April 2010 Archives

RAPPORT DE LA RENCONTRE ENTRE L'ASSOCIATION DES FEMMES DE LA COMMUNE  DE BEREBA ET CELLE DE CROTELLES AU FASO
 
 Le samedi 6 mars 2010 a eu  lieu à la salle réunion de la commune de BEREBA une rencontre entre l'association  des femmes de la commune de BEREBA  et celle de CROTELLES  basée en France.
  Avant cette rencontre il y a eu une conférence animée par Madame la Directrice provinciale de l'enseignement de base et de l'alphabétisation du Tuy  pour les femmes de la commune de BEREBA .Le thème de cette conférence  était : Femmes alphabétisation et éducation non formelle. Toute  la conférence était basée sur l'importance de l'alphabétisation et de l'éducation non formelle Elle a invité les femmes à s'inscrire massivement pour l'alphabétisation pour sortir de l'obscurantisme.
  A cet effet FAVL a été présenté avec le fonctionnement des bibliothèques et du même coup un soutien en livres en langues nationales a été sollicité auprès de Madame la Directrice. Elle a  invité les femmes à fréquenter la bibliothèque. Elle  s'est jointe  aux participants pour remercier les initiateurs de FAVL et les bibliothécaires  pour les initiatives  louables dans la province du TUY. Elle  a lancé un appel aux femmes de lire pour actualiser leurs connaissances apprises. Elle a enfin terminé en nous remettant un lot de livres en langues nationales.
   Cette conférence a été suivie la rencontre femmes de l'Association des femmes de la commune  et celle de CROTELLES AU FASO.
   La rencontre avait pour but le remaniement du bureau suite aux problèmes de gestion.
   Le Président de CROTELLES a pris la parole pour souhaiter la bienvenue à toutes les femmes de la commune de BEREBA.Il a ensuite souligné les non-transparence de la gestion des biens alloués à la vente  car la présidente détourne les biens à son propre compte et que la masse ne profite pas. Le non-envoi des rapports  et comptes  q constitue un problème majeur. L'association de CROTELLES estime que si le bureau n'est pas renouvelé, elle  risque d'arrêter l'aide et la coopération.
   En M . DOUNKO SANOU présent à la rencontre a pris la parole pour remercier CROTELLES au FASO pour le don de livres et autres matériels à l'endroit des bibliothèques. Quelques images des animations leur ont été présentées.  Ils ont promis 4 tonnes de livres pour la prochaine arrivée en début 2011.
     La séance s'est terminée par des plaintes de part et d'autre.

For my economics of gender in developing countries class we read a paper by Deon Filmer and Norbert Schady.  They analyze the effects on school enrollment of a program in Cambodia that gave scholarships to girls who were finishing primary school so that they would be encouraged to continue on to secondary school.  The grants were on the order of $45 to each student.  They resulted in increase in 20 percentage points of attendance, from about 60 to about 80 girls attending per 100 girls.  Filmer and Schady, in the working paper version I have, do not do any back of the envelope calculations, but if one does a very simple one, where if one pays the scholarship to 100 girls that means that 20 more girls attend school than would have otherwise, and one assumes that of the 20 attending 5 shouldn't be attending (i.e. they are failing, or really the value of an extra school for them is very low), so that the true positive impact is on 15 girls, then the expenditure is $4500 to benefit 15 girls, or $300 per girl per extra year of schooling. 

Our FAVL summer reading camps initially cost about $50 per student, and if replicated/scaled I presume we would get cost down to $25 per child, and these camps include meals and t-shirts, so the actual camp cost is about $15 per student per two weeks, so about $300 per student for 40 weeks.  Good to know we are in the "effect size" ballpark.  (Of course, the $5 transfers to the non-impacted girls who would have gone to school anyway are not a waste, merely a transfer, so the comparison is stacked in FAVL's favor.  ;-)

So it is quite common that people asking me about "Why libraries?" are really asking me to tell them a story about how someone read a book and it made them a better person.  Of course, they are happy with an anecdote, but the social scientist in me hesitates to generalize from anecdotes, and I know that many many kids do not become better persons no matter how many Narnia books they read (or the non-existent as far as I know African equivalent, but I am waiting for Akpan to get some hope and have some fun and write a fantasy novel for kids and grownups set in Africa... The Famished Road, you suggest... are you kidding?).  Anyway, the social scientist in me hesitates to ascribe much definitive good to book reading, and now I hesitate even more, because much recent science is saying we may as well just open oxytocin bars instead of libraries... Of course, continuing my thought, what if they took the oxytocin double-shot and then read a really bad book? 

