An Irishman’s Journey across Africa: The Botswana Story, Part 1.

 

Thanks to the fantastic Africa Code Week (ACW) initiative I have, since May 2015, worked extensively across Africa, from Cairo in the north to Cape Town in the south. I have been in places and have meet peoples that have gone beyond my wildest dreams. I consider myself extremely lucky and blessed to have been granted these wonderful opportunities and have been humbled by the encounters and experiences gained.

In my latest short article on the continent that was the birthplace of our species, I throw the spotlight on a country that still vibrates with the pulse of pre-colonial Africa.

Botswana is a place like no other on Earth. With 35% of its territory designated national park and with a small population, there was until recently a strong peaceful cultural harmony between the nation and the rest of Nature. The country is ‘wild Africa at it best’ and is home to a third of the continent’s elephant population earning it the accolade of being the last refuge for this endangered and most iconic of all mammals. There is a saying that many travel to Botswana for its wildlife and stay for its people. In my case it was slightly different; I came to the country for its people (to teach coding) and wanted to remain not just for its remarkable wildlife, breathtakingly stunning primordial diverse landscapes, but also for the warm and gentle Batswana (the Tswana peoples). It is a peaceful society, has a high literary rate, a low level of corruption and a strong justice system. Unlike so many countries worldwide, there is little religious, social, racial or ethnic tensions nor the scar of urban ghettoisation.

In my bias opinion, I am the country’s No 1 fan! But I only found out since my last visit the real reason why Botswana has cast such a spell of enchantment over me. The answer will be given in my next posting on southern Africa!

But Botswana though is not an earthly paradise. Like elsewhere, it has serious economic, social and environmental problems. In a country that is comprised of circa 70% desert, drought and desertification are issues of growing concern exacerbated by Climate Change and huge increases in commercial livestock herding. It has a high incidence of HIV/AIDS particularly amongst the young (15-24 age group) who account for c50% of new cases; and it is where the so-call ‘blesser’ culture still exists in which older rich men use money and expensive gifts to entice young girls into male controlled sexual relationships. There has been controversy too over the handling of the land rights of the indigenous ‘San’ hunter-gatherers. From traditional low levels of elephant poaching, the last year has seen a significant rise.

Youth employment is very high in the country. Whilst it is large at 19% for the total population, it is 34% amongst the younger age group.

The latter is the reason why I have worked in the country on four separate occasions since 2016 and hopefully will do so again in the future. As part of the African Code Week initiative (involving 37 countries), we deliver teacher and mentor training in computer coding, supporting its introduction into primary/secondary school curricula in order to provide its young people with key digital skills for the 21st century. Over the years, this programme has been organised in partnership with local NGOs (Ngwana Enterprises, The Clicking Generation, Techno Kids Center, People-Powered Generation), the country’s mining corporation(Debswana)) and the government of Botswana. There is an enthusiastic appetite for technology and digital innovation amongst students and teachers, and science is being giving increased recognition in the educational system. Young entrepreneurs are setting up their own high tech companies to take advantage of the global web. State policy is to expand the national economic base and its ICT infrastructure in order to provide the jobs that its highly intelligent youth urgently require.

Diamonds and tourism are the country’s two primary sources of revenue. Botswana is one of world’s top diamond producers with the state owning 50% of the mining company responsible, and thankfully not having the associated violence, illegal extraction, criminality and corruption that many other mining countries have suffered from. I have worked in the closed mining town of Orapa, which was an amazing experience. Mining is now complemented by the add-on value of a diamond cutting and polishing industry based in the capital.

In the case of tourism, there is a movement towards diversification. The Okavango Delta is one of the most famed natural habitats in the world and is renowned for its high quality eco-tourism and low ecological footprint. The government wants to bring the Okavango sustainable model, that is characterised by collaboration with indigenous communities, environmental protection and sustainability, to other regions across Botswana. There are proposals to develop a cross-border bilateral approach to tourism such as linking in with Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls. ‘Conference tourism’ in its two cities, namely Francestown and Gaberone, is a new area of development.

I have enjoyed my time working with its young ACW ambassadors. So I extend my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Phatsimo, Mooketsi, Tebogo, Agang, Monk and Kesego for their professionalism and friendship in this most beautiful of countries. Until we meet again, I say to all of you keep safe and healthy.

