Strength from others' courage

In which Stephen Lewis reminds me (i) why I admire what he does and (ii) why I'm doing this Dare To Remember.

It's easy to get cynical (I do all the time) about the hype and posturing surrounding "development" and "aid". But I'm a human being, and other human beings I know -- and many I don't -- are dealing with HIV and AIDS in their families and communities. It's not so easy to sit by when we focus on it for a few minutes.

One thing I admire about Stephen Lewis is that he shines through the hype, about issues and even about himself (he's a celebrity, after all). He doesn't let anyone get away with posturing, either.

Here's a recent clip: http://watch.ctv.ca/news/top-picks/inspirational/#clip389095

Thanks for reading and listening. (More posts to come.)

Can’t stop now…

Believe it or not, it’s been a month since I started my Dare To Remember for the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

My Dare was to create this blog and to post on it every day for a month. That was a month ago.

It’s been 31 days -- of remembering, learning about and writing about amazing people. They’re people who, if we listen to them, can change the way we perceive "Africa." The challenges that are part of the context of their lives, like HIV and AIDS, inequity and violence, exist but they aren't the sum of the continent. There's a lot more going on.

For me, this past month has also been a month of many hours in front of the computer, insufficient sleep, new skills like html, lots of coffee, and the hope that I might put words together in a way that would do justice to the people whose writing or art or activism I was writing about, and would be interesting to readers.

And sometimes it did feel like a marathon. Some days, I had an idea of who I’d write about that day. Other days, I’d be up until late at night researching possibilities, or searching for photos or one last bit of information that would clinch a post, or just finding the time to write.

But it’s also been kind of addictive. I’ve learned about and met some great people and been fascinated by what each one has done or has to say. And thanks to you who've read this blog, I haven't felt alone. I'm thrilled that dozens of people have visited this blog, from North America, the UK and Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Russia and Australia.

Some of you have also contributed financially to the Stephen Lewis Foundation through my Dare page -- and thank you for that, too. (It’s not too late to make a donation if you’re so inclined – and it would be much appreciated by the people at the Stephen Lewis Foundation and in the communities they support in Africa that are dealing with HIV and AIDS.)

Obviously, I've been thinking about what happens tomorrow. I'm somewhat relieved to see that the Stephen Lewis Foundation is continuing its A Dare To Remember campaign at least through December (so people can still run marathons or grow sideburns). So I think I’ll continue this blog for a while. I won’t post every day, out of consideration for my family and for those of you who have made valiant attempts to read the posts. But I have a few more interesting people to write about, so please stay tuned.

Until tomorrow (or maybe the next day or two),
Denise

http://www.adaretodiscover.blogspot.com/





Global grandmothers

I started this blog to highlight the work of Africans who are providing new or alternative perspectives about the continent. But I also started it to support the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s A Dare To Remember Campaign, which assists communities in Sub-Saharan Africa dealing with HIV/AIDS.

AIDS is not an “African” issue – it’s a global one. Nor is it the only health issue facing Africans. But HIV/AIDS is part of the picture for all too many people.

December 1 is World AIDS Day. So I’m going to write today's and tomorrow's posts about people who are dealing with the challenges of HIV and AIDS in their daily lives.

In yesterday’s post I referred to the value of listening to the stories of communities. Stories are important: they help us imagine ourselves in someone else’s place. Stories allow us to glimpse each other’s realities. That’s the first step in understanding not only how other people’s lives are different, but how they are similar to our own.

Here’s one story: that of Maria Mhlongo, a grandmother in South Africa.

Pius Adesanmi, a Nigerian writer and academic who has written about the idea of “Africa” (and who I'll feature in an upcoming post), commented to me that some things that we think of as “African” are on closer look, human qualities.

Some people reflect those shared qualities. I want to mention in particular the "Kilimanjaro Grannies." They are six Canadian grandmothers living in and around Ottawa who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2007 to raise money for HIV/AIDS. The climb was the idea of Gisele Lalonde Mansfield, who decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in memory of her brother Michel who died of AIDS in 1995. She heard two African grandmothers interviewed on Canada AM and contacted the Stephen Lewis Foundation to offer support.

