Maybe Abigael will get some more press

I decided to go ahead and enter the Times "Half the Sky" competition with a photo and short write-up about Abigael Wilfred, one of the orphans we support in Olevolos.

The contest asked to "Share your photos that best illustrate the importance of educating girls and empowering women. Where was the photo taken? When? Tell us about what is happening in the photo and how it captures the theme of women's empowerment."

Here is what I wrote about young Abigael, given the 1,000 character limit:

Abigael Wilfred is a typical atypical girl who reaffirms the belief that it is women and girls who are the solution, not the problem. Similar to Kristof and WuDunn, my core belief is that educated, resourceful, and healthy girls are the stimuli to jumpstart the faltering heartbeat of the developing world. Abigael has proven to be not only pulse, but also a catalyst and agent of change.

I first came across the young girl two years ago while conducting home visits in her village to identify at-risk children. At that point in time, she and her three older siblings had just recently become orphans and to say the least, their deficiency needs had not been met: they were malnourished and emotionless. Within three months of enrolling her at Oloirien Valley School, Abigael was at the top of her class. She has become an example for her brothers and sister as well as the other children we support in her community. In this picture, Abigael is (quite joyously) practicing her penmanship.

What Jeffrey Gettleman recently received in his inbox

I know that chances of hearing back from Gettleman (NYTimes correspondent for East Africa) are slim, but decided to write to him anyways. This is what I said:

Hi there Jeffrey, My name is Dory Gannes and, of course, I am a fan of your work - mostly because it allows me to stay connected to East Africa when I am not there. However, I am writing to you today to say more than thank you; I am writing to ask of your opinion of an interesting experience I had in Kenya a few weeks ago.

I have a small non-profit that primarily does work in a small village outside of Arusha, but got the opportunity to travel outside of Tanzania to Kenya with Farah Maalim, Deputy Speaker for Kenya's Parliament. Farah and I were both taking courses at the same school and he overheard me mention that I will be attending the Fletcher School of International Affairs this upcoming fall. Three hours of conversation later, he had invited me to come out to Kenya to see some of his development projects.

Though I didn't believe it would actually happen, the following weekend, we were flying out to Kenya and driving out of Nairobi accompanied by his wife (a doctor whom you might have heard of? Khadija Abdalla? She most recently was working at the main hospital in Garissa before the UN recognized her work and she received a fellowship to study public health at the University of Chicago?), daughter, and armored bodyguard. In between his interviews, phone calls, and speeches about the islamic radicals flooding in from Somalia - the same topic you covered in one of your photo stories before following Clinton around the continent - we visited five of his different projects within his constituency. The most interesting of which was the Millennium Village in Dertu.

Of course I realize that Jeffrey Sachs, or anyone else for that matter, isn't as godly as many people make him out to be. But for some reason, I was optimistic about his Millennium Village Project. I know development work is tough, foreign aid is a dubious topic, and some money inevitably will end up in pockets rather than with the local people; however, what I saw blew in Dertu my mind.

Supposedly 1 million dollars of aid has gone into this village - yet the village has only accounted for $125,000; the trees haven't been planted or watered and are dying in the scorching heat; the dispensary has no drugs left for the villagers; and the nurses and village members are instructed to throw their belongings in the closet and not speak when visitors arrive on their pre-planned visits. Only during these visits do directors and project managers appear and does the place look slightly similar to the fake picture highlighted on the website.

I am just getting into Sach's book to try and figure out what he was attempting to do when he put the project together so then maybe then I can begin to understand what the hell went wrong. The village, to say the least, is not a reproducible solution for combating poverty in developing countries.

I am not sure what could come out of this email but I feel slightly lost with what to do with my experience. The good news is that I will be moving to Boston in less than a week for my first year at Fletcher in the MALD program. The bad news is that I still feel unresolved about those few days I spent in Kenya -- well -- mostly I feel unresolved about the hour I spent at the Millennium Village in Dertu.

What do you think? Is this at all surprising to you? Or just another story of failed development work?

Sorry for the length of this. I really did try to cut it down and get to the point...

Hope we can connect.

Take care.

An article I would highly recommend

In my last post, I mentioned that one of the reasons I wanted to start this blog was to envy things like Kristof's "latest comments on girls and education." Well -- I will admit that there was a reason this example popped into my head. The topic of the current NYTimes magazine is called "Saving the World's Women: How changing the lives of women and girls in the developing world can change everything." Inside is an article by Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, titled "The Women's Crusade." The article highlights how women and girls are the solution to fighting poverty and extremism. It talks about what would have been much more practical ways to spend the money that has gone into Pakistan since 9/11: efforts to iodize salt, eliminate obstetric fistula, and educate girls. Kristof and WuDunn also chose one of my favorite quotes, a quote by Larry Summers that I used in my personal essay when applying to grad school last fall, that states: “Investment in girls’ education may well be the highest-return investment available in the developing world."

In case you are interested, here is the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23Women-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&em

And for those of you who would prefer multimedia presentations rather than text alone, the article was accompanied by fantastic photos and Kristof's (nerdy but charming) voice:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/20/magazine/kristof-audioss/index.html

Think it's about time

I guess I have been thinking about setting up a blog for some time now; however, only recently did I actually go to blogger.com and attempt to create one. I found it funny when dgannes.blogspot.com was already taken (actually I was quite frustrated and annoyed) but then realized I was my own culprit. In an attempt to help another Laurel English teacher set up a "fun and cool" new way for students to collaborate and share their thoughts of various literary texts, we created dgannes.blogspot.com. Initially, it had the creative title of "AP English." Of course, such a title no longer exists. It has been replaced by the tagline of The Olevolos Project, penda.soma.pamoja. The literal translation of these three Swahili words is: love.learn.together.

Though The Olevolos Project does have a website, there are often more things that float through my mind than what would be appropriate to publish on the website. I hope this blog is a place where I can envy Kristof's latest comments on girls and education, brag about Abigael's progress at Oloirien Nursery School, and fume about yet another international development project that is only fueling corruption in Kenya.

So karibu...welcome...sasa ninahitaji kitabu yangu kama ninataka kutembelea kuandika katika Kiswahili...now I need my book if I want to continue to write in Swahili...