Mama-Mtoto Meeting: The Lamu Book

Hi all!

During the last week of our official UCU internship, we visited the home of one of the mamas who lives in Bulanda, near Busia town. We interacted with her kids, asked her more about her experiences with the program, and watched her read the Busia book with her children. It was such a great experience to see the children's reactions during the storybook reading (they love the Kiluhya version!) and we saw a new side of the project. We have only been meeting with the mamas so it was great to see how the children get involved and how they enjoy the benefits of Mama-Mtoto. Though we only managed to visit one mama during the internship (they are all very busy!), I know that Harmke will try to visit as many as she can before she leaves in October. We learnt a great deal more about the impact that Mama-Mtoto is having at these homes, so it was extremely valuable.

This past Thursday (18/08) we had another Mama-Mtoto meeting in Busia and it went great, despite that only eight mamas came. First, we discussed the experiences with the Busia book. As one of the assigned activities, we asked that the children create an ending for the story, as it ends at a climactic point. The stories that the children told were extremely creative! There were also many drawings of the various characters of the story and it was clear that the children thoroughly enjoyed the Busia book! One mother said: “My kids liked the story in this book, they do not like the hare though, because he was so cunning and clever so he spoiled everything!” The children also recognized that their mothers had recorded the story, seeing their pictures and names in the beginning, which they really liked.

After we finished discussing the Busia book, we distributed the Lamu book, which arrived just that morning! The mamas were very excited to see what story the mothers from another community had recorded. The Lamu book – The White Spot – is about a couple who are unable to have a child. They go to see a traditional healer, who offers them a red rose (for a girl) or a purple rose (for a boy). After choosing the red rose, the healer warns them that the girl should not be rained on, and soon after they get a beautiful baby girl who they call Doajeupe – The White Spot. Doajeupe goes to school and one day walks home in the rain when her parents do not pick her up on time. A snake enters her body from the rain and consumes her until she cannot walk. The parents search for the healer, who turns out to be dead, and they go across the sea to find a queen to heal their daughter. When she does, Doajeupe marries the prince and everyone lives happily ever after.

After reading the story, the mothers discussed whether Doajeupe had gone back to school or if she entered into early marriage and left school. It was so interesting to see them discuss that it would be bad if she had not finished school! In the end they decided that it had taken so long to heal her that by the time she married she was too old to be in school anyway. After reading the Lamu description, we discussed how 90% of the people in Lamu are Muslim, and how they are currently taking a break from the program for Ramadan.

The mothers asked us during the meeting whether it would be possible to sell the Busia book in the community, as their friends are asking to buy a copy. The mamas argued that everyone would want a locally published story – this might be a great idea for the library to raise funds!

We asked the mamas whether their perception of the library had changed through the Mama-Mtoto program and one mama answered: “I have seen the library many times, but that is a place for kids and teachers, now I realize that it is a place for me as well.” It is so interesting to see how they are growing to love reading and the mamas said they would take their children to the library after the project was finished. Many mamas said that they only ever read the Bible, but now they actually want to read other books!

One mama said: “In my house, I would only think of reading a Bible. But now I find it interesting to read other books, it has definitely changed the attitude, there is a lot of sharing and happiness. I would never imagine I could enjoy anything else but now I can enjoy these things with my children.”

Another added: “My brain had gone to sleep completely, I would have never thought of picking up a book. But now I am awake, I want to read and my kids are also very excited they want to read more storybooks. They know now that there is a library and they will read more. The future is bright and I see reading in their future!”

It is clear that the Mama-Mtoto project has created a reading culture among the participants, which is extremely motivating to see!

After the focus group we conducted, we celebrated Harmke's 22^nd birthday with all the participants in the library! They sang for her, we ate cake, and we took a group photo. It was great to socialize with everyone for a while because this was my last Mama-Mtoto meeting!

On Friday we presented our research project to Maria and Esther at Maria's farm. We have almost finished the internship report which presents all of our results! It has been great to evaluate Mama-Mtoto and research how it could be improved next time.

It has been amazing to work with this project and I will definitely be keeping myself up to date with the progress that is made. I want to take this opportunity to thank Maria's Libraries for allowing me to work with the program and providing such a great learning opportunity! From now on, it will be Harmke keeping you all updated as she is staying in Busia for another two months.

Cheers,

Susan and Harmke

Mama-Mtoto Meeting: The Busia Book Arrives!

Dear all,

Another two weeks have passed and last Thursday we held the fifth Mama-Mtoto meeting (the second meeting Harmke and I attended). It was a nerve-wrecking few days before the meeting as we were trying to get the Busia book printed in time! After several samples with pages missing, crooked, and cut roughly we were anxious to see the state of the 18 books that were supposed to have arrived much earlier than they did – the morning of the meeting. Fortunately, they looked great! Super relieved and excited to show the mamas the story they had recorded in print form, we headed to the meeting. The mamas that came were much more timely this week, giving everyone more time to reflect on their experiences and also more time to admire the final product of the Busia story, The Wonders of Friendship. For those who are curious, the story is about three friends: a hare, a hyena, and a tortoise. The friends decide to plant and harvest groundnuts, but the hare keeps avoiding the workload. After the hyena and tortoise do all the work, the hare tries to get his hands on the final result: the groundnuts. Having anticipated this, the two friends had covered the granary containing the nuts with glue. The hare therefore got stuck as he attempted to break in, and that's where the story ends. The story is fully illustrated and written in four languages: English, Kiswahili, Kiteso, and Kisamia.

