I have just seen a short film called Moving Windmills and wanted to share it with you. It is an extremely inspirational story of a young Malawian William Kamkwmamba, who was forced to drop out of school for lack of money. But he did not discourage: when he saw a picture of a windmill in a textbook he decided to build one to power his family’s home. The film is now distributed online both via The Pangea Day Event, which has a big selection of other interesting films available too, and via William Kamkwamba’s Malawi Windmill Blog.

Moving Windmills at the Pangea Day Event web site
William Kamkwamba’s Malawi Windmill Blog

Yesterday was the International Mother Language Day and the date of the official launch of the International Year of Languages. They both represent occasions for heightening awareness of and encouraging collaboration also on African languages and initiatives in the field. In that spirit, it may be useful during the International Year of Languages to list such projects on UNESCO’s register to facilitate partnerships and promote your activities. This can be done here (you will need a recent version of Adobe Reader to complete the form).

In a few hours I’m off to Yoff - actually to that very same spot that you can see in my banner. Just a quick note before I go: I’ve been trying to find information about solar energy and what it takes for a charity to install solar electricity to a small school in Senegal. I have contacted a couple of manufacturers in hope of a quote and some basic answers to what would possible be the most useful and of course less expensive solution for the needs of the school. Strangely enough, none of the manufactures cared to answer my questions so far.  Then I also asked help from an NGO in Bamako, Mali, and their local expert immediately wrote back to me. We talked over skype and he was even kind enough to send me a rough estimate on the expenses involved – all this for free. I am delighted to have talked with him and impressed by his friendliness and support. Now, what does all this say about businesses?

Why is it that the West’s attempts to help the poor fail year after year? There are no easy answers to this question, but Easterly, with a very sharp pen, suggests that the aid institutions need to step out of their traditional patterns and change their mentality from what the author calls “planners” into “searchers.”  The book opens with a terribly familiar image that I too have encountered in Ethiopia. Amaretch, a small Ethiopian girl, is too poor to go to school and carries firewood to help her family: 

Amaretch - A snapshot from The White Man’s Burden by William Easterly:  

“I am driving out of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to the countryside. An endless line of women and girls is marching in the opposite direction, into the city. They range in age from nine to fifty-nine. Each one is bent nearly double under the load of firewood. The heavy loads propel them forward almost at a trot. I think of slaves driven along by an invisible slave driver. They are carrying the firewood from miles outside of Addis Ababa, where there are eucalyptus forests, and across the denuded lands encircling the city. The women bring the wood to the main city market, where they will sell it for a couple of dollars. That will be it for their day’s income, as it takes all day for them to heft firewood into Addis and to walk back.” 

The rest of this snapshot and the entire first chapter of Easterly’s book are available online here

Isn’t here a wonderful little piece of craft? This particular fly is made of recycled aluminium and you can easily build your very own insectarium with flies, crickets, cockroaches, dragonflies, scorpions, prayermantises.. This would make a good selling item in fundraising events don’t you think? I would like to raise money for anti-malarial nets in one future campaign against malaria , so perhaps I should start looking for mosquitoes in aluminium in Ouaga!