were lower:

The major problem that occurred in community was a curfew from which every member of the community was to stay indoors after five o'clock simply because a member of the community has been accuse of being a wizard and was beaten to death. As a result the law was then taking its course which the police were then arresting and person found outside after 5pm.

Dimikuy Library almost ready to open

Finally I got some pix, courtesy of FAVL volunteers Amy Reggio and Madelyn Bagby... the idea here was a smaller children's library, that would have more emphasis on outdoor reading. So the library building is smaller, and it features girl's and boy's latrines (so they painted them "men" and "women".... ) (and that is Dounko with a big smile). Separate latrines is a BIG DEAL... the first ever in the village. Also FIRST EVER is the tiling of the outdoor reading area. As you can see, they did it in classic "who's in charge" style- rows for the kids, and a special seat for the storyteller in front. Why not a circle, one might ask? What, am I an anthropologist? it is one of those deep mysteries, if you ask me. When I was once asking Donkoui about doing a circular "cours" (the wall around the library), he smiled and said, "Our local masons don't do circles, just straight lines." As you can see from the tiling work, this is a "new art" for local masons... they've literally never had any tile work in a village in the area. So this is a first, and we'll see whether it takes off and whether the artistry improves over the years.

Book inventories

FAVL volunteer Madelyn Bagby and FAVL regional coordinator Sanou Dounko have been doing inventories of the libraries. In general things are going well, but one library, Koumbia, had way too many lost and late books over the past five years. This library had been having some management problems, and is the furthest from our central "zone," so it is not surprising. The librarian has since been replaced with a new librarian. We will be keeping close watch. Note that the number for Karaba, 19 books lost, is the total lost over a five year period (i.e. since inception)... so about 3 books lost per year. Everything is tracked manually, and there are lots of occasions where a child might step out with a book without letting the librarian know. So that is very reasonable. But Koumbia was definitely a problem. They have not done the inventories for Bereba yet, and Boni and Dimikuy just opened.

Are you a FAVL or African village library promoter?

Consider spending $5 to buy a copy of Kathy Knowles latest book, Crocodile Bread, which FAVL translated into French and Jula for our libraries in Burkina Faso. (Or you can get an English-language version from Kathy's site).

The book makes a great prop when meeting someone that you want to talk to about FAVL and African village libraries, because it communicates easily three things:

1) We care immensely about literacy that is relevant to kids in villages- so we really try hard to have books that are developed for the African village audience, and much less attention is paid to shipping low priority book (my favorite example, bless them, is Berenstein Bears, which just don't travel well). We have several programs that we are developing to be producing even more books like these. We buy books in East Africa from Fountain Publishers and other local presses.

2) We partner with other library support orgs., e.g. Osu Children's Library Fund, African Library project, Under the Reading Tree, etc. We're "Friends", not jealous friends...

3) Kids in African villages love reading just as much as kids anywhere! It is hard to convey that in an office in New York, but when someone sees the books they immediately start smiling and thinking about a kid in a village reading...

Students in Burkina Faso...

I just got off a Skype call with Amy Reggio and Madelyn Bagby, two university students spending part of the summer working with the libraries in Burkina. They just returned from about 10 days in the villages. Everything went splendidly, and in particular they did a lot of reading with kids, including Crocodile Bread. They also took a lot of photos, and now will prepare a number of books: mothers and daughters working together in the village; a profile of the village midwife; girls and their favorite books. They are also preparing a book on their travels in Dogon country, which should be really neat. So expect to see some great children's books in the coming months. Someone had asked me some time ago about a $200 project, and here it is: $200 will pay for about 50 copies of one of these books, which would mean we could get it to many more libraries in Burkina. So if you want to donate to produce books (and we'll send you a signed copy of one of the books! how's that for an incentive) make your check out to FAVL and write "Microbook production, Burkina" in the memo line.

Children's book illustrator from Congo

Click here for a Flash of some illustrations from the work, lovely, really, of Dominique Mwankumi.