Before presenting the mamas with the book, we discussed the extra two weeks they spent with the Mcheshi Goes to School book. None of the mothers tried the clapping game (where the children have to clap when a certain word is read), and most did not do the color game (where the children have to point to a certain color on every page), although some did their own version of this game and others colored. The mothers said that the children loved the wordsearches! They wanted more of them, and also more difficult ones as some of the children said it was too easy.

Finally it was time to present the mamas with The Wonders of Friendship. They were all extremely happy to see them and clapped for us (a clap that should resonate to all those who contributed to the project in one way or another, well done!). For some minutes we just sat and looked at the book – the mamas happily seeing their picture and names on the second page (although only the names and pictures of those mamas who were present at the second meeting in June were in there, which is a bit of a shame. We will change this for the e-book). The plastic covers we had brought from Nairobi were, unfortunately, a bit too big for the books but we might be able to fix it with some tape. Esther read the book in Kisamia to everyone, and the Busia description at the end, only in English. The mamas were smiling throughout. After, all the mamas read the book together in Kiswahili.

The next assignment Esther gave was for the mamas to write a summary of the story in their notebooks. She gave them 10 minutes and the mamas nervously grabbed their pens. Many sneaked a peek into the book for help when Esther was out of the room – we told them that it wasn't a test and everyone laughed. Afterwards, one summary in each language was read out loud (only one mother wrote in English, most wrote in Kiswahili, and a couple in Kisamia). Since none of the mamas wrote in Kiteso, two mamas read part of the Kiteso text from the book.

Next Esther introduced the new activities for the Busia book: retrying the color pointing and clapping games, drawing “what happens next” (or a character from the book if the child is too young to understand), and a new wordsearch. Then Harmke and I had prepared another focus group for our own research project concerning the husband's response to, and interaction with, the Mama-Mtoto project. Finally, the meeting closed with refreshments and socializing.

As for the printing of the storybooks, the status is as follows: the Busia book has already been sent to Elangata Wuas and is currently being printed and sent to Garissa and Lamu (these two sites are not meeting in August because of Ramadan, so they are not in a rush to receive the books). Next is the Lamu book, which is also finished! We are having a sample sent here as soon as possible and then we can hopefully order the batch of books for Busia this week. The Elangata Wuas book is almost done and will be next in line after Lamu. Garissa will be printed last because it still requires some more editing work and we are missing some information from the site. All things considered the project is coming along well!

That's all the updates we have for now. You'll hear more from us in the coming two weeks!

Cheers,

Susan and Harmke

Video of the Garissa mobile library

I love this video about the mobile unit affiliated with the Garissa library. The mobile unit is a camel! Head librarian Rashid Farah explains how The camel is loaded with books and walks to area schools to lend books to children.

View the youtube video here.

Maria's Libraries is working with the library in Garissa to implement a literacy program (the Mama Mtoto Story Time Program, developed and implemented as a collaboration between Maria's Libraries and AfricaSOMA, and to which Harmke and Susan refer below). As part of this program we are producing four childrens' books, one from each community participating in the program. The one from Garissa is a traditional story told in Somali, and we will publish it as told in Somali, Swahili, and in English--all in one book!

Dear followers,

Our first two weeks in Busia are almost over, time is moving fast! Last week Thursday we were at the 4^th Mama-Mtoto meeting, and it was great to finally meet all the mothers and see their enthusiasm for the project!

For those of you that don't know what Mama-Mtoto is, I'll just give a short introduction. The Mama-Mtoto project is a parent-child literacy project which aims at teaching mothers how to read storybooks to their children, encourage cultural exchanges between the different sites at which the project is being held and publish a local story from each site as told by the mamas. The first phase of the project has already been completed, namely the recruitment of the mamas and the story telling. We are currently still in the printing phase of the Busia book and the editing phase of the Lamu, Garissa and Elangata Wuas book.

Our first Mama-Mtoto meeting (and the mamas' 4^th) was dedicated to the second in the series of books the mamas will be reading, Mcheshi Goes To School. Starting an hour and a half later than planned, the mothers were super enthusiastic once they we're all present in the library! We went around the group and each individual mama told us the experiences she had reading the book to her children and which activities she managed to do. The children loved drawing and some did a word game in which they had to match the letters of the alphabet to words in the book. Most of the kids liked the previous book, The Matatu Song, better than the Mcheshi book, but they still loved being read to nonetheless. All the mothers agreed that they couldn't read the book to their kids often enough, and they wish they had more time in a day to be able to teach their kids more through the books.

After discussing the mamas' experiences with Mcheshi Goes To School, Esther explained the new activities that were planned for the reading for the next meeting. Since the Busia book is not printed yet, we had to move up some of the activities. Susan created a Wordsearch for the children and we came up with some other games the mothers could play with their kids, relating to the Mcheshi book. The mothers were a bit dissapointed that the Busia book wasn't ready, but they were happy with the new activities.

We both really enjoyed the meeting, since the mothers were so eager to learn and full of pride because of the progress their children had made. One mother told us that her daughter's teacher had noticed the girl was more active in class and seemed to have progressed in 4 short weeks! However, the mamas also noticed that their neighbors and other mothers in their social circle wanted to join in on the project, and they were dissapointed to tell them the program was full. However, they told their friends that hopefully the project will run again next year and then more mamas and their watoto could enjoy the benefits of Mama-Mtoto!