 Deric Bownds' MindBlog reproduces an abstract from  from Hurlemann et al.:

Oxytocin (OT) is becoming increasingly established as a prosocial neuropeptide in humans with therapeutic potential in treatment of social, cognitive, and mood disorders. However, the potential of OT as a general facilitator of human learning and empathy is unclear. The current double-blind experiments on healthy adult male volunteers investigated first whether treatment with intranasal OT enhanced learning performance on a feedback-guided item-category association task where either social (smiling and angry faces) or nonsocial (green and red lights) reinforcers were used, and second whether it increased either cognitive or emotional empathy measured by the Multifaceted Empathy Test. Further experiments investigated whether OT-sensitive behavioral components required a normal functional amygdala. Results in control groups showed that learning performance was improved when social rather than nonsocial reinforcement was used. Intranasal OT potentiated this social reinforcement advantage and greatly increased emotional, but not cognitive, empathy in response to both positive and negative valence stimuli. Interestingly, after OT treatment, emotional empathy responses in men were raised to levels similar to those found in untreated women. Two patients with selective bilateral damage to the amygdala (monozygotic twins with congenital Urbach-Wiethe disease) were impaired on both OT-sensitive aspects of these learning and empathy tasks, but performed normally on nonsocially reinforced learning and cognitive empathy. Overall these findings provide the first demonstration that OT can facilitate amygdala-dependent, socially reinforced learning and emotional empathy in men.

Steve Wilson, CEO of FastPencil (online publishing platform), is speaking this weekend in New York on the Future of Publishing and Books.  It should be an interesting discussion with a panel of individuals from Google, Wall Street Journal, Open Road Media and others involved in the future of publishing.  The aim is to discuss the rise of new technologies and strategies ( like eBooks, eReaders, iPads, online publishing platforms, etc.) and their effects on the industry. If you are in NY, check it out!

I can't help but ponder what this future means for countries with little or no publishing industry.  To give you some perspective, here is a a collection of papers on the
Book Chain in Anglophon Africa.pdf.  I happened upon this paper while taking a look at the book market in Sierra Leone.  Below is a picture of one of the friends I made while strolling the streets of Freetown.  He sells books on Garrison street with a number of other book vendors.  The books available on the street are photocopied versions of books (presumably from the library a block away) or discarded books from the library or NGOs.  Outside of Freetown, these sorts of book markets don't exist.
 

Koura Donkoui sent in this interesting report on the second meeting of the local municipal rural council... of course one of the first items of business was to increase their pay for attending the council sessions.  Understandable.  Donkoui made a presentation about the libraries.  Numerous councillors lauded the effects of FAVL libraries..

  Le lundi 6 mars 2010 à la salle de réunion de la mairie de BEREBA a eu lieu la deuxième session des conseillers municipaux de la commune  de BEREBA  .

   Etaient présents a cette rencontre en plus des conseillers, le préfet, le président du comité villageois de développement, l'animateur de FAVL et d'autres producteurs.

   La session a débuté à 10H45 en présence de 43 conseillers sur 58 dont 13 absents.

   M. le préfet premier responsable administratif  a pris la parole pour souhaiter la bienvenue à tous les conseillers  et les observateurs présents et salués les efforts que tout un chacun déploie pour la cause du développement de la commune de BEREBA .

    L'ordre du jour s'articulait autour des points suivants :

 1.Lecture du PV  de la première session 2010

2.Lecture du budget de la commune del'année 2010

3.Création d'un cadre de concertation  avec les services

4.Divers

  Abordant le premier point, le secrétaire général de la mairie a lu le PV  de la première session que l'assemblée a adoptée.

  Le deuxième point de l'ordre du jour a porté sur le budget communal 2010.Ce budget adopté au niveau régional a été porté à  la  connaissance des participants. Il s'élève à la somme de 96.153.347FCFA. Cela a permis de rehausser les primes de session de 3000F à 4000F.

 Il est ressorti que BEREBA a été retenu parmi les 20 communes rurales  que l'Etat veut expérimenter leur gestion en leur apportant un soutien de 38.000.000FCFA  trente huit millions

   Le troisième point  a porté sur la création  du cadre de concertation. Les participants ont encouragé le maire  de concerter les personnes ressources.

   Enfin en divers le maire a lu la lettre de remerciement du gouverneur des Hauts Bassins pour les activités de reboisement menées dans la commune de BEREBA gage de la protection de l'environnement.

    Il a ensuite abordé la question du lotissement dont les négociations  ont commencé.

    La parole a été donnée  à l 'animateur de FAVL  qui a présenté FAVL et les bibliothèques aux conseillers municipaux. Il a lancé  un appel à toutes les bonnes volontés de soutenir les bibliothèques en apportant tout ce qu'ils pensent indispensable.