UgCLA forms agreement with UTRT

UTRT (Under The Reading Tree) is an organization based in Vancouver that, like FAVL, promotes community libraries in Africa. It is already supporting three libraries in Uganda and is just about to take on a fourth. Also like FAVL, it is conscientious about keeping in touch with its libraries and making sure that the funding it provides is sensibly used. Two of UTRT’s directors, Nate Lepp and Jonathan Nikkel, were here in Uganda last April, and we at the Uganda Community Libraries Association spent a lot of time talking with them. The upshot was that UTRT asked us to help supervise their libraries, in return for their paying Grace Musoke, our coordinator, for two days’ work a week. UTRT has just formalized the deal, and we expect the first installment of funds early in July. We all win from this arrangement: Grace can at last earn a living wage since she will be working nearly full time; UTRT will get better reporting from its libraries; and the libraries will receive their funds more regularly and will have more advice and support. Even UgCLA’s other member libraries, though not directly supported by UTRT, will benefit. Grace will be able to do work for them in combination with her UTRT work, and we are already developing reporting instruments and mechanisms for UTRT libraries that can be extended to others. So thank you, Under The Reading Tree! And please visit their website at www.underthereadingtree.org.

The fourth library mentioned above is the Randa Farmers Library about which Mukhobeh Moses wrote to FAVL, as well as to UTRT and OCF, three or four months ago. I went to visit last April, as we all agreed I should, and recommended that OCF give it some books and UTRT some support for a librarian. The books will arrive in August when my friend Valeda has agreed to bring them, and our agreement with UTRT includes a part-time librarian’s salary for Randa. I’m going there tomorrow with Mukhobeh so will be able to give the farmers the glad news and hand over a children’s dictionary that I bought with the first installment of the book grant that UTRT has also budgeted for them. This is a terrific model, I think, of cooperation among organizations interested in libraries.

The weekend’s travelling will also include a visit to a school in Manafwa District, near the Kenya border, where the director, a friend of Mukhobeh’s, proposes to set up a library. Then I’ll visit the school in Bududa town where Emily Soeder, another person who’s been corresponding with FAVL, has also set up one. That’s a school rather than a community library, but we’ve been corresponding quite a bit since she’s been asking me for advice on library organization etc.. Unfortunately, she’s away this weekend, but I spoke to her on the phone, and she’s arranging for others to meet me. Then, on the way back, I’ll visit Busolwe, where the first library in our Library 2 Library scheme is located (it’s one of the two that Espen visited), and I will drop in on two of the recipients of our small grants – one, at Kamuli, because I’ve never been there, and the other, at Njeru, because it, alone of all the recipients, had not when last visited spent the grant as it was supposed to; I trust I’ll find that it has done so by now, since otherwise I will have to ask for the money back.

Update from Kate: I’ve just visited Busolwe, which is the first library (and the only one so far) in our Library 2 Library scheme. They received their grant at the beginning of this month and, as it happens, a group of volunteers from the University of British Columbia. The librarian and volunteers together are effecting a wonderful transformation in the place. They’ve opened up a new reading room and have decorated it with a beautiful mural; they’ve instituted a reading club; and they’re still taking books round to primary schools. Since the workshop that we had there last April primary school teachers have been coming much more often to the library – though the number of actual members (i.e. who’ve paid their subscription) remains small.

6. My UN friends are proposing an Event at the UN at the beginning of October on behalf of the Kitengesa Community Library. I’m hoping that it will raise enough to complete our building project. The computer centre and library room are now almost complete, with only windows and a ceiling to put in. Then we must buy the necessary solar equipment, most of which should be paid for by the grant that we expect any day now from the University of British Columbia’s Go Global Program. My friend Eric Morrow of the Maendeleo Foundation (www.maendeleo.org) hopes to be able to contribute some computers from the grant that he has got from Intel.

E-waste in Ghana... looks good

Thought you might be interested in the following:
Be sure to tune into the next episode of PBS's Frontline for their segment titled, "Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground" this upcoming Tuesday, June 23rd at 9:00 p.m ET. Click here to check local listings and to see a preview.

HT: Chad Raphael

I believe in libraries

“I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries..."
- Ray Bradbury

Interesting article in today's NYTimes on Ray Bradbury's passion for supporting libraries:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/us/20ventura.html?hp

Ht: Jonathan Harris

French BD classic: L'heritier (Largo Winch)

Largo Winch is the inheritor of one of the world's largest fortunes... but he's irrepressibly cool and adventurous... and someone is always trying to kill him. Action-packed BD that can be read in an enjoyable 30 minutes... like watching a TV show. What I don't get is how or why anyone would pay $15 for something like this- you can watch any TV show for free and get the same entertainment value. I guess kids like Elliot read them multiple times (E read all the Tintin ones dozens of times). So I suppose on a per read basis it turns out to under a dollar. Not so bad. Good fun, and wonderful graphics.

Why am I blogging about this on FAVL site? Few American readers know that BD are the literature of choice over there in francophone West Africa. I find it fascinating how graphic novels never really caught on in the U.S. QWERTY anyone?