After all the Mama-Mtoto excitement, Susan and I have been spending most of our time on cataloging all the books in the library. Esther previously had a file with all the books, but it was accidentally deleted and she hasn't had the time to redo it by herself, since Ednah has been on leave. We've finished most of the adult book section, only a small cupboard remains, and then it's on to the children's section! Besides Mama-Mtoto and cataloging, Susan and I want to reinstate the Monday reading tents, during which we will help Esther promote the library on Busia's main road, with a collection of books that people can browse through! We have lots more projects in the making, but so far we've been too busy to operationalize them. Hopefully, we'll have more time once the cataloging is done!

Cheers,

Harmke and Susan

First Impressions

Dear Maria's Libraries followers!

First, we should introduce ourselves. We are Susan Paardekam and Harmke Kruithof, the two new interns at Maria's Libraries in Busia! We are both from the Netherlands and have just graduated from University College Utrecht. We will be in Busia for 5 weeks (Susan) and 3 months (Harmke) so we will hopefully be able to update you on the blog for a while.

Our first impressions of Busia have been really positive – though we are still getting used to the hectic traffic and the dust (and, of course, people yelling “Mzungu!” at you), we are settling in quite well. We are starting to make our way around and have bargained down from the mzungu-price for the transportation (piki-piki is our favorite). Busia seems to be a vibrant, active border town where there is always something going on. We are excited to learn more about this place – especially since in our research we could barely find any information on this area.

We have visited the library several times now and Maria has also taken us to the new site. The dedication and persistence that the library staff shows is really incredible. Though the library is currently in quite a small space, it is clearly a safe space where the community can come and read. We have already seen a group of children laughing and chatting on the ground with a handful of books – their curiosity is definitely sparked by the environment and all of the colorful books around them (even if they are not always actually reading!).

The Mama-Mtoto project is going well – the only problem has been getting the books (local stories recorded by the mamas at every site) printed. Every site is at a different place in the schedule and Busia is the farthest ahead; they are evaluating Mcheshi Goes to School (the second and last pre-printed book) on Thursday. Since we cannot give them the Busia book yet, we decided in collaboration with Esther that we would give them new activities to do with the Mcheshi book. We came up with two games that can be played (Clapping whenever a certain word is read; Pointing out a certain color or item on every page) and a wordsearch with words from the story in English and Kiswahili to do as a separate activity.

Busia's book (The Wonders of Friendship) is nearly finished – we have our final meeting with Sammy, the illustrator, today and hopefully we can get it printed and shipped to all the sites next week. The books for Elangata Wuas (title unknown), Lamu (The White Spot), and Garissa (The Hyena and the Fox) are in the illustration and editing/formatting phase. From what we have seen so far, they all look amazing! I think the mamas at each site will be really proud of their work and impressed with the other books.

For our own research, Harmke and I are going to try to engage the mamas in a focus group discussion on Thursday, focusing on their experiences with the program so far as well as trying to see how the recruitment process went and what they think could be improved next time. We are also going to try to set up some individual interviews with the mamas outside of the Mama-Mtoto meetings, but since the mamas are very busy we do not yet know if this will be possible. We have not made a concrete research plan as of yet, but part of the research will include evaluating the various components of Mama-Mtoto and therefore participation of the mamas would be really helpful!

That's it for now from us – we have been in Busia for five days now (it seems like much longer because we have been so busy!) and keep being surprised by how much we like it here. A couple of weeks ago, we were reading the “Rough Guide of Kenya”, which only had a sentence or two about Busia: “This growing and increasingly bearable town...” Our expectations were thus a bit low – but they have been shattered and we are growing to love it here!

Cheers,

Susan and Harmke

Books as Objects

A great article by Alexandra Perloff-Giles about the various lives and uses of books. Thanks to Nivi for sharing!!

Update from the field: “The kids, they will kill me. Their books!”

Sad news on visiting the Busia library today. I arrived at the library this morning to see water coming out of the door. I pensively sat down outside to do some work while I waited for Esther, the librarian, who opened the door. Water everywhere! This government building, the Cooperative Development House, shut off its water last year, I guess because they didn’t need it anymore, having renovated its bathrooms into offices. Last weekend I supposed the building manager changed his mind—the water was turned on for testing and was never turned off. The resulting flood soaked the bottom shelf of the children’s section, and many of the books on it. We laid out all the books in the sun and separated all the pages, and Esther carried buckets of water out of the library.

What better evidence for the need for a new building!! As if we didn’t know it before, the library should be moved as soon as possible to a stand-alone building in which it has control over its own inventory. We are moving forward on this: after 3 (or 30, depending on how you’re counting) years, the land issues are finally settled. Disputes on the title deed have been settled. As of two weeks ago, the land is clear, peaceably, and Kenya National Library Service is set to build a fence around the library this month. The community has chosen an architect, Architronic, who has come up with a gorgeous concept design for the library. There is a great plan for sustaining the library for the generations it’s supposed to be open: KNLS has agreed to take over management as soon as the library is built. That means they’ll make sure its staffed with paid, trained librarians, that the electric and water bills are paid for, and that the needed changes come when needs change in Busia. One important change is happening right now: there’s a new university campus in Busia that just started holding classes. Students have already come by the library looking for study space and curriculum books.