Il a expliqué que les gérants et coordonnateurs oeuvrent pour la bonne marche des bibliothèques par conséquent ils ont besoin de soutien de la part des autorités communales administratives et des services déconcentrés voire toute la population.

   Quelques conseillers ont témoigné que les bibliothèques jouent un rôle important dans notre commune. Le conseiller du village de KOURA situé à 15km de BEREBA a dit que le PASTEUR a réussi à l'examen du CEP grâce à la bibliothèque de BEREBA .Il a en outre ajouté que 2 jeunes de son village ont réussi au concours de la Fonction Publique et un autre admis au BAC a fait son entrée à l'université.

   Le conseiller de BEREBA  a témoigné du succès des lecteurs de la bibliothèque  aux concours et aux examens d'une manière générale. Il n'a pas manqué de souligner l'importance des camps de lecture organisés dans les bibliothèques.

  Le  maire quant à lui  reconnaît le soutien de FAVL dans sa commune et a invité tous les conseillers à se cultiver à la bibliothèque pour augmenter le niveau des débats pendant les sessions.

   A la fin les conseillers ont promis de prendre en compte les bibliothèques au prochain budget.

Well, how often is it that your chickens lay a double-yolked giant egg?  It absolument must be posted to the blog, toute de suite...

My colleague Alain Sissao is visiting Santa Clara, and lent me his copy of Verre Cassé, so I am finally reading it.  Superb writing!  A perfect novel for discussion in a literature class... every chapter full of meanings, deep and surface.  The style itself of course.  And the literary and popular references crammed in... at one point Bobo-Dioulasso potatos are mentioned... huh?

I haven't finished, but could not resist this little extract, a tiny little riff off Hampaté Bâ, and I come across the aphorism so many times that I know some day I won't be able to resist, just like Mabanckou wasn't able to resist...

Great video by cdpeace showing typical schools in central Sierra Leone.  Notice the lack of pretty much anything on the classroom walls.  Not a word-rich environment!

I've used this book of photos by Ed Kashi collected in Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta for our Reading West Africa program.  The students are blown away by the images: A side of Africa that rarely gets to people in the U.S.  Michael Watts assembled a nice set of short essays by Nigerians involved in Delta politics and development.  Very educational and inspiring, in terms of "How can I realize my own highest humanity while doing good?"  The Guardian has a nice selection of some of the photos. 

A bittersweet short story by Osundu, who won the Caine prize, is published in the May 2010 issue of The Atlantic.  Nigerian literature blogger Chielo Zona Eze has good things to say about him.  The story pays homage to Soyinka in the jail scene.  Very nice. 

Favl board member Sue Frey passed this on...

Last night when I was driving home from work listening to NPR (I think it was a World Affairs Council meeting), this Slow Food Movement guy told a story about going to an international conference on food in Italy. He said he had had a long flight, with some layovers, and was tired and ready to go to the hotel. He and two people from Burkina Faso were met at the airport but told they would have to wait for a group from Kyrgyzstan. The Burkina Faso folks had walked for two days to reach a city where they could catch a plane. They could speak English but not Italian, so the American who could speak some Italian acted as a translator. After waiting for half an hour, the American inquired whether they could go to the hotel. No, the Italian said, I'm sorry but we have to wait for the Kyrgyzstan contingent. The American then translated to the Burkina Faso folks that the Italian was sorry but they had to wait. This happened every half hour for a couple of  hours. Finally, the Burkina Faso folks told the American that there was no need to apologize. "You have the watches," he said. "We have the time."

In my class on the economics of gender in developing countries we were discussing a recently published paper by Nancy Qian that estimates the effects on the sex ratio (how many boys there are compared with girls) of increases in the relative incomes of women.  Not surprisingly, in 1980s China the effect is negative and pretty large.  The interesting thing about the paper is the method.  Normally a correlation between higher female income and lower sex ratio would be viewed skeptically: maybe some other factors are responsible for both lower sex ratios and higher incomes.  Qian is able to use the market liberalization in China's agriculture, in 1979, to do what is known as a difference-in-difference analysis.  That is, she can estimate the effects of the higher incomes after liberalization in tea growing areas by comparing the changes there to the changes that happened in non-tea growing areas.  Tea growing areas favor female labor, natch, so higher price of tea after liberalization meant higher demand for female labor and that then meant more girls survived (sex ratio fell). 