Proud to be Irish in Tanzania!

A few weeks ago I was present in Dar es Salaam to listen to the Irish Ambassador to Tanzania, Paul Sherlock, officially announce that Irish Aid, the Irish government's international development aid programme, had become a partner and sponsor of the Africa Code Week(ACW) initiative.

I was there in the companionship of my fellow Irishmen, the wonderful Kevin Conroy and Liam Ryan (SAP Ireland CEO), as well as the visionary Claire Gillissen from France.

It was my third trip to this lovely country in my capacity as a lead mentor and course content developer for ACW. The first time was during the summer of 2017 in the company of Bernard Kirk, Camden Trust CEO/ Director of the Galway Education Centre, and Ciaran Cannon TD, then newly appointed Minister of State for the Diaspora and International Development.

This Irish Aid announcement continues a long tradition, going back to the 19th century, of Irish people being involved in supporting the continent and its people in the areas of education, health, community development and human rights.

In so many African countries that I have visited since 2015, I have talked to Africans that tell me fondly of the help that they have received from the Irish. In Uganda it was a senior civil servant called Patrick who was taught by Irish priests; in South Africa it was a Muslim teacher who was given his schooling by Irish clerics; in Ethiopia it was a NGO manager applauding the work of Trócaire and Camara in his country; in Tanzania it was the teenagers of the Holy Union Sisters Debrabant High School praising their principal, Sister Annette Farrell from Kilconnel in east Galway.

Unlike some other European countries, Ireland never came to Africa as an colonial power to brutally rob it of its human and natural resources. We came not as conquerors but as educators and healers. During the days of the British Empire, when our own country was a colony, our countrymen and women often arrived as teachers and doctors to countries such as Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. It was said by many that I have met during the course of my travels across the continent that, where it not for the Irish clerics, their parents and grandparents would never have got an education. So many leaders of the independence movement were taught in Irish-run schools.

This Irish tradition of education and community empowerment continues with the ongoing work of Trocaire, Concern, Gorta Self Help Africa, Goal and Irish Aid that includes individuals that I have known and that I have the upmost respect for, such as Ronan Scully, Alan Kerins and Diarmuid Ó'Brien.

But this tradition also got a major technology learning surge in recent years with the involvement of Irish personnel of SAP Ireland and of Camden Trust as trainers in the wonderfully inspiring Africa Code Week. Along with Claire Gillissen, Bernard Kirk played a fundamental role in establishing in 2015 what today is surely the largest pan-Atlantic digital literacy initiative in the history of the continent. Thanks to the great organisational skills of Sunil Geness, Ibrahim Khafagy, Julie Cleverdon, Ademola Ajayi and so many other great Africans, it is supported by 28 governments, partnering 130 partners (mainly local NGOs), has been rolled out to 37 countries and has provided coding workshops to over 4.1 million youth and teachers.

The aim of Africa Code Week is to build community capacity to drive sustainable learning impact across Africa instilling coding skills in the young generation.

So I give a big and sincere 'Bualadh Bos' to my fellow Irish men and women who worked with me in Africa as part of ACW- Kevin Conroy, Nuala Dalton, Nuala Allen, Cliodhna and Aoife Kirk. Africa's time has come and they have helped it to happen

Table Mountain: Looking down across a Sea of Clouds

A photograph I took a few days ago from the top of Table Mountain (Hoerikwaggo = Mountain of the Sea) reinforced my sense of wonder at the beauty and power of Nature as well as on how different regions and peoples of the world have been connected for far longer than we sometimes realise.
Six times older than the Himalayas, this 1085 metres high rock formation that towers above Capetown includes volcanic and glacial elements but most interestingly sandstone. To realise that this mountain was formed out of sediment that settled at the bottom of deep waters millions of years ago is truly astonishing.

Looking down across a never-ending sea of clouds (part of Capetown appears at bottom of photo) I could in the aerial gaps catch glimpses of Robben (‘seal’: Dutch) Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years, and surviving architectural heritage from Dutch, English and Asian urban settlements, evidence of its colonial past and rich diverse ethnicity that makes it still one of Africa’s most vibrant and cosmopolitan cities. Both the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean are visible; hence the reason why it was initially developed by the Dutch in the seventeenth century as a strategic stop-off refuelling port along the European-Oriental spice trade route. 