Mansfield was joined on the adventure by Liza Badham, Trudy Stephen, Tina Cuerrier, Barbara Carriere and Janet Carrière. Together they’ve raised $84,000 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign. They’re also raising funds to build a camp in Eastern Ontario for people living with HIV and AIDS, and their families. The Kilimanjaro Grannies have written a book about their experience, called Kilimanjaro: A Purposeful Journey. More information is available at www.kiligrannies.com.

AIDS is a global issue, and caring and supporting are univeral traits.

"A literary and social activist"

I set out to write this blog as a fundraiser for the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s A Dare to Remember campaign, thinking that a month would be a long time. Now that I have just over a week left of blogging every day for a month, I’m wondering how I can possibly cover everything I'd like to. There are so many people who are telling us stories of Africa, and suggesting to us the promise of Africa.

So I’ll just start with one person: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.

Photos courtesy of http://www.ngugiwathiongo.com/

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is one of Africa’s most well-known writers -- his biography would fill up more than one blog post.



He’s an internationally celebrated Kenyan novelist, essayist, theorist, playwright, journalist, editor, academic and activist. He is currently Distinguished Professor of the Departments of Comparative Literature and English at the University of California, Irvine.

His first three novels, Weep Not Child, The River Between and A Grain of Wheat, are classics. He has published several volumes of literary essays and numerous other novels, short stories and children's books.

wa Thiong'o's books are literary achievements, but they are also challenges. His novel Petals of Blood, according to his website biography, "painted a harsh and unsparing picture of life in neo-colonial Kenya," and his play, Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want), written with Ngugi wa Mirii in "the language of people’s daily lives," was "sharply critical of the inequalities and injustices of Kenyan society." After its publication in 1977, wa Thiong’o was arrested by Kenyan authorities and imprisoned without charge until 1978.

While in prison, he made the decision to write only in Kikuyu, his first language, rather than English, even though he was already a well-known and influential writer in English.

From then, his message has consistently been the necessity of writing in African languages. He addressed this in Decolonising the Mind (1984), for example, and in Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance (2009), in which he writes about Africa's "dismemberment" through colonisation during which local languages were suppressed, and the need to reclaim local languages in order to "re-member Africa."

In a speech at the 6th Pan-African Reading For All Conference in 2009, wa Thiong’o remarked that throughout the world, colonisers have replaced local languages with their own. As a result, ..."a handful of western languages…dominate in the production and dissemination of ideas; they dominate in publishing and distribution and consumption of knowledge; they control the flow of ideas. Intellectuals who come from the supposedly lesser languages find that, to be visible globally, they must produce and store ideas in Western European languages, English mostly. In the case of most intellectuals from Africa and Asia, they become visible on the world stage but simultaneously invisible in their own cultures and languages. Global visibility comes at the price of local or regional invisibility."

wa Thiong'o continues: "The death of any language is the loss of knowledge contained in that language. The weakening of any language is the weakening of its knowledge-producing potential. It is a human loss…. Each language, no matter how small, contains the best knowledge of its immediate environment: The plants and their properties, for instance. Language is the primary computer with a natural hard drive."

For wa Thiong'o, "To know one’s language, whatever that language is, and add others to it, is empowerment. But to know all the other languages while ignorant of one’s own is slavery."

wa Thiong'o published Wizard of the Crow in 2006 (a translation of his novel Murogi wa Kagogo), and Dreams in a Time of War in 2010. He also created and edits the Kikuyu language journal Mutiiri, and continues to write and speak internationally. His website is http://www.ngugiwathiongo.com/.

Troubadour

Today’s post is for my kids, who are tired of seeing me sit at the computer for my Dare To Remember. Their absolutely most favourite song right now is K"NAAN’s "Wavin' Flag".

