Not many of the kids at Simakakata could speak English, even though it’s the Zambia’s official lingua franca. The language of tomfoolery is universal though. This very quickly became a favourite playtime game.
George (far right) with Piers from Response Network and a new school in the background!
I had a lovely conversation with George, the headmaster from Simakakata, last week about the progress made on the school there. It only took five calls and two international providers to get a clear line, but when we did manage to talk, he filled me in on a lot of things that have been going on, including work on the first LearnAsOne classroom and another building that’s been funded by Care International. The full interview is over at LearnAsOne.
Almost there with the cash for Irene's new classroom!
A long and difficult day travelling down to Shoreham in the rain was broken up by a bit of good news from Steve, the founder of LearnAsOne who I accompanied to Zambia back in May. Thanks to some fantastic work involving cake sales, sponsored walks and skydiving, amongst other stuff, he’s now just £130 £35 short of the hit the first major milestone in the fundraising for Simakakata Community School. Hopefully, before the week is out, he’ll have enough LearnAsOne now has enough cash to fund the first classroom of the new school complex. This is incredibly good news.
I’ve written at length about how important this school is, but here’s the recap: all the village leaders I met in Zambia said that given a limited amount of funds, they’d choose to build a school over anything else, including a health centre. With a good school, modern school building and teachers’ houses, they can attract quality staff who will stay and give the community children the very best chance they’ll get at escaping poverty in their adult lives. The ability to simply read and write affects their work opportunities, obviously, but even for those who stay in the rural area being able to understand the instructions on a bag of fertiliser can increase family income three or four fold.
These people are poor, some of the kids – like Irene above – walk 14km a day barefoot to get to school. Their teachers are the most insipiring people I’ve ever met – most of them work for free and two of them, Beatrice and Loveness, live in a small hut with no door in the school grounds. There’s no running water or power at the current school house, hell, there aren’t even any windows.
From his office, headmaster George runs a health outreach program that assists everyone in the hugely spread out community – crucially this includes the many people who are infected with HIV/AIDS.
The building is dark and gloomy inside, but once it’s full of children and teachers in many ways it’s no different from the many primary schools I’ve been visiting recently because my own daughter is due to start her formal education next year.
They’re stuck in a classic Catch 22 at the moment – they need government funding to buy the materials to deliver the quality of education (whatever the weather) these kids deserve, but until they have a proper, purpose built classroom they can’t get the support they need.
Steve’s doing an incredible job getting people involved in fundraising in the UK – I only wish I could go back to Zambia with him when next visits George and his team to see the difference the money has made.
You can’t teach a thirsty child | International development journalism competition | guardian.co.uk.
There you have it – confirmation that I’m through to the final 16 in the Guardian International Development Competition with an article based on May’s trip to Zambia with LearnAsOne.
The competition is run in association with a load of NGOs and the DFID, and the idea is that the 16 semi-finalists get to go overseas and cover a story for a special supplement. There were two categories covering both professional and amateur journalists, and a winner in each each (based on the next article we write) will be announced in November.
For me, though, this was the real prize. The chance to meet people at the Guardian working in the field I’m most interested in and go overseas with some of them on an assignment. I’m not naive enough to believe there’s a job waiting at the end of it, but in terms of career-enhancing network opportunities – and as a learning experience in ‘serious’ journalism – it’s pretty much, as we say, da bomb.
There’s also a more personal reason I’m so glad to have made it through. The only reason I was able to take time off and pay for the Zambia trip – something I’ve always wanted to do but never had the resources for in the past – was thanks to a small inheritance from my grandmother who died earlier in the year. She was a strong supporter of both children’s charities and Fair Trade goods throughout her life, and aside from the work already achieved with LearnAsOne, I think she’d be very happy that this opportunity has also come about as a result of her legacy.
As a more light hearted sidenote, I can’t help but smile at the fact the briefing day at the Guardian offices has a slightly different agenda for the amateur and professional entrants. The former have to turn up early and get right to work, the latter are asked to rock up around ten-ish for a late breakfast followed by lunch. It’s almost like they know a thing or two about journalists there…
The random thought for today is about online video. It’s been around for ages, obviously, but I’ve never been a fan. I can count the number of times I’ve visited YouTube’s homepage, rather than just following a link, on one hand, and have always been deeply skeptical of friends who go off to set up online video channels. I was sort of involved with one a couple of years back, and rapidly lost interest – what was the point with no viewers?