But even more interestingly I could gaze from possibly the world’s oldest mountain (240million years) towards the location of the world’s oldest evidence of the human species (‘homo sapiens sapiens’) that dates back 100,000 years old. Is this place the cradle of humanity?
Traveling to nearby beaches to witness colonies of Africa’s only penguin species should not come as a surprise when one realises that this region was once joined to Antarctica. 

Table Mountain also looks onto landmarks and localities of Capetown that are from my own country. Bantry Bay, Athlone and Clifton beach are reminders that both Ireland and South Africa were once colonies of a British global empire whose rulers often transplanted the names from one region to the next.
I am presently in South Africa to take part in an amazing life-changing project initiated by renowned philanthropist Sabine Plattner that aims to develop a conservation educational curriculum for schools across Africa. Spearheaded by Claire Gillissen supported by an expert team of Ibrahim Khafagy, Bernard Kirk and Julie Cleverdon amongst others, it is another pioneering project to replicate in environmental learning what Africa Code Week did for coding learning across a whole continent.
But that is another story (to follow shortly!).

Tanzania – A Tale of African Girl Coders, an Irish Minister & an American Corner

Africa is changing at an unprecedented level. We associate the continent with the big fauna such as rhinos, giraffes and lions; with tropical forests, deserts and savannah; with rural villages and pastoral farming.
But that description would be alien too much of today's African youth who live in mega cities that have sprung up over the last few decades. Lagos and Cairo have populations of circa 20 million inhabitants. Such city dwellers too often only experience the fast pace of a man-made environment of concrete, tarmac and traffic rather than the slow movement of the wilderness and small traditional tribal hamlets.
As a lead mentor of the SAP-funded GEC-supported ‘Africa Code Week’ (ACW) initiative, I have spent much of the last two years working in this new Africa of Cape Town, Addis Ababa, Kampala, Kigali, Cairo and Gaborone. Our task this year was to partner with local NGOs, governments, third level colleges and innovation hubs to upskill teachers and bring coding workshops to 500,000+ children and youth in order to fulfill our mission of helping to empower future generations with the creative technology tools and skills they need to thrive in the 21st century workforce and become key actors of Africa's economic development.
My final destination in Africa for 2018 was Dar es Salaam. With a population of nearly 6 million people, it has all the strengths and weaknesses of a fast growing African urban conurbation. Amongst its key assets are a youth with an insatiable appetite for education who populate the clubs and centres where technology creativity is promoted, coding taught, products made and sisterhood blossoms. This was characterized at my last training session in Tanzania organised at a volunteer club for young women known as ‘Apps & Girls’ in a venue called the American Corner. Funded by the US embassy in partnership with a local educational institution, the corner is a learning, information and programming space located in a public library. Though we mentored coding workshop taht was well received by the participants, we also got to enjoy as spectators a demonstration by enthusiastic young teenagers of a programmable robot used in a clean water project. The guest of honour was our very own Irish Minister of State Ciaran Cannon. I have great time for Ciaran. He is a politician and government minister who truly understands the need to integrate technology innovation into education. He is a coder himself that has over the last four years co-founded many Coderdojo clubs in rural villages and towns in the west of Ireland. He has taken to both his new ministerial roles, namely that of the Irish Diaspora and of International Development, like a fish to water. In the case of the latter, Ciaran sees Africa as a key focus of his ministry.
On my final night in Tanzania I was at a truly remarkable Africa Code Week launch officiated by Dr. Joyce Ndalichako, Tanzanian Minister for Education, Science & Technology, and Minister Cannon attended by the Ambassadors of Ireland and of Germany, the US Press Attaché, Liam Ryan and Sunil Geness of SAP, young innovators and school kids. The words of one young female teenage speaker and panelist will stay with me for a long time. When asked by the MC what has the technology education provided by Apps & Girls mean for her, Lisa said that the girl that she is now is so different to the girl that she was six months ago. Thanks to her found skill of programming she is now full of self confidence, empowerment and positivity.
The music on the night was provided by a steel drum (pan) band from the Debrabant School Saku whose musical renditions, including the German and Irish National Anthem, stirred the heart of many listeners. This educational institution, which I worked in last June, was founded by the current principal Sister Annette, a hardworking Catholic nun from Kilconnel in county Galway. Whilst the Catholic clergy in Ireland has suffered a dramatic fall from grace over the last few decades due to child abuse and other scandals, nevertheless their Irish compatriots in Africa are still held in high esteem due to their educational and community programmes with the less privileged stretching back to the 19th century. Teachers, civil servants and NGO personnel of different religious faiths in South Africa, Uganda and Tanzania proudly told me of their affection for the Irish clergy that provided them with schooling. Being enslaved and colonised ourselves we Irish have a special affinity with the indigenous peoples of the continent. As a member of the anti-apartheid movement in Ireland during my youth, I was inspired by contemporary Africans such as Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Joe Slovo, Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah and Desmond Tutu.
On a personal note I myself was proud to be part of a very special ‘Team Tanzania’ which included Julie Cleverdon (great organizer and worker), Bernard Kirk(great inspirational speaker), Clara Betis (great social media expert & journalist). Liam Ryan (great visionary), Sunil Geness (great enthusiastic commitment), Davide, Hercules and my two top quality fellow teaching colleagues namely Cristina Antelo and Thais Muniky

