Tag: Africa

Why I blog about Africa

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(Like White African, I don’t usually take part in blog memes. Unlike White African, it’s usually because I don’t get an invite. ;o) But that aside, I’ve recently read a number of posts by eminent African bloggers in the current “Why I Blog About Africa” series and have been inspired by what they’ve written. That @ksjhalla recently invited me to the table came as something of a surprise. Here goes my contribution)

“To be honest, I feel like something of an imposter gatecrashing a party. Unlike many of the bloggers taking part in this meme, I can lay no claim to be African, or half-African, or even remotely African. Maybe the fact that the continent has tried to take my life on more than one occasion gives me some claim to take part? Or the fact that I’ve been captivated by the geography, the cultures, the wildlife, the opportunity, the hope and above all the people I have met and befriended since my first encounter back in 1993? Having no physical connection with Africa other than that gained by long haul air travel, I’ve regularly asked myself what it is that draws me back to it so often, both in person and in writing. Answering this question without calling on well-trodden cliches is quite a challenge.

iamafrican

After all, it would be all too easy to overplay any ‘spiritual’ connection (as happened with the peculiar “I am African” campaign, pictured), or one drawn out of sympathy for a continent in turmoil, or a people condemned to a life of poverty and a strong Western-held view that “Africa needs to be saved”. But that’s not the Africa I know, least of all the Africa I’ve witnessed on many of my travels over the past fifteen years and, above all, not the Africa that many of my African friends see.

If I were honest, my interest and fascination in Africa came about at a time in my life when I was desperately trying to find my way. If I were to be allowed one cliche, it would be that Africa found me. Shear chance took me to Zambia in the summer of 1993, and since then I’ve allowed luck, circumstance and events on the continent to determine my direction. It is pure coincidence that almost all of the conservation and development projects I have worked on have been in Africa – Zambia, Uganda, South Africa, Mozambique, Nigeria, Cameroon and Zimbabwe among them. And I feel truly honoured to have experienced cultures, friendships and a way of life I could never have dreamed of a decade or more ago.

I blog about Africa because I see a continent blessed with cultural and natural beauty, a continent working hard to lift itself from troubled beginnings, and the rise of a new breed of African leader with a deep devotion and love for what their country, and the continent, means to them. I blog about Africa because in it I see many of the good things that the West has lost or chosen to throw away, and because I am blessed to count many hard working and devoted Africans among my friends. I also blog about Africa because that’s where I continue to be called and because, one summer back in 1993, it somehow came in search of me”.

Thanks again to Kaushal for tagging me (read his thoughts here). Continuing the theme, I tag the following:

@tmsruge
@joshnesbit
@mentalacrobatic
@frerieke
@blacklooks

Mobiles for media empowerment

Today, all eyes are on the United States with one of the most anticipated Presidential elections in decades. Amidst the excitement lurks the ever-present concern over potential election day chaos, and fears of a repeat of what happened in Florida eight years ago. Once again, mobile technology is also being touted as one way of smoothing election day progress and how it’s reported, as it has been in almost every election around the world in recent years. The proposed use of Twitter is perhaps the one key addition in USA’08.

In the coming months three West African countries also go to the polls – Ghana, Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire. Sadly, access to balanced and unbiased election information is often a key problem in these countries. The logistical challenges of running nationwide elections is often compounded by a lack of election-specific knowledge among local media, which can often lead to misreporting, misinformation and – in worse-case scenarios – civil unrest. Availability of ICT tools for local journalists can also be problematic, compounding the problem yet further.

To address some of these challenges, the International Institute for ICT Journalism, in partnership with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), are embarking on the “West African Elections Information and Knowledge Project”.

The project seeks to strengthen the role of the media in election reporting through the training of senior editors, journalists and reporters; developing and disseminating an ‘Election Reporting Guide for the Media’; the use of text messaging in election coverage and monitoring with FrontlineSMS; and the creation of a Knowledge Online Portal.

The use of mobile technology in election monitoring may be nothing new, although promoting the use of text messaging specifically as a media enabler represents something of a departure from its usual use by official election monitor groups. The choice of FrontlineSMS is also significant. The software has already been successfully implemented in Nigeria to enable what is widely believed to be Africa’s first citizen election monitoring project, and it was used in the last Philippine elections to help organise official monitoring teams around the country. In recent weeks it has also been lined up to help register 135,000 overseas Filipino workers in advance of the upcoming 2010 elections.