I’ve just finished doing a video feature for PC Gamer‘s next issue, though, which I’m quietly hoping makes it to the website too. And I know that the next chance we have to get a major traffic spike at LearnAsOne will be when Nerys and Steve start uploading video. I’m really excited about the fact that Response Network has the Flip which was donated to LearnAsOne, so that they’ll be able to film George’s reaction to the first cheque that gets sent over.
Which means that somehow, without me noticing, online video clips have become quite important to me. To the point that I’m noticing their absence from sites I write for like TechRadar. And I think it’s because of Twitter. Being constantly alerted to videos that might actually interest me – like Linsey’s preview of the HTC Hero this morning – is very different to the spammish emailing of comedy clips, which was all that ever seemed to arrive by email. Perhaps I’m just late to the party, and everyone else knew this before, but suddenly I’m very interested in online video reporting and want to do more of it.
Of course, there are some rules that sites posting videos should stick to (and many don’t). Like being able to embed their video files when linking to them. The fact many don’t is why there aren’t more examples of good videos in this post, and the opening HTC Hero vid is from a site I don’t work for, rather than one I do.
George teaches Grade 7 about Zambia's role in the UN and Zimbabwe
Apologies for the lack of posting lately – I’ve been pretty much off for a week with some odd throat infection.
I’ve finally managed to get part of George’s story up on LearnAsOne though, which I’m incredibly happy with. He’s literally one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met: I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out he ran a kitten sanctuary on the side. Funny, polite, unassuming and incredibly well educated, his presence at Simakakata alone destroys any preconceptions you might have about poverty in developing countries. George was born in a community very similar to the ones we visited and has dedicated his life to giving the kids he associates with a future.
Well worth a read, if only to remind yourself the world isn’t such a bad place after all.
Still busy catching up on work, but finally managed to do something useful for LearnAsOne to follow up on the Zambia trip. Steve’s sorted out a project page on the meta-charity site GlobalGiving in time for its UK launch. The site has been a huge success in the US – it works the same way LAO does, in that you can see your money going directly into a project budget – and is properly launching in the UK this week to much news fanfare. Should be some good exposure.
Sunset on the Zambezi
Right, finally got round to uploading most of my Zambia pics to Flickr. Didn’t actually take that many (and even less that are any good) because we had the amazing Brenda with us for that. Mostly, I was busy taking notes and writing.
Cretalia, in the jacket, Bernard and their sister. Whose name I missed.
Lovely night last night at Ross Atherton’s (editor of PC Gamer) leaving party. He’s off to do exciting things in Paris. As it was also the first time I’d met up with Bath people since getting back from Zambia, obviously there were lots of questions about how it all went. Mostly the evening was spent deflecting questions – I won’t feel proud of the trip until we’ve actually raised some serious cash – but it did make me think of this story from the Economist, which I read while overseas.
The premise is that living overseas enhances your creativity. Sounds like a romantic notion cultivated by want-to-be Hemmingways, but psychologists reckon they’ve found a link. It’s a couple of weeks old now, as a story, and I only mention it because it’s rung very true for me this week.
I’ve written a lot since I got back – mostly laptop reviews for Stuff and finishing off bits and bobs for Gamer. (An aside – The Samsung X360 is awesome, by the way, although I don’t think I’ll be trading in my Eee 901 for anything else any time soon after its performance in Africa.) I’ve not had any time to work more on the LAO blog, or post much here. The thing is, while we were in Zambia, I couldn’t stop writing – I was exercising all kinds of journalistic skills that have lain dormant for a while and really enjoying work again. There are even – heaven forbid – a few short stories plotted out among my notes.
Now there’s a real danger of falling back into the same old routines again – working to deadlines, only writing for money, feeling exhausted because of the enforced early mornings which having a three year old daughter brings. This must be avoided at all costs – but it feels strangely hard.
One of Brendas stunning images from Simakakata
So, two new targets are set. First up, I need to help Steve actually gain some profile for LearnAsOne and raise the money we need to build the school in Simakakata. Secondly, I need to find a job overseas. I don’t think I’ll ever move as a freelance, it’s just too much of a risk.
…this was a new pair of boots. Most of the kids we trudged around with were barefoot.
You should see what the dust did to my phone...
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Random-photo-rama
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