After the emergency was over, I got from Esther the updated stats on the existing library. An average of 10 adults come each day to borrow books, which, depending on the popularity of the book and the number of copies in the library inventory, they can use at home for 3-14 days. 20-35 children come each weekday to read, but more like 50 on the weekends (the kids aren’t allowed to take books home). Esther and the library’s management committee, Family Support Services, must be credited with holding regular hours and keeping close watch on the existing library and its stock. They are stretching very scarce resources (fewer than 3000 books) and a very small space (~20ft x 20 ft) to serve quite consistently an impressive number. However, there are more than 40,000 people in Busia and 600,000 in the county. With more capacity, the library could offer books, services, programming, and computer access to a huge portion of the Kenyan population that currently has to drive nearly 3 hours to Kisumu for similar service.

So, all we need is a building. A fully-equipped, modern library capable of serving the county would cost about $300,000. Eva and I are writing grants for this but it’s a stretch—there are just so few funders who are interested in building projects. This effort will likely have to be done privately. So, that’s where you come in! Donate to build the new library in Busia. Send checks to

Maria’s Libraries

93 Sterling Street

Brooklyn, NY 11225

Send us a cash-free donation via MPesa on 0704 090 755 until July 8.

There is no overhead taken out on either of the above methods of donation!

Credit card donations may be securely made via Paypal.

Thanks so much. Let's get this thing done!

What is community based development? Part I: Thoughts

At dinner with friends in Kisumu a few weeks ago, the conversation turned, as it often does, to development. Friend A, currently doing a Masters at University of Nairobi was rolling his eyes about the idea of community based development. Since I couldn’t really see a problem with the idea, I asked what he meant by community based development. Friend B answered that community based development is when an NGO comes in with an idea and then makes the community contribute to the project for free so that they are committed to its success. No, no, no, Friend A said, that’s not what community based development is. He continued, Ok, maybe that is what it is, but that’s not supposed to be what it is. It’s supposed to be when the development community supports things that are going on in the local community.

Well, that sounds great. So why the eye roll? Well, because the reality is closer to what Friend B’s definition than the textbook definition. Why is it so hard to make sure that the priorities of the development community are in line with the priorities of the beneficiaries of the program?

Ok, so in this blog I’m going to think about this abstractly, then in part two I’ll think about it using examples of community based development that I’ve seen in action to illustrate this further—I hope to look at community development gone wrong, and community development gone right (that’s us!).

There’re two ways to look at this abstractly—one is to think about development theory and one about the practical realities of operating an NGO.

Theory: Development had long been understood as economic development, even more specifically as the transition into an industrial economy. The idea that development should be based on something else—maybe on improving people’s lives, maybe on expanding people’s rights or choices—has gained credence in the past few decades, and most NGOs are dedicated to these types of outcomes rather than industrial development.

However, in any of these approaches, development is fundamentally about changing people’s traditional relationships and networks—either their relationship to labor, as in economic development, or to each other and their political system, in a rights- based approach. If this is the case, if development is about promoting widespread transition into a modern economy, political system, or even social relations, then it would seem a community-based development system is actually antithetical to the goal.

Of course, in most communities there will be community leaders who are actively engaged in promoting these same goals. Is community-based development, then, finding those individuals with whom you share ideals to work with? That’s largely how we started in Busia. Neither Ariel nor I were looking for a development project to support, but Maria inspired us, and we love libraries, so we decided to help and it grew from there. But let’s be honest: Had Maria been passionate about, I don’t know, promoting respect of ancestors (providing for ancestors came up a lot in the 1990s Voices of the Poor report, in which the World Bank tried to ascertain the priorities of those they had been trying to help), I doubt we would have been involved.

In one line, the point is this: When international actors are involved, real community based development occurs when there is a convergence of interests between the development practitioner and the local partners.

Practically (but still abstractly!):
Who are the main actors in these international projects? Well, ok, this is extremely simplified, but for most NGOs, it looks something like this:

Funders—International NGO team—Beneficiaries

In community-based development, the international NGO should sort of be considered an intermediary between the beneficiaries and the funders. Not only should the NGO interests and the beneficiaries’ interest align, they have to align with the funders, who are most likely private foundations or wealthy individuals in the Western countries. But how is that practically possible? In Busia, Maria’s Libraries has the advantage that I lived there for over a year before starting this project. If we want to move outside Busia, how can we recreate that?

I’ll revisit that tomorrow, but for now, let’s assume that the International NGO can’t be merely an intermediary between the beneficiaries and the funders—they have to be more proactive than that. They have to introduce themselves into a community and find the community members that they are interested in their idea—be it an income-generating activity, a cultural activity, a health intervention, or something like a library.

They further have to convince the international donors that the project is something they should be interested in. If the NGO is lucky, they’ll have a donor that is open to persuasion. More likely than not, though, they will have to convince the donor that the project is in line with the goals of the funder—for example, the goals have to be something that the Rockefeller family is already interested in, or priorities that Carnegie, long dead, had when he was alive. Not only do they have to convince the donor that it’s within their goals, but with the emphasis on community based development, the NGO has to convince the donor that the beneficiaries are committed to the idea. Thus, in essence, the NGO has to convince the donor that the community’s interests are in line with the donor interests. But, practically speaking, they have to do this in a context where they don’t necessarily know the community that well. If you wish to work in a lot of areas, or at a national level like Maria’s Libraries, you simply can’t know each area that well.

So, with this practical consideration, what is community based development? In a line, it is this: Community based development is getting beneficiaries to be committed to the project, in visible or measurable ways. This is fundamentally different from basing development on ideas that are generated from the community. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but how that measureable commitment is garnered needs to be designed well. More on that tomorrow.