It’s worth listening to the original version of the song, if you haven’t. Here’s a recorded version, followed by a live performance at Toronto’s Manifesto Festival in 2008 (give both a listen if you can, especially the second which tells an important story from his childhood in Somalia):






Also check out K'NAAN's interview with George Stroumboulopoulos on The Hour on CBC, where he explains where the image of a waving flag came from:



K'NAAN grew up in Somalia and Canada, but what the heck -- he's a pretty global guy.

Planting Ideas

Wangari Maathai, Kenya, October 2004
Photo by Mia MacDonald

It’s 10:30 at night and I have until midnight to write today’s post. That’s the deal I made with myself – to write one blog post every day to raise funds for the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

Well, the day is almost over and all I can think of is the immensity of the task I set for myself. What was I thinking, that I could even scratch the surface of African insight? Every topic I’ve thought of today is complex, every person on my list of people to write about has such significant contributions that I don’t see how I can do them justice.

But, that’s the reason for doing A Dare To Remember, I guess. Pushing oneself, doing what seems "impossible".

So, I thought I’d go back to the source. Back to my first encounters with the work of people that led me to new ways of seeing, to new possibilities.

Back to Wangari Maathai.

Wangari Maathai, environmental and political activist, and winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. The first African woman recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, in fact. And the first woman to earn a PhD in East and Central Africa (in 1971) and to head a university department in Kenya (the Department of Veterinary Anatomy at the University of Nairobi, in 1976). And founder of the Green Belt Movement.

I first learned about Wangari Maathai when I was doing graduate studies on social aspects of agriculture and forestry in Sub-Saharan Africa. I learned about the Green Belt Movement, a non-profit organisation which Maathai started in Kenya in 1997. Then, it was a grassroots organisation that promoted tree planting. It became a pan-African movement, and then a global one.

The Green Belt Movement continues to promote environmental protection but in doing so also advocates for human rights, democracy and peace. By planting trees -- over 40 million across Africa so far – the Movement has restored forests and reduced erosion. Moreover, according to the Green Belt Movement, "hundreds of thousands of women and their families are standing up for their rights and those of their communities and so are living healthier, more productive lives."



Wangari Maathai’s accomplishments are astounding. She has won a long list of international awards, and sits on numerous international committees and boards. She served in Kenya’s parliament and as Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural Resources from 2003-2007. In 2005, Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2006, she founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative with several other Nobel Peace Laureates.

She’s written several books, including Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World (2010), The Challenge for Africa (2009), Unbowed: A Memoir (2006), and The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (2003). She continues to publish articles and to speak on environmental issues.

See what I mean by not being able to do justice to a person's contributions?

"The planting of trees is the planting of ideas. By starting with the simple act of planting a tree, we give hope to ourselves and to future generations." – Wangari Maathai


Wangari Maathai planting a tree at
the Outspan Hotel, Nyeri, Kenya to mark
the launch of her autobiography,Unbowed
Photo by Wanjira Mathai, 2006
  

"It takes children to raise a village"

A grandmother from Nyaka
Photo: Tinyan Outomagie
Courtesy Stephen Lewis Foundation

I was working on today’s post when I received an e-mail message from the Stephen Lewis Foundation – intended, I think, as moral support for those of us doing A Dare To Remember (which was the impetus for this blog – see "About A Dare to Discover" on the right).

The e-mail message contained a report from Twesigye Jackson Kaguri, the executive director of the Nyaka AIDS Orphan School in Uganda. Nyaka is one of the grassroots projects that the Stephen Lewis Foundation supports. It runs schools for children orphaned by AIDS and support groups for the grandmothers who look after the children.