Further details on the West African election project are available via the Africa Election Portal website, and updates will also be posted on the kiwanja.net blog as the project moves forward.

Chilubula 08.93 to Karuma 08.98

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This is no ordinary August. In fact, it’s a bit of a double anniversary for me…

If you’d have come looking for me fifteen years ago, you’d have needed to get yourself to Chilubula, a small town about an hours drive from Kasama in northern Zambia, where I was working on a building project. In little over a month, about fifteen of us (aided by a fair number of children, it must be said) turned a pile of locally made bricks, more than a few bags of cement and a dozen tins of paint into a new school building. Pretty impressive stuff (assuming, of course, that it’s still standing).

It was my first taste of any kind of overseas development work, my first ever trip to the African continent, and it really got me thinking. Chilubula turned out to be a major turning point in my life, and set the early seeds for kiwanja.net a decade later.

Five years after Chilubula – August 1998 – I was well into my journey and in the middle of studying social anthropology with development studies at Sussex University. It was my second year summer break, and the little money I’d saved from an IT job in Brighton and some programming work at Jersey Zoo got me to Karuma Wildlife Reserve in Uganda. For three months about ten of us camped out in the reserve, carrying out biodiversity and rural livelihoods research. (Karuma Wildlife Reserve hugs the southern boundary of Murchison Falls National Park, and is designed to act as a buffer zone between the people and the park).

But it wasn’t all work. Here, Robert and I enter a small village during a two week break, and are greeted by a crowd of excited children. Part of the trip also saw us spending time in Masindi, a town I returned to earlier this year during my work with Grameen Technology Centre, and which also featured in the opening paragraph of my recent Vodafone receiver article.

My flat in Cambridge is littered with cassette tapes, masks, ornaments, paintings, photos, letters and memories from my many Africa trips over the past fifteen years. It’s hard to believe that it started so long ago, hard to believe the places that journey has taken me, and hard to believe where it’s landed me today. After all, none of this was ever planned.

Where next, I wonder?

Africa through my grandparent’s eyes

Back in what I believe were most likely the 1960’s and 70’s – perhaps a little earlier – my grandparents from my mothers side embarked on what at the time would have been an epic world journey. My grandfather retired quite early after a successful corporate career working for an oil company of all things, and the two of them grasped the opportunity to see some of the world. I remember, as a child, reading their letters and postcards. I was always particularly captivated by this place called Ceylon, a name now long consigned to the history books. It’s been called Sri Lanka since 1972.

What made my grandparents travels so intriguing, though, wasn’t the letters or postcards, or the various souvenirs which they brought back with them, or the safari brochures. Most fascinating was the cine film. Believe it or not, my grandfather somehow got hold of a cine camera, and they took it with them on many of their trips. About ten years or so ago, we transferred one of the family films onto VHS. There are the usual shots of us, as kids, playing on the beach, my brother pushing me into the sea, one of my sisters screaming. But then, right at the end, for about 15 seconds or so, there’s a totally random clip of an African village. To say it is fascinating is a total understatement. Where was it filmed? When? Who were the people in it? Sadly, these questions may never be answered.

After my grandfather passed away in the early 1990’s – he was preceded by my grandmother – all of the films went into storage in an uncle’s loft, somewhere in deepest darkest England. Shortly after that he emigrated to New Zealand, and the films were forgotten. Forgotten by everyone except for me, it seems.

Once or twice in recent years I’ve tried to find out if the films are still around. I’d almost given up all hope, but my mother emailed her brother again recently and it turns out the films are still sitting in that loft. In June, once I’m back from Stanford, I hope to meet up with my uncle, and hope to get a chance to transfer some of those films onto DVD. I know my grandparents spent quite a lot of time in Africa – Kenya and Uganda for sure, most likely Nigeria, too. And I think Egypt.

Seeing these places through my grandparent’s eyes, 40-odd years after they were there, is going to be incredible. And one thing is for sure – there won’t be a mobile phone in sight…