Ode to Nairobi Part II: Development vs. Standard of Living?

In Nairobi about a week ago, I had wine with a group of professional women, primarily expats. They were wonderful, interesting, dynamic women. There was a rule at the event, no complaining about Kenya. Of course, everyone complained about Kenya anyway.

These ladies all lived in Nairobi, some of them had been here for decades, others were new or had been here in the 70s and recently returned. The complaints about Nairobi echoed my own in an earlier blog—traffic problems, mostly. Crime featured prominently as well. Those who had been living here for long noted that things were relatively safer, while those who were here in the 70s reminisced about days when Nairobi was more like Kampala or Dar in terms of safety. The declining quality of the train service since 1977 was also a recurrent theme.

The real issue, though, was traffic. And these ladies, who had much longer histories with the city than I have, told me something interesting. Namely, that traffic in Nairobi had increased drastically in the past 5 years. This was the crux of the complaint—that the standard of living in Nairobi had decreased alongside the increase in traffic. Everybody in Kenya—expat or citizen, blames everything on corruption. So the poor infrastructure in Nairobi, its inability to handle its traffic, is blamed on corruption, just like everything else is blamed on corruption.

However, I think that’s not quite right. The increase in traffic in Nairobi is not a sign of underdevelopment, actually, it’s a sign of development. And apparently of rapid development. If traffic was not this bad 5 years ago, it’s because fewer people had cars. So I’ll amend my earlier rant a bit with two caveats.

First, in subsequent conversations about the possibility of a subway in Nairobi, I realized that the New York City subway system is older than the city of Nairobi. Ok, so the point there is that Nairobi is a rapidly urbanizing place and keeping up with rapid urbanization is a problem anywhere in the world.

Second, these infrastructure problems should not be blamed on corruption. Sure, corruption doesn’t help, but if we expected countries to develop without corruption, no country anywhere would ever develop. Rather, these infrastructure problems are a problem of transition. The same problem exists in all rapidly developing or urbanizing places—Mexico City, Bangalore, Jakarta, and on and on. Countries with weak institutions always have trouble keeping up with quickly changing scenarios—that Nairobi is no exception should not be surprising.

Now on to crime. Well, crime is so complicated. My leap of faith in doing development has always been that I believe that gross inequality is wrong, so I’m going to point the finger at that—slums in Nairobi are not very far from some of the city’s riches areas (see Raila Odinga’s Langata constituency for one)—however, rising inequality does not necessarily mean that a country is stagnating; in fact it could mean that it is growing—although it may mean that growth is being mismanaged (maybe by government corruption, maybe by a rampant private sector, maybe both).

Ok, so if we posit that these problems are a sign of development rather than of underdevelopment, this leads me to a question that all those in the development world must tackle at some point: Can development be inimical to the quality of people’s lives? Of course, the obvious follow-up question is, whose life are you talking about? Is the headache of increased traffic for those who used to enjoy clear roads offset by the convenience for the new car owners?

At my last job at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, we framed our research around the question that encapsulates many of these paradoxes well: How can we promote the positive aspects of development while minimizing the negative impacts? That, of course, is the right question, but unpacking it may be impossible. Whose negative impacts and whose positive impacts? I certainly don’t know the answer.

In any case, I’m still going to be based in Kisumu and avoid Nairobi. But now I’ll have to give a proper thought for why I like it—personally, do I want it to develop and grow, to take full advantage of the opening up of the East African Community and get some industry and trade going across Lake Victoria with Uganda and Tanzania? Or do I want it to remain as is, so that I can ride my bike across town in 20 minutes, or walk to the shores of the lake to watch the sunset surrounded by greenery and flanked by exotic birds. What if they replace hippo point with a new ferry terminal? Or build a fish processing plant at Dunga Beach? Will that increase people’s standards of living? And whose standard of living will it increase?

What is it about libraries? Part II

Why are people so generous with their time and resources to help us out? As I mentioned, I’ve never had a response to a project that I’ve been working on like the one we are having with this library. A friend joked that it was because librarians are naturally helpful, and asking them for advice about libraries is something they’ve been waiting for their whole lives. But actually this is something a bit different—it’s not just librarians who are interested in this project, it’s everyone we tell about it.

Ariel and I like to quote Benjamin Franklin in our fundraising spiels. Franklin started the first library in America, saying it was essential for a democracy. We also like to quote Robert Putnam’s work on social capital, and the importance of public spaces. I think all of that is right, but I don’t think that people have primarily reacted to this project on an intellectual level. It’s been personal. So here is my hypothesis about why this project has been so universally appealing (and why so many people are putting themselves out for us!).

I’m going to posit a couple of answers. First, in the States, everyone understands the importance of libraries. We all have used them, and there are famous examples of writers who really developed their literary selves (and escaped poverty!) at public libraries—for me Jack Kerouac and Jack London stand out. We also probably all have some sort of personal connection to someone for whom access to libraries was or is life changing. For me, that person is my mother. She grew up in rural Louisiana and often got in trouble for reading in school during class—a joke among her siblings is to scream at each other “Quit reading!” DeQuincy, Louisiana was, and is, a typical American lower-class town where people were expected to end up not far from where they were. The library for my mother was a haven from her chaotic household, and a window to the outside world. My mother still considers the DeQuincy Public Library a sacred haven, a space that was actually home to her in her childhood. So this theory is safe public space cum gateway to another world.

