Monday, July 28, 2008

Learning from Joseph and other refugees

I wrote an essay for the Chronicle of Higher Education that just appeared online today and will only be available at this URL for non-subscribers until August 1 or 2, I think. Send me an email if you see this post after Aug. 2 and want to read about how much I learned from one of my students, Joseph, and the refugee community I met in Africa.

The article is permanently available for subscribers.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

KickStart Inc.; Inventions for the Developing World

I spent some time at the Walker Art Center today, where one exhibit was "Design for the other 90%." Great stuff; definitely check it out if you are in Minneapolis.

The inventions at the Design for the Other 90% exhibit that most impressed me are both made by Kick Start, Inc. They have a brick making device that seems to require less cement that we think of going into a brick, and perhaps no heat. We'd need to talk to them about durability. They also have a little irrigation device that would be great for the garden.

Both can be purchased and either picked up in Kenya, or perhaps sent from Kenya to Sudan. I'm going to let the building committee explore these devices further; the company seems like they are easy to communicate with via email.

http://www.kickstart.org/purchase/index.html

They also have a great chapter in the design for the other 90% catalog that Ron purchased and that I currently have. They encourage, actually insist on, thinking in an entrepreneurial way, just as we have been wondering--how can we help people in Duk Payuel make a living? Perhaps we can start to think about an orphan center that strives to be self-sustaining via things like grinding grains, making bricks, growing and selling food. Perhaps we can develop an entrepreneurial curriculum for our students.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Nicholas Kristof on Greg Mortenson

Nicholas Kristof has written a nice opinion piece about the value of Greg Mortenson's approach to fighting terrorism (build schools), which he then compares to the Bush Administration's approach--fire $500,000 Tomahawk missiles at Afghanistan.

The ASAH approach, of course, is also to build schools; we think one will cost about $250,000 to build, stock, and fund for 3 years. Donations are being accepted through our main website.

The NYT also ran the story of Omar Al-Bashir's arrest warrant today; a change in Sudan's government would significantly help bring about peace and stability in Sudan.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Sudan School construction

An organization called My Sister's Keeper is building a school in southern Sudan, and they have posted a fairly complete set of photos showing the school getting built. We think we will be able to help get a brick-making company off the ground in Duk Payuel, and use local materials to build the orphan center we envision as the result of ASAH efforts.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Kristof column about aid for one family

Great column by Nicholas Kristof about one young girl in Uganda whose life was turned around by one goat being given to her family. Kristof is pretty good at explaining that this single act is a small gesture, and that many factors might have sent this girl's life trajectory in a different direction.

We hope that the ASAH orphan center can produce many success stories like this one.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

From blog-cast to conversation, please!

I realized after World Refugee Day that the ASAH blog is just a blog-cast. I suppose projects like this one lend themselves to blog-casts, but I am really interested in trying to turn the ASAH blog into a conversation. ASAH is, at least in part, about creating a conversation, creating a community, so that people want to learn more about Sudan, its history, its present, its future. I do need to figure out how to encourage people to contribute to the project, not just financially, but intellectually, emotionally, and practically. If you are reading this, please leave a comment, and let me know how you would like to participate.

Surprisingly, perhaps, the most common way people do want to participate is by going to Sudan. Perhaps we need to set up an ASAH-organized trip.