Twesigye Jackson Kaguri writes:

"I just came back from meeting with the Grandmothers. One of the Gatherings had more than 7,000 grandmothers. I was overtaken by tears watching these women who have worked so hard but never had any breakthroughs in their lives. When they thanked Nyaka for helping them build their houses, I told them about the Foundation. The grannies then took us to see their new homes. It started raining while I was standing in one grass thatched house. A grandmother said to us, ‘Whenever it rains, I go to the toilet.’ It was the toilet that Nyaka had constructed for her. It was the only structure with an iron sheet roof, the only refuge from the rain for her and her grandchildren. I often hear from the grannies that their grandchildren sleep with their shoulders hunched over their school uniforms so they can protect their uniforms from getting dirty and wet from the rain coming in through holes in their roofs. As we come close to finish visiting their homes, we are reminded of those who are still in need. Our hope is to raise more funds so we can continue to build more needed houses for these lovely grannies. Thank you for your love, care, and support. The best is yet to come."

I did a bit more research and discovered that Nyaka has a website. Twesigye Kaguri also has an interesting story. He was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in the U.S., with a promising career ahead of him, when he learned that his brother had died of HIV/AIDS. He returned to Uganda to look after his brother’s children, and then the child of his sister, who died the following year. He and his wife built a school for local AIDS orphans, then realised they also had to provide health care and other services for the community so that the children could stay in school. The Nyaka website quotes Kaguri putting a new twist on a familiar saying: "It takes children to raise a village."




I don’t know the Nyaka project, but I do know that HIV/AIDS is a heavy burden on people in the region. When I was working with a development organisation a few years ago that had projects in Uganda, I watched not one but two colleagues – both university department heads – become ill and pass away. I was at a loss as to how to help their families; but I know it has something to do with strengthening support systems in communities, and improving access to health and social services, not just for people who are ill but for their families and extended families as well.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation’s message to me ends by saying, "the money you raise has a concrete and long-lasting impact on the lives of grandmothers, women, and children orphaned by AIDS. Your money goes directly to these projects that resurrect life and restore hope. Now that is something courageous worth doing!"

I don’t feel too courageous except when I ask that you consider making a donation to the Foundation through my Dare page. Or look through some of the other dares and support someone whose dare appeals to you – or sign up for your own dare! Or at least come back and visit this site again. I’m grateful for any time you can spend here!

And the post I had been working on before I got the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s e-mail message? Well, let’s just say I have a head start on tomorrow’s post.

Welcome to A Dare to Discover!

I started this blog because I dared myself to. My "blog dare" is part of the Stephen Lewis Foundation's A Dare to Remember Campaign.

The Stephen Lewis Foundation (http://www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/) seeks to "turn the tide" of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa by supporting small local organisations working in communities in Africa. These groups provide counselling and education about HIV prevention and treatment; distribute food and medication; reach the sick through home-based health care; help orphans and vulnerable children access education and work through their grief; and support grandmothers caring for their orphaned grandchildren. The Stephen Lewis Foundation has funded over 300 projects in 15 countries since 2003.

Statistics don't tell the whole story, but of the 33 million people worldwide living with HIV, 22 million live in Sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 1 in 20 adults in Africa are living with HIV, and about 15 million children have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS. While I was working in Africa I lost several colleagues -- professionals with promising careers and young families -- to HIV/AIDS.

A Dare to Remember asks ordinary Canadians to dare to do acts of courage, ingenuity, determination or strength to show their solidarity with Africans facing HIV/AIDS, to create a conversation about HIV/AIDS, and to raise funds for the Stephen Lewis Foundation's work.

You can't call my blogging an act of courage, but the A Dare To Remember Campaign got me thinking about how infrequently we in Canada hear the voices of Africans who can help us understand life on the continent. I decided that this blog would feature the work of African writers, artists, scholars and commentators whose perspectives can enrich our knowledge and challenge our perceptions about "Africa". I'll be blogging here daily for at least a month, and reading several books that I'll post about as well.

You can contribute financially to the campaign through my Dare page at http://www.adaretoremember.com/ (go to "Find or Sponsor Someone" and search for my name). And please come back to this site and read and comment on what you read.

Thanks, and hope you come back soon!