I think stories like that resonate well with Americans, in a sense we have these stories in our blood. We may not explicitly realize it, but in America libraries are everywhere. I looked up the number of public libraries some time back to see how many libraries we would have to build in Kenya to equal the number per capita in the US. Taking into account the 54 Kenya National Library Services libraries, we would need to build over 2,000 libraries.

Given this dirth, I’m not sure if Kenyans have the same association with libraries that Americans who have universally had experiences with them have. However, the support here has at least matched the support we’ve had back at home. So there’s got to be something there. What is it?

Ok, so partially the public space thing is relevant. When we visit libraries here, they are full of people studying and reading newspapers. When I say full, I mean these libraries are clearly not big enough—they are chock full of people. These people may not be using the library to it’s full potential—I am told users are primarily studying for exams. But it’s a place to sit and read, and people need that.

But I think primarily the button that this pushes in both the US and Kenya is the same, and again it’s something different. This project inspires people’s imaginations—here, I’m not talking about any particular book. I’m talking about the idea of thousands of books, on all different topics, available to people for free. The possibilities are endless and you don’t have to think about any one thing to be inspired. That is the point, you think of millions of things, things you don’t even know to think about.

Whatever the reason that we’ve had so much positive response for this project, I love being a part of it.

What is it about libraries? Part I

I have worked on a lot of projects that I’ve been extremely enthusiastic about, and that other people have been excited about too. But I’ve never worked on something where the response has been quite so positive and overwhelming as this library project. People get excited about public libraries. In this blog, I’ll do a quick review of that excitement, from the experience that Ariel and I have had since founding Maria’s Libraries. In the next blog I’ll hypothesize about why.

In 2006 when I was living in Busia, I sent a note to some friends that there was a library that I wanted to help get books for. I clearly didn’t anticipate the response I was going to get, because when all the books came in, we had no idea how to get them over. In the end, my mother donated the inheritance money she got from my grandmother to ship them over.

In 2008 Ariel and I “launched” the idea of Maria’s Libraries as an organization at a dinner party at my apartment in Brooklyn. We invited a group of people we knew, socially conscious smart friends mostly, to ask them what, how and if we should start an organization. From that dinner party, we got a name, a website, two pro bono lawyers, two fundraising events, and more advice than I can easily describe.

Second, we solicited advice from other library NGOs working in resource poor settings, funders and US libraries. Everyone was perfectly happy to go over and above what we were requesting to help us—none of that competition that often plagues NGOs. We spent hours on the phone with Africa Soma, Friends of African Village Libraries, librarians from Columbia University, the American Library Association and the public library systems in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC. Rookaya Bawa from the Carnegie Corporation hosted us for breakfast at Carnegie. A whole team of librarians at Columbia University spent several hours filling my head with information and ideas. Students at Columbia’s Earth Institute talked to us about sustainable building. There was only one disappointing response, from a pretty major player in the world of developing libraries internationally, but we learned from their non- willingness to chat as well.

Through later conversations, a friend designed our logo, another friend re-did our website, a pediatrician is doing book collections at this office, we have books stored at friends’ tiny apartments all over New York City, as well as Texas, Maine and Philadelphia. Publishers have sent us books. The woman who runs the Library of Congress Nairobi office lets us stay with her when we are in Nairobi. An architect came over to coordinate the design process. We did spend a lot of time soliciting advice and assistance among our compatriots, but a great deal of what we’ve gotten has been people approaching us, wanting to offer their skills to their project.

And we have gotten all of this for astonishingly close to free.

So that’s in the US. In Kenya the response has also been overwhelming. We’ve been on the National News and the radio. Local publishers are excited to host us on their website, and community members in Busia are working very hard with no renumeration. When we sent out a notice to architects for tender, one of the responses was simply someone thanking us for the work we are doing—he was not interested in the tender. Perhaps most significantly is the telecommunications engineer has offered to hook up all the libraries that we work with for free, and when I was talking to him about the project, he got so excited that he offered to procure the funds for an entire new library in his home village of Ahero, which we are currently working with the Ahero town council to develop. I approached an organization called Kenya Book Foundation to tell him about the library, and he let me know that they sell books (and they're not that cheap, either), so I walked away disappointed. A few weeks, later, the man I talked to called me back, asking me when the Harambe in Busia was and berating me for not demanding donations (which, I am now led to believe, they will give). So the donation tracked me down. . .

I am forcing myself to stop—the list could go on and on, but I’m sensing it might get boring. All in all, the only real challenge that people throw at us about this project is the refrain that there is not a reading culture in Kenya. That discussion is always circular: why would you supply books when people don't read/ why would people read when there are no books. But even in the context of that discussion, people are enthusiastic about the project.

All that is a long way to lead up to the question: What is it about libraries? Why does it galvanize people in such positive ways? Your thoughts welcome!

Karibu Ellie and The Great Book Migration

We are very pleased to announce the arrival of Eleanor Kebabian to our lovely Busia-based team. Ellie is a Boston-based architect who has kindly offered to come and help coordinate get the plans drawn for the library in Busia. She will be working with Nairobi-based architects, the community members who have been active in the library project in Busia, and the Busia district and town planners to come up with a design that can be a source of pride for the Busia community (and which follows all Kenyan regulations!).

Ellie also joins the ranks of those who have lugged books half way across the world for us to the library. However, I think she single handedly doubled the contribution we had made to date by convincing Delta to allow her to bring 500 lbs of books on the plane with her for free! There’s a long list of people we have to thank for this, so let’s go in order:

Thanks to the many individuals, churches, and publishers who donated so many books.