What kinds of books are stocked in the libraries in Burkina Faso?

We're trying to get away from Berenstein Bears... so not surprising that you've probably never heard of any of these that were a selection of books purchased for the Steve Cisler Memorial Library in Dimikuy, which is about to open sometime this month. We're waiting for the "tile"... yes, in a complete innovation for a village in Burkina, part of the outdoor reading area is going to have tiled benches... more confortable and durable and aesthetic than just plain cemented mud-brick benches... we saw a lot of tilework during our trip to Dakar last November, and Koura Donkoui, our local rep. southwestern Burkina, decided to give it a try... just one more little innovation... we'll see how it works!

Titre	Auteur
Le seigneur de la danse	Veronique Tadjo
Thieni Ghanani	CEDA
Fati n'est plus triste	EDICEF
La revanche de Sonko-le-lievre	EDICEF
Kayeli	Chantal Iritie Boan Lou
Mificao	Marie-Danielle Aka
Une cueillette ratee	O.J.R.Georges Bada
Mais qu'est-ce qu'il y a Dodo?	O.J.R.Georges Bada, Hector D. Sonon
Louty, l'enfant du village	Fatou Ndiaye Sow
Akissi reine d'une nuit	Annick Assemian
Bouh et la vache magique	Abdourahman A. Waberi, Pascale Bougeault
La carapace perdue	Assamala Amoi, Benjamin Kouadio Kouakou
Louba le petit footballeur	Sanodji Yombel Abiathar, Adi Moussa
Afi et le tambour magique	Thecla Midiohouan, Hector D. Sonon
Pourquoi je ne suis pas sur la photo?	Kidi Beby, Christian Kinge Epanya
Landisoa et les trois cailloux	Raharimanana, Jean A. Ravelona
Les jeunes detectives	Yaw Ababio Boateng
La hyene affamee	Stella Katengesya
Legendes africaines	Bernard B. Dadie
La potion magique	Inna Hampateba
La legende de sadjo	Isaie Biton Koulibaly
La belle tella	CEDA
Le garcon qui chevaucha un lion	James Ngumy
Sauvee par les animaux	Pere Castor Flammarion
L'ane au crottin d'or	Yves Pinguilly
Le Sida et autres affaires le concernant	CEDA
L'enfant et l'oeil du ciel	Ansomwin Ignace Hien
Les colombes de la paix	Ansomwin Ignace Hien
Lucy la grand-tante de l'humanite	Anne-Sophie Chilard, Claire Mobio
Le grand combat	Michael Cullup
Sarraounia la reine magicienne du Niger	Halima Hamdane, Isabelle Calin
Neka va au marche	Ifeoma Okoye
Kimboo contre la drogue	Liliana Lombardo, Kolo Toure, Basile Boli
Premiere rencontres avec Jesus	Irene Mieth
Le Club des Cinq en vacances	Enid Blyton
Princesse Zelina le rosier magique	Bruno Muscat, Edith
Karateka	Yves-Marie Clement
Un pantalon pour papa	Angela Shelf Medearis, John Ward
Conte de la marguerite	Beatrice Appia
Jack et le haricot magique	Marlene Jobert
La main sacree de metallica	Usinor Sacilor
Donito la sirene des caraibes	Conrad
Georges, ver de terre	Bruno Heitz
A la decouverte de l'anglais sur les traces de Timothy	J.C. Sentenac
Un jour dans la foret	Hemma
Le petit Dragon qui ne savait pas moucher	Odile Delattre, Benoit Rondia
Contes des peuples de l'U.R.S.S.	Robert Babloian

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

I'm trying to get a collection of books together for the students who will be going to Burkina Faso on the Reading West Africa study abroad program... in particular books about the power of books, or the nature of reading itself, just so even in their leisure reading the students are thinking about the importance of libraries and especially the transformative power of fiction. So in that vein I read The Book Thief. I can't recall who suggested it to me. I'm not sure the writing is Coetzee-quality (but then what is?) but the story definitely makes this a perfect leisure reading book. Grim, but not so grim as The Road. Nor, for that matter, as grim as Uwem Akpan's short story, Fattening for Gabon, which the more I think about it is truly a brilliant piece of ethnographic fiction... the character of Fofo, the uncle, is so sharply drawn it almost brings tears just to think about him.

Anyway, I strongly recommend The Book Thief for adults and readers above age 12 who are able to appreciate very strong images of death and suffering; the book is about the grim life of a young girl growing up in a small town in Germany during WWII... lots of death all around. Indeed, the narrator is Death, a clever device.