After class, I was trying to think if there was any analogy to apply the method to library impact studies.  Hard to do anything like this in the places where FAVL operates... there are simply not enough libraries to properly study their impact, nor are there any non-library measures of reading habits and availability.  But in developed countries with lots of libraries, it occurred to me that the move of library systems to enable bar-coded self checkout and online renewals meant a huge reduction in the cost of using libraries.  I know that in my own personal behavior, I have not waited in a line to check out books since, well, since 1995 I suppose... just before San Jose library system switched to self-checkout.  Suddenly there were no more lines, ever.  Amazing!  So since different library systems probably switched at different times due to budgetary reasons, the changes in their trends of borrowers from before and after their switch to self-checkout will be largely exogenous to user reading habits.  If so, then those changes can be used to estimate the effect of reading more through libraries on school test scores.  Someday, maybe someone will pursue this line of reasoning.  Maybe someone already has!

A chance at having a Peace Corps volunteer extend her stay in Ouagadougou for another six months, volunteering for FAVL, prompted a short reflection on "what we could do" with an additional full-time staff person.  Our Ouaga representative, Saré Elisee, has been taking care of logistics and office and helping with some library programming, but he's at the limit.  Here's six challenges I would love to see FAVL Ouaga undertake:

1. A long-standing daydream of mine has been to have real-time statistics and accounts reporting through cell phone technology.  Could our librarians send an SMA to a number, or enter a number on a small webform, and have that number directly integrate to a website of library user statistics, or a website with the library accounts, completely transparent?  I know there have been lots of small scale pilots of this, so the technology is out there.  Either it is too custom-specific or too buggy or too expensive... but for some reason I have not seen it in use anywhere in Burkina.  World Bank, can't you make that happen?
2. Working with local printers to pilot print equivalents of our small print run microbooks that we are developing through our Reading West Africa study abroad program.  You can see the books on our fastpencil marketplace. 
   
3. Working with local illustrators to develop a series of photocopied storybooks for use in the libraries.
4. Launching our book production activities at the next Ouagadougou book fair, and begin efforts to cultivate larger scale purchasers of the books (i.e. donor-funded education projects through the school system).
   
5. Cultivating partners and donors to enhance our regular gatherings in a workshop-style setting of FAVL librarians and librarians of the town-library network run by CENALAC, the government agency in Burkina Faso responsible for overseeing library activities.  FAVL librarians meet once a month in our regional HQ in Houndé, and we would like to expand these meeting so that every two months there would be a two-day training session facilitated by local library experts.  This has turned out to be much harder to organize in practice than we imagined, mostly because possible trainers typically have little experience with small village libraries (i.e., the librarians don't need training on the Dewey Decimal System, is our mantra).
6. Networking with local mayors and officials of the Ministry of Decentralization to develop workshop materials around the theme of "How rural mayors can support village libraries."  Over the longer-term, we'd like to have libraries run under the aegis of the newly instituted rural councils and rural mayors.  But these entities at present have little capacity to partner and supervise rural libraries.  So they need a strong training component to gradually bring them abroad as full partners.  The training materials developed would then be useful for larger-scale workshops with the hundred of mayors throughout Burkina Faso.

We registered member library #60 for UgCLA last week--and I expect three more to join us this week. Two other people have talked to me, too, about initiating community libraries--is this something special about Uganda?
Kate

Help us help Sarah collaborate with Tanzanian library entrepreneurs to establish a robust association!

Dear friends,

I have exciting news to share with you all!  This news is good news for all of us whether we are librarians, publishers, library patrons, students, educators, or simply book lovers!

Many concerned people have been in conversation about the need for a stronger network and available resources for community libraries in Tanzania.  All over the world libraries rely on charity in order to survive.  This charity comes in the form of grants, donations and volunteers.  In East Africa we have watched libraries struggle to find their foothold in the resources that they often need as they are either not easy to find or are not available.  Now we have found what we believe is the way forward to build a stronger network among community libraries and provide resources.  This way forward is to establish an association that is built solely for four purposes;

1-      A tool used to network all community libraries in Tanzania and further across the globe.

2-      Arrange workshops that support librarians and educators concerning library related topics.

3-      Research grants and other resources (volunteers, books, donations, etc) and making them available to eligible libraries.

4-      To sensitize and support development of community libraries and community learning centres in Tanzania.

This proposed association is building its confidence upon the success of an association in Uganda called Uganda Community Libraries Association.  We have worked closely with this group and continue to do so.  They are happy to be involved in seeing a sister association to be founded in Tanzania and to work alongside one another to see community libraries thrive in East Africa as a whole.

I would like to then, before taking the official steps forward with the intent of establishing such an association, to hear from you all as to how you would like to be involved and any ideas for names of the association, workshop topics, workshop locations, volunteers available, head office locations, grants, further purposes, or anything else you feel the need to share.  Even if you are not connected with a community or public library but have interest in this work we welcome you to be involved.