Thanks to Ellie’s family for helping her pack the books and get them to the airport.

A HUGE thanks to Delta for agreeing to let her bring 300lbs on the airplane, and then not blinking when she showed up with 500lbs.

Thanks to the dudes at the airports in Boston and Nairobi for helping her lug them to/from baggage.

Thanks to the director of the Library of Congress’s Nairobi office for helping us arrange transport for the books once in Nairobi and for letting us crash at her house with all that luggage!

Thanks to Maria Wafula who used her wile to get them sent to Busia via Akamba bus for a ridiculously low cost.

Thanks to the boda bodas who loaded up their bikes to bring them from the bus station in Busia to the library (see photograph!).

And of course, thanks especially to Ellie for organizing all of this. The books are of unbelievable quality and range, any community anywhere would be lucky to have them.

Let’s review—for the well over 1,000 books (we are still catelogueing/counting them) Ellie brought to the library, we paid 700 Ksh (less than 10$) to ship them from Nairobi to Busia on Akamba bus and about 300 Ksh (less than 5$) to get them to the library once they were in Busia. An international team effort!

I hope Ellie will start to grace this blog with her thoughts, so keep an eye out for that!

Can local philanthropy work?

Libraries are not income generating. I remember as a child thinking that money generated by late fines were what sustained my local library. The idea amazed me and for good reason—ensuring library use is truly public means that there’s no way that fees from users can sustain the library. Any publicly funded enterprise requires a tricky balance between sustainability and access. This has been something we have come up against time and time again when trying to figure out a sustainability plan. Of course, public funding and attaching something to the library plot like an office complex or a row of shops can go a long way to fund the library’s activities. But for it to truly be able to grow, we suspect that the library services in Kenya can take a page out of the book of library networks in other parts of the world: they need a philanthropic network. Of course, in essence Maria’s Libraries is a philanthropic network, funneling international funding into these projects. But does Kenya really have to rely solely on the notoriously fickle flow of funding from abroad? Is it possible to raise funds locally?

We think that a philanthropic network is possible in Kenya. A sustained effort at funding an ongoing project might be a bit foreign to Kenya outside its churches, but there certainly is a tradition for raising money. Usually, fundraisers are organized in parties called Harambe. People pledge money to help an individual put up a house, help a church buy a motorbike, send a child to school in Kenya or even in America, and quite often to pay for funerals. What we are trying to do is somewhat different—we want funds to build the library, but we also want people to consider contributing every year to help sustain the library. This is not a one-off enterprise, it requires a commitment for as long as the library is in existence.

So we’re going to try it. We have several plans. First, we are having a Harambe on April 3 in Busia. Maria and co are asking Busia-ites to buy bricks (which go for 10 Kenyan shillings, or about 14 cents each) for the building and to bring books to the Harambe to donate to the library. They’re asking individuals but we’re also approaching small self-help and micro finance groups that may have trouble contributing individually but as a group can make a contribution. Second, we’re going to do something similar in Nairobi, organized by the Friends of the Busia Community Library in Nairobi, a group of professionals who live in Nairobi but are from Busia. Finally, we hope to get the Kenyan diaspora involved if we can.

I do sometimes wonder if there are ethical issues involved here. Busia is a poor community—according to government statistics, 65% of the population is in absolute poverty, defined as less than a dollar a day. Do we really need their money? I have trouble with projects that require a certain amount of labor from the local community to “prove” their commitment and create a sense of ownership over the project. I don’t feel the community has anything to prove—the support from Kenyans all over the country has been overwhelming. I know they want libraries, especially in Busia where dozens of people attend our planning meetings, the local politicians make speeches on our behalf, and a team of volunteers had kept the library open with regular hours for 7 months and counting with no renumeration. I do agree that a sense of ownership over the library will make people value it more, and I hope they honestly feel it’s their library (the slogan for our fundraiser in Busia is: It’s your Library!). But actually, we probably could raise the money entirely outside the country with less difficulty than a fundraiser here is causing us. And, although there are relatively wealthy people in Busia, for the most part the donors in America would feel it much less than here.

But we hope that people get used to donating to the library. Of course they understand that funding needs to come from somewhere, but we hope that they connect it to themselves. And who knows, maybe we will raise a truly significant amount of money for the library. Watch this space, will report back!

What should we think of the Kenyan government? Part III

Yesterday, I went to Busia’s District Development Committee meeting with Maria and a few others from the library. We presented our project to the Committee, which consists of all relevant government and civil society bodies in the region. Maria was nervous for the day, saying that it was the forum for securing local political support for the project.

The District Commissioner opened the meeting with a prayer, saying he hoped that the group could leave Busia better than they found it. In his opening remarks, he noted that an NGO was present. He thanked us for being there, saying that Busia is completely saturated with NGOs but they rarely tell the Committee or even just him, the District Commissioner, what they were doing. It makes it difficult, he said, to manage development in the region, since local government initiatives might be overlapping or even contradicting what the NGOs were doing. What better anecdote to start a consideration of how we should interact with government at all levels that to consider that thought.

The truth is, parts of the government are corrupt and inept, for a variety of reasons, not all of them in the control of any particular individual. But that doesn’t matter. Non governmental organization may exist to supplement what governments are able to do. But they are not supposed to replace or exclude government—by including them, problems and all, NGOs can support the development of political systems in addition to their primary work. For example, governments can consider how their programs can be more effective based on how they can positively interact with NGOs. In my small experience in Busia, they are happy to do so.