Rwanda: An African Phoenix arisen from the ashes

Last week I was working in Rwanda helping in the introduction of coding programmes into schools across this land of a thousand hills. This is my second assignment to a country that suffered one of the most brutal genocides of the 20th century. In 1994 over 800,000 Tutsi and Hutu were massacred by supporters of an extremist Hutu regime.
However Rwanda has experienced an unprecedented transformation since those dark days of bloodletting and insanity. The results of a focused national government strategy of reconciliation, justice, female empowerment, education, health, anti-corruption, environmental protection, community development, construction, entrepreneurialism, technology and innovation can be seen everywhere. Whilst there are reports of curtailment of media freedom and of the political opposition amongst some commentators, nevertheless there is huge support for the government’s policies in the population at large which has pulled the country out of the abyss of ethnic violence that killed numbers equivalent to the victims of the Irish Famine and which sadly still rages in neighbouring Burundi.  There is definitely a palpable sense of nationhood and community solidarity amongst its people. I will write more about my experiences of Rwanda in a more detailed blog article next month focusing not just on its current digital revolution but also on topics such as its village communal justice system (Gacaca) and its biodiversity programmes.

This month I was once again part of a team of volunteers working within the highly ambitious Africa Code Week initiative established in 2015 by a partnership of SAP, Galway Education Centre and the Cape Town Science Centre spearheaded by the wonderful Claire Gillissen​ Bernard Kirk​ and Julie Cleverdon​. In our first foray into Rwanda last October we worked from two buses that were fully fledged futuristic mobile IT classrooms moving from school to school training teachers and children. The lead mentors were drawn from across Europe and included highly motivated folk such as Nuala Allen​, Stefan Alexandru Florea​ and Véronique Desegaulx​.  In the process we were also training in and assisted by a panel of keen volunteer youth from Kigali’s KLabs and associated innovator start-ups co-ordinated by the excellent Aphrodice Foyo Mutangana​. This time my European colleagues of Veronique, Kevin Morrissey​ and myself enjoyed watching the indigenous youngsters that we had trained previously (directly and by online learning tutorials) take ownership of delivering most of the classes to the pupils and teachers of the schools that we visited. These young ‘uns (Arnold, Nshuti Gacinya Olivier, Vanessa and Herve) were top class in their presentations and content, giving us a strong feeling of personal satisfaction as we witnessed our previous efforts now bearing fruit. We realise that, with the support of these young men and women, the Africa Code Week project can and is becoming sustainable. It is indeed putting down deep roots into the continent’s soil. 
The Rwanda government has a plan to increase the percentage of the population that are online from its present 13% to 95% by the end of this year. With the rollout of 4G mobile network and a generation of technology mentors and teachers, there is no reason why this will not be achieved. At so many levels, Rwanda represents the face of a new confident Africa. It can be a template for so many other countries across a continent that is changing at an unprecedented level.