Many thanks in advance,

Sarah Switzer

Library Support Worker - Tanzania

+255 788 176 281

maktaba4afrika@yahoo.ca

This posting prompted by a session I went to today on social entrepreneurship, at the university (that's Santa Clara University, natch), and one of the presenters was such a smooth sales persons, it made me think about our various challenges:

1) We don't tell our story well.  I've noticed that telling the story often involves a person (a social entrepreneur in today's lingo) persisting against incredible odds.  I don't feel comfortable whining or exaggerating our efforts; FAVL board and volunteers put in a huge amount of hours, but we are really incredibly privileged, and our librarians are obviously the more educated members of the villages.  So we the FAVL team don't have a compelling story, even if we tried to exaggerate (i.e. none of us failed to climb K-2 and ended up recuperating in an apricot orchard).  It is our readers in the villages, though, who have the great stories. 

2) We don't thank our donors enough, and keep in touch with them to let them know what is happening with their donations.  This was actually a deliberate decision when we started FAVL, to not become a "bulletin a month" type organization.  Library supporters value their time.  So maybe we need to be better quality in terms of communication, not more frequent.  We need to do more about getting library readers' stories to you, the donors.   

3) We still haven't solved the fundamental logistics problem of having an efficient and effective back office operation.  Too many things fall through the cracks- emails left unanswered, volunteer opportunities not leveraged, outreach possibilities neglected.  We're better and better every year, but nowhere near the performance level we should be.  Our best volunteers (Maureen Berry in Ouagadougou, Deb Garvey in San Jose) are super and we need about ten more people like them to be really effective.

4) We haven't been able to realize our ambition and mission of facilitating the more independent "friends" process of people helping other libraries outside of our core areas.  It turns out that successfully supervising/encouraging libraries in rural areas in Africa is far harder to do without a good local staff.  We are finding it very difficult to support libraries and library entrepreneurs outside our core areas (Burkina, northern Ghana, Uganda).  Our partnership with PEN Trust in Tanzania to help support Chalula library is working well, and we hope it will continue to evolve into a replicable model.

5)  We still are short of leadership depth.  After nine years we haven't yet found another pair of persons to supplement Kate Parry and myself in our "breathing" of FAVL every single day.  Not to sell short the many wonderful volunteers who have helped with FAVL over the years, but our key need now is for leaders to take over significant country responsibilities, on a volunteer basis, with a five year commitment.  Anyone for northern Ghana, for example?  Of course, the strategy all along has been to build up management depth in-country.  Burkina Faso, for example, pretty much runs itself now, with a team of crack managers (Saré Elisee, Koura Donkoui, Sanou Dounko and Domboué Halidou).  But they can't fundraise, and that's essential ...

OK I feel better, thanks for listening...

Because I miss things like this (report from FAVL coordinator Saré Elisée):

Cérémonie d'initiation

À Boni, avec Kathy, nous avons assisté à une cérémonie d'initiation qui se déroule tous les sept ans. Nous avons assisté cette année à la 11e promotion ; car cela fait 77 ans que le village à commencé à compter les promotions d'initiés.
Deux cérémonies ont lieu tous les sept ans à la même période, mais à quelques jours d'intervall : celle du quartier Bondé et celle du quartier Gnoumou. Ce samedi, c'est à l'initiation des jeunes du quartier Gnoumou que nous avons assisté.

C'est une cérémonie permettant aux jeunes gens de passer à l'age adulte. La tranche d'age cette année était comprise entre 15 et 25 ans. Les jeunes gens initiés cette année l'ont été par leurs aînés de la 10e promotion eux-mêmes, initiés à leur tour en 2003, par leurs aînés de la 9e promotion.

La cérémonie, ce jour-ci se composait par des séances de libations diverses et de danses de masques et d'initiés dans tout le village.

La cérémonie d'initiation est une très grande fête et les ressortissants du village viennent de partout pour y assister. Elle draine également beaucoup de touristes.
Le fait remarquable est que toutes les promotions dont les membres sont encore en vie participent à la cérémonie. Et, chaque promotion fait coudre un vêtement uniforme  pour la circonstance et participe à la danse.

Kathy en était très heureuse et s'est dite très chanceuse d'être là, et d'assister à une cérémonie qui se déroule tous les sept ans !

Photo: Christopher Roy

Thanks to Sondra Hale for sharing the link to this excellent review by Kathy Sheldon... exactly the right nuance!  From the blog Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa where you can read the full review.