At the same time, however, we want our project to run as smoothly as possible, without lengthy delays that might result from relying on government. So how do we marry these two?

First, there are different arms of government. Kenya National Library Services is a parastatal, which has the capacity to manage the library and a proven effectiveness at doing so. We are thrilled to be working with them, and hope that the local communities concerns can be successfully integrated with KNLS guidelines (more on that in future blogs!).

With local government, Maria has faced many disappointments, some of which I’ve outlined in the past few blogs. Promised Community Development Funds have never materialized, land politics have abounded and seemingly arbitrary boundaries have complicated the “public” nature of the library. However, at the same time the mayor, town council members, and other local politicians have all pledged their support and we see no reason to keep them out. How we will integrate them, though, will be critical to our timeline. We’ve decided that we do want community development funds—this type of project is exactly what they were created to fund. However, we’re not going to wait for them to start building. Instead, we’ll ask for something that could greatly enhance the library’s functionality, but won’t hold us back if it doesn’t come through in a timely manner. In particular, we’re asking members of parliament from both sides of Busia’s road for a vehicle for a mobile library. We could run several programs for communities in areas that have trouble travelling to Busia, like computer training classes, writing contests, programs to develop research skills, and book loans. But if it takes 3 years to go through, we can carry on with our other activities without worrying. This way, we both make this a government project and avoid many of the fall-backs that working with government can entail.

I don’t see any reason to try to avoid working with government, though at times it can be frustrating. Over time, we can build successful relationships and hopefully strengthen the capacity of those who are charged with leaving Busia a better place than they found it.

What should we think of Kenyan government part II: Tribalism and politics

In my last blog, I offered our land dilemma in Busia as an example of the complicated relationship between corruption and good governance. Today’s example is somewhat different. It’s less clearly a case of corruption as in the land example, and more a case of political patronage or tribalism. It’s also probably a story that’s not quite over yet.

Kenya is governed in administrative districts, and there are smaller units within those districts called divisions. There is one Member of Parliament per district, and the number and boundaries of districts are therefore a subject of contentious political debate. The districts were recently redrawn, and may once again be redrawn in the new constitution that is currently being developed in Kenyan parliament.

The town of Busia is somewhat unhelpfully located between two districts. Busia township lies along a road that runs from the coast into Uganda and Congo. That road is the only paved road in Busia, and the town has largely developed on either side of the road. However, the road is also the district boundary. One side of that road is Nambale District (largely inhabited by the Luhya people) and the other side of that road is Teso District (largely inhabited by the Teso people). This means there are two Members of Parliament who represent Busia. One might think that is a good thing, but it introduces a great deal of politics into the way the town develops. Many Busia-ites think of the town as one entity, but since public resources are allocated according to that boundary, for some crucial purposes many think of it according to the political boundary. For example, the Nambale district headquarters are located on the Teso district side of the road—they were built in a time when there were different boundaries. The MP from Teso only half-jokingly told me that the entire Nambale District administration was squatting in his district.

How does this relate to the library? Another piece of Kenya- specific administration is necessary here. Some years back, the national government created a decentralized fund in order to promote local development called the Community Development Funds (CDF funds). These funds are administered at the district level. They have been subject to charges of rampant corruption and all of that—this will be the incorporated into my next blog, so for now I’ll leave a fuller discussion of CDF funds aside. The MP from Teso is very approachable and comes to Busia every weekend to meet with his constituents. The MP from Nambale is less so, and despite our efforts we have not been able to meet with him.

When we talked to the MP from Teso, he was excited about the library. He was full of ideas and was thinking about plots of land in his district that he could set aside for the library. When we told him that we were trying to get the title deed for the KNLS plot of land, which is on the Nambale side of the road, his attitude changed completely. “Oh,” he said, slowly shaking his head, “I can’t help you if you build there.” Maria reminded him that this is a community library, it’s not for any particular group and Teso will benefit just as much as all other parts of the larger Busia community. The MP was apologetic, but, he said, it doesn’t matter. If he allocates one single shilling to that side of the road, his Teso constituency won’t elect him again--why should "they" (the Luhya) benefit? He was quite frank about it and I respected his candid comments. He said he’d help us in other ways, using his political influence to push the land issue (before we had it settled) or think about ways to work with the MP for Nambale. But he could not openly support a community library located 50 meters from the Teso District boundary.

Again, we face a paradox. Clearly the MP's refusal to openly support anything on the wrong side of the street is anti-development. Is this an example of patronage, even a sort of tribalism since the Teso people are technically different than the largely Luhya Nambale? Or is this political reality? The administrative units are poorly drawn, yet this sort of democracy is really set up to be a patronage or tribalist system—and it’s based largely on the US system, with a legal code largely inherited from the UK. I have no reason to doubt that the MP from Teso is committed to the idea of the library. But what can he do to help? His incentive is to be re-elected, and a certain form of tribalism is necessary for that. I guess it’s not so different than Iowa Senators who advocate for agribusiness or Virginia Senators who can’t get over coal.

Can this be related to the 2007 stolen election and resulting violence that exploded largely on tribal lines? Of course there's no easy parallels, but at the same time how can it not be related? If political boundaries are drawn around tribal lines, than the politically disenfranchised will also be drawn around tribal lines.

As I said, the story of the MPs and the library in Busia is probably not over yet. I still hope to meet the MP from the other side of the street, and I still hope that we are able to work with both of them. Watch this space.