For your enjoyment... some photos from Dogon country on the Mali-Burkina border

Amy Reggio, a student at Santa Clara University who was studying abroad in Dakar and who is now in Burkina Faso working on developing a number of children's books for the libraries, sent us some amazing pictures from her trip to Dogon country. Stunning.

Anne-Reed - FAVL volunteer- explains some of her activities

It is a great presentation, but one little caveat- at one point she has a "speako" that the cost of printing books is 20 cents... it is more like $7 for each... with small print runs.

Books for South Sudan

Teresa Jolly Holt sent us the following:

Subject: Library books

Dear Teresa,
We are a recent faith based organisation in southern sudan. WE are a
group of religiuos congregations living and working in Upper Nile State in
Souhtern Sudan. WE are having Inservice teacher training programmes for
prmary teachers. But the dire need is teaching English and the non
availability of English reading material is a drawback. We woud be grateful
if we could know how and what we do to apply for books from your resources.

Our mail address is:

Rev. Vincent Mojowk
Bishop's House,
Catholic Church
Malakal
Uper Nile State
Southern Sudan

The good people at African Library Project and Books for Africa are the best NGOs for this type of request... they do great work.

[in French] Praise for Kathy Knowles' new book, Crocodile Bread

lliteracy rates in West Africa

DAKAR, 22 April 2009 (IRIN) - Illiteracy rates in West Africa are the highest in the world, cramping development and weakening citizens’ power to effect socio-economic and political change, say education agencies, who are calling on governments and donors to step up literacy and education efforts.

Sixty-five million West African adults – 40 percent of the adult population – cannot read or write according to a new study, 'From closed books to open doors – West Africa's literacy challenge'.

Of the 10 countries with the world’s lowest recorded adult – 15 and older – literacy rates, seven are in West Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone, the report says.

"Tens of millions of non-literate women, men and young people in West Africa are trapped behind closed doors, excluded from the living standards, educational opportunities, and democratic power that are their rights," said Mahamadou Cheick Diarra, coordinator of the African Platform for Adult Education (Pamoja).

“People [in West Africa] cannot access jobs or economic or technical opportunities that have been shown all over the world to be driving development," said the report’s author, Oxfam West Africa advocacy coordinator Caroline Pearce.

Read the full article here...

Anecdotes about books making a difference...

From the NY Times...

Of course, it wasn’t the encyclopedia itself, or the encyclopedia alone, that may made the difference in Sonia Sotomayor’s life. More important was the value placed on learning that led her family to shell out nearly $400 for the Britannica in the first place. And, as Judge Sotomayor has made clear, credit must be given to the Nancy Drew mysteries, which inspired her, she has said, to become a lawyer, so it wasn’t only the Britannica that inspired her.

The story of the little girl reading the Britannica in her Bronx housing project is a perfect example of America’s most treasured narrative of success, treasured, precisely because, for many people, it was true.

It’s Abe Lincoln reading everything he could get his hands on, in part to compensate for his lack of formal schooling. Now it’s Sonia Sotomayor, being raised by a determined, hard-working widow (for whom a $400 encyclopedia must have represented a tremendous financial sacrifice) reading the Britannica in a neighborhood where few if any other people valued it as much as her mother did.

“The Britannica was a physical embodiment of the existence of a serious world where there was a lot to be learned beyond one’s own experience,” Randall Stross, author of the books “The Microsoft Way” and “Planet Google” (and an occasional contributor to The New York Times), said in a telephone conversation. “Just having it on the shelf was a way to remind kids of the importance of education, and it was a counterweight to all the trivial and even dangerous pursuits that surrounded them.”

A library for Pobe Mengao, in Burkina Faso

Emilie Crofton, a dynamic Peace Corps volunteer in northern Burkina Faso, is working closely with the community of Pobe to get a library started. She's launched a blog and will be working with FAVL to get the library operational. The community already has a mueum (pictured) which is really neat. I can't wait to visit!

Here's how Emilie describes her work and the village:

My name is Emilie Crofton, from San Jose California. I am currently serving in the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso. I am volunteering as a Girls Education and Empowerment volunteer in the village of Pobe Mengao, located in the Soum province about 25k south of Djibo. The commune of Pobe Mengao has roughly 6,000 people. There is a local health clinic, primary, secondary and Franco-Arab school. Pobe's population is made up of Mossi, Peul and Korumba ethnicities. The Korumbas speak Korumfe, a local language that is slowly dying off and the village is fighting to keep alive. In 2004 a German NGO helped create a small museum in the village to help preserve the Korumba culture.