Book Review: Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

How can privileged women best help women who suffer some of the worst forms of oppression?
By Kathleen Sheldon

            Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn have received much positive feedback for Half the Sky, their study of women's oppression around the world.  Though their title suggests an international focus, what they put forward is more bifurcated.  The oppressed women are primarily based in what used to be called the Third World, and their oppression is most memorably a particular kind of physical suffering, such as sex trafficking in Southeast Asia, rape and "honor" killings in the wars in the Congo, Darfur, and Iraq, and the prevalence of fistula and childbirth-related mortality in Africa.  The authors also discuss micro-financing, education, and attitudes toward women in Islam, but those sections are not the heart of the book.  The structure of the book fosters a problematic division, as they present a series of situations where women suffer because they are women, and each story is paired with an account of assistance, most of which feature women from the First World - usually white, well-to-do, and deeply concerned about women - developing a project, raising funds, or otherwise making a connection with impoverished women in distant lands.

            I have a lot of concerns about the way the stories are presented, but I find that it is extremely difficult to write about those concerns without sounding like I am taking a politically correct stance to critique a lot of important and often effective work being done to improve women's lives.  So I want to make it clear right at the beginning that I am not opposed to the charitable work that is being done by so many good people....

            What I missed throughout the book was an understanding of the wider context of women's oppression.  The idea of patriarchy - or patriarchies - was absent.  I was also concerned by the absence of stories of women's oppression in North America and Europe.  The authors dismiss this factor in the introduction, writing that "discrimination in wealthy countries is often a matter of unequal pay or underfunded sports teams or unwanted touching from a boss" (p. xv).  Certainly conditions are much worse in the poor nations of the world, but I felt their statement was very cavalier in dismissing the real (and yes, at times lethal) oppression that western women face.

The organization of the book allows a North American woman to hold onto her own ideas of privilege and to choose a project (from the list helpfully found at the back of the book) to which she could donate funds and assuage her guilt for living the good life.  I am not entirely critical of these actions.  ...But the book contains internal contradictions about the role of women in the world and about the best way forward to ending some of the worst abuses.  Although they list groups that have important projects, in the text they usually profile the individual woman (and occasional man or child) who founded the organization, intensifying an impression of individual rather than collective effort.  They highlight those they call "social entrepreneurs," people who take the initiative to develop programs that target needy and oppressed people.

A major problem is the way that Kristof and WuDunn position legal improvements in opposition to the kind of direct support for change that they document.  They specifically argue against working to change laws, and say that instead activists should be working to change reality....

In the short term it is important to donate money and time to projects that will help individual women enjoy improvements in their living situations.  Kristof and WuDunn argue that such projects are the basis for long term economic and social change, that the best way to bring about change is through supporting social entrepreneurial efforts.  I believe that is a limited approach, and that we must have a broader vision of deep-seated social change which involves not only changing laws but changing politics....

It is ironic that Kristof and WuDunn have chosen "Half the Sky" as their title.  Taken from the slogan, "Women hold up half the sky" (cited as a Chinese proverb at the beginning of the book), it was popularized by Mao Zedong as part of the Chinese Communist effort to effect grand changes in Chinese society, to undercut traditional and legal restrictions on women, and to address some of the structural issues that contributed to women's oppression.  While the Chinese experiment in socialism was obviously deeply flawed and is not a model for the rest of the world, even Kristof and WuDunn admit that Chinese women have experienced the most rapid and far-reaching improvements in their lives in the past century (pp. 206-211).  Those changes were not due to programs funded by "social entrepreneurs," but were the result of a comprehensive revolution that involved sweeping changes in women's legal rights, economic opportunities, and social expectations.  

Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009)

Kathleen Sheldon is an independent historian who has published on African women's history.  She has a research affiliation with UCLA Center for the Study of Women, and can be reached at ksheldon@ucla.edu.

Abstract of Aïssatou Mbodj-Pouye's article "Tenir un cahier dans la région cotonnière du Mali"

Cet article repose sur une ethnographie des pratiques de l'écrit menée dans un village de la zone cotonnière du Mali. Dans cette région, l'alphabétisation, très inégale, est diverse dans ses formes et dans les langues utilisées à l'écrit (bambara, français, arabe). L'article porte sur une pratique commune qui consiste à recueillir sur un cahier un ensemble de notations personnelles. Son propos est d'éclairer la signification anthropologique de cette pratique par l'examen attentif du support d'écriture. Le cahier est à la fois un objet à soi, le lieu d'une appropriation de modèles scripturaux, et un espace graphique dont les scripteurs se saisissent de manières diverses, d'une mise en ordre de différentes figures de soi à des formes moins organisées de recueil. Ces différentes dimensions en font un lieu d'expérimentation de nouveaux rapports à soi.

This paper is based on an ethnographic research on literacy practices in a village located in the cotton- growing region of Mali. The area is partially literate, with Bambara, French, and Arabic used as written languages. The paper focuses on notebook-writing, a common practice meant to keep personal records. It investigates the anthropological meanings of this practice, by paying specific attention to its materiality. The notebook, as an object, is a personal belonging. It also represents the site where the writer takes hold of written models for his own purposes. As a "graphic space", it is handled in different ways: some writers cautiously reorganise the outlines of their self by following a specific order in writing, whereas others use it to mere collection. Through these different dimensions, notebook- writing offers a space to explore new forms of subjectivity.

Graeme Bloch and Njabulo S Ndebele writing in Times Live from South Africa:

Sixteen years after democracy, our young people are calling for schools that work, for places where they may study and for materials that will help them read and learn. As the organisation Equal Education points out, fewer than 7% of schools in South Africa have a functioning library. Perhaps 21% have some kind of structure called a reading room, but these are usually used for classrooms, are seldom stocked properly and do not have a library professional in charge to ensure that the right books are there and that they are used properly. The lack of libraries compounds the many problems, such as teachers' poor subject knowledge and poor access to textbooks, that plague our schooling system. These factors combine to make our reading outcomes, at all grade levels, among the worst in Africa.

Thanks Sarah Jeffcoat for forwarding the link to the provocative article by Matthew Parris (and remember that's what journalists and bloggers do, no?)... of course, one could substitute libraries for God, if one were conducting an exercise in speculative reasoning (rather than making, say, a claim based on study)... everyone in the library walks tall... they have a more open spirit... they plan for the future and are not defeatist... they read Kourouma... hmm... could there be some self-selection here at work?

To the rural African mind, this is an explanation of why one would not climb the mountain. It's... well, there. Just there. Why interfere? Nothing to be done about it, or with it. Hillary's further explanation - that nobody else had climbed it - would stand as a second reason for passivity. Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I've just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink.

That is why and how it liberates. Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted. And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.

I wonder if an editor reminded Parris that the most machete-like malign fusion is... The Lord's Resistance Army!  Full on bizarre Christian-inspired wickedness... "Ah," they probably said, "the article would lose its punch if we include that, no?"

The full link is here... very nice article, and really makes you think about the importance of measuring impact, and being comfortable with a finding that the impact might be really small...

At first glance, the reading rooms of some public libraries can seem quite empty. While some librarians say that this is because it is summer, and people are more interested in going out than in reading, others admit that their libraries can be deserted throughout the year. In the words of one Heliopolis librarian, "the highest turnover on any day of the year, whether summer or winter, is 50 people". In Luxor and Mansoura, some librarians have claimed double this figure, but they still admit that visitor rates are low despite the very low cost of using the libraries.

However, according to a librarian at the Greater Cairo Library in Zamalek, "the issue is not about the display or the collection of books. Rather, it is about the fact that despite the many efforts that have been made to promote reading most people are not interested in it. People come to the library to meet and not to read; it is almost a meeting place for young couples, who come here under the cover of reading," he lamented. Clerks at public bookstores that have low-price books on sale, sometimes for less than LE2 a title, also argue that there are few readers out there who take advantage of these low prices. Sales should be much higher in view of the wide variety of titles and the low prices, they say.

Official estimates of the number of readers who make use of public reading facilities also vary. Some officials suggest that close to 20 million people -- including those who visit the libraries to read and borrow books and those who buy subsidized copies -- benefit from the wide network of public libraries and the Reading for All campaign every year, while others suggest that this number does not exceed a mere three million. On state radio and TV reading is extensively promoted. In promotion spots appearing on television, for example, Mrs Suzanne Mubarak calls on every family member to join the campaign. Film and sports stars also appear in the advertisements. Nevertheless, for the most part the public libraries, especially the Mubarak Libraries -- the larger libraries that will soon number 12 across Egypt -- and the culture centres still serve more as places to learn foreign languages and to do summer activities than they do to engage in serious reading.

 Indeed, at every library there seems to be an account of a won-over reader: a girl who used the library as an outlet for internet chat and ended up being an addicted history reader, for example, or a young couple who used to use the library as a dating spot, but are now regularly borrowing literature titles, or students who frequent the libraries for narrow homework purposes, but end up with a passion for reading science. "I was not always a dedicated reader. It was only three years ago when my mother asked me to clean the bookshelves of my late father that I got into the world of books," said Amir. "Now I spend at least four hours reading every day." While such accidental-but-now-addicted readers are still not many, librarians say, the presence in the libraries of young people like Amir is encouraging and may encourage other young people to pick up some of the books on display.

Mrs. Mubarak inaugurates two new libraries

Mrs. Mubarak inaugurates two new libraries Mrs. Mubarak inaugurated Thursday 3/7/2008 two new libraries in Cairo within the framework of a new initiative by Mrs. Mubarak to propagate the culture of reading. Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak hailed an initiative entitled the "One Million Books" as part of the national Reading-for-All campaign. The initiative will help youths own books they like to read for free, Mrs. Mubarak said. The initiative is aimed at distributing books for free among Public Library and Youth Center frequenters. Mrs. Mubarak was speaking following the inauguration of the two public libraries in Cairo. The Reading-for-All campaign has created a cultured generation in Egypt, Mrs. Mubarak added. She underscored the importance of the role played by families and teachers in encouraging children to read.

But, where is the randomized evaluation?

Photos are here on our flickr site, including a bunch of Kathy Knowles doing some kind of crafts project with kids that Elisee said was sick (that's hip 11 year old lingo for cool).  I love this shot though... sums up like everything... well... what does it say?

Interesting abstract posted by the AILA Africa Ren Newsletter - April 2010

A social orthography of identity: the N'ko literacy movement in West Africa
By Christopher Wyrod
International Journal of the Sociology of Language.
Volume 2008, Issue 192, Pages 27-44, 2008
Abstract: This article explores the development and spread of the N'ko script among Mande communities in West Africa. N'ko presents a rare example of an indigenous script that has successfully competed against other writing systems that are older, better financed, and propagated in religious and formal education. N'ko script is studied in relation to its role as one of the most popular and widespread indigenous scripts in contemporary West Africa. The social relevance of N'ko literacy is contrasted with colonial and national literacy education programs. N'ko's popularity is shown to result from the script's strong linguistic and cultural relevance to Mande communities through its faithful transcription of local languages and its corpus of publications on indigenous and foreign knowledge. The introduction of formal schooling in N'ko is analyzed as a significant recent shift in the literacy movement that presents new opportunities and challenges. The internationalization of the movement is shown to have strengthened support for N'ko literacy, with N'ko serving as an important contemporary symbol of Mande social identity, which the author terms its "social orthography." However, N'ko's strong association with Mande identity also threatens to limit the literacy movement's future development. Access the full article here.

From the IBBY website:

The IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award, initiated by the International Board on Books for Young People and sponsored by the Japanese newspaper company the Asahi Shimbun, is presented to projects run by groups or institutions that are judged to be making a lasting contribution to reading promotion for children and young people. The Award is given every two years to two projects and presented to the winners at the biennial IBBY Congress. It was a difficult task for the current jury to choose two winners from the twelve nominations as all the projects were of great merit and complemented IBBY's Mission Statement. Each nominated project targeted children who live in disadvantageous circumstances with no or little access to books.

After an intensive discussion the jury made its choice from these twelve projects and we are pleased to announce that the IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Awards for 2010 go to: Osu Children´s Library Fund, Ghana and Convenio de Cooperación al Plan de Lectura, Medellín, Colombia

The Osu Children´s Library Fund (OCLF) is a Canada-based registered charity established 1991 to encourage reading and literacy among children and adults in Ghana, West Africa. To accomplish this, the OCLF raised funds to build, furnish and stock five large community libraries in impoverished areas of Ghana´s capital Accra, and a community library in Goi, a fishing village in the Greater Accra region. In addition, OCLF has helped to initiate and stock more than 150 smaller libraries in schools and villages in Ghana. The aim of the project is to instill in children, at the earliest possible age, the joy of reading and to enrich their self-esteem and broaden their horizons for the future. Not only children are taught reading and writing skills, but also adults and teens who have never had this opportunity. This will empower them to gain confidence and improve their job opportunities and thus their futures.

The 2010 jury comprised Jury President Hannelore Daubert (Germany), Anastasia Arkhipova (Russia), Nikki Gamble (Great Britain), Jehan Helou (Palestine), Ahmad Redza Khairuddin (Malaysia) and James Tumusiime (Uganda) The prize money of US$ 10,000 for each winning project will be presented at the 32nd IBBY Congress in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, at a special festive occasion on Friday, 10 September 2010. IBBY will celebrate the 20th anniversary of this special award at the Congress with a festive evening with the winners and representatives of the Asahi Shimbun.

MAGAZINE - Henriette OUEDRAOGO - Burkina Faso

As I was perusing the Twitter-sphere, I happened upon a recent tweet by BookAid that I re-tweeted here (in case you didn't know, FAVL is on Twitter.. follow us!).  BookAid has started to incorporate the need for and importance of community libraries into their strategy!  They wrote an article about community libraries in their December 2009 newsletter...

"The basic idea of the community library is that it is owned and managed locally, leading to a far more relevant range of materials, and is much more responsive to the local environment and the needs if its users. Community libraries may not be large, they may not be flashy, but at their best they contain information that is carefully selected and culturally relevant. This article explores the idea and practice of community libraries in a little more detail...."