Meet Pius, a kindergartner at the school in Tanzania, and his courageous mother, Anna:
I wish I had the vocabulary to describe how I felt as Pius played while Mama Anna stood singing in her living room, her voice raised to beckon love, acceptance and a cure. Words escape me, so instead I’ll leave you with her song, in its entirety: listen here.
Posted: June 22nd, 2008 under Story Spot, The Foundry.
Comments: 3
Close your eyes and picture an African child.
What do you see? Likely a child hungry, impoverished, orphaned, weak, dirty, sad, diseased, in need.
Before I went to Africa the first time, I had an image in my mind of the people, and especially the children, I would meet. I’d seen them on the news and late-night infomercials for my entire life. Growing up in Catholic school, I remember their images from the milk cartons in which we collected change for them during Lenten appeals. I’d seen their huts, their sickness, their war-torn villages. I’d stood with Hands Across America, and my little brother even sang We are the World in our school talent show. I knew, and had a deeply felt sympathy for, African children. Empathy was impossible, though, because their situation was simply too foreign for me to truly grasp.
But somehow, in all that I’d seen over a lifetime of learning, and multiple degrees, I’d never, ever seen Gideon. Not on the news, not in a book, not on a commercial. Never. Not once. Believe me, I’d have remembered, because he would have so profoundly stood apart from the stereotypes and categories I’d formulated in which he should fit as a child of Africa.
Gideon is a 10-year-old boy, a fourth grader at Shepherds Junior. First and foremost, he’s a child. He’s got an infectious giggle and an imagination that is ignited by my incessant questioning. When I asked him to draw a picture of what makes him happy, he drew himself playing in the rain, and on Thanksgiving, when I asked what he was thankful for, he cheerfully exclaimed that he was grateful “because Christmas is coming and I’m going to eat!” He’s just a kid, not at all unlike those you’d find on any playground in your own neighborhood.
He’s got an innate curiosity. Recently, one evening after dark shortly before the new school was opened, Gideon snuck off to investigate the new classrooms, while his worried parents wondered where he’d wandered. He came home, excited and out of breath, with the good news. “Daddy, the school is so wonderful!…The classrooms are big enough, there is enough light and air because the windows are big.” Gideon’s father, a welder who donated his own time to fashion those windows in his own workshop, quickly forgot his worry and celebrated with his son.
His dad also told me he has to watch carefully to make sure Gideon does his math homework at night, like I watched my niece do her long division before dinner last night. Gideon’s a little boy, like some you may know, who dreams of becoming a rocket ship pilot when he grows up, though he’s never even stepped foot on an airplane. His Dad wants him to be an engineer. He recently played one of the lead roles in the school’s play about the woman’s role in Tanzanian society. He’s a budding photographer and loves elephants.
If you asked me to describe Gideon, his poverty wouldn’t rank anywhere in the top 10 adjectives I’d use. Admittedly, he lives in one of the most impoverished countries on Earth. Admittedly, on more than one occasion I witnessed him lovingly wrap leftover fruit, chicken or potatoes to bring home to his family for whom these items are likely expensive luxuries. He is, by our standards, undeniably poor. But he is not defined by his poverty.
All too often, our portrayals of African children focus on their lack, and implicitly convey that their poverty is somehow their core attribute, their essence. Not only is our portrait radically incomplete, it is, perhaps worst of all, self-perpetuating. After all, as Gideon’s father so eloquently told me, “if you tell a man he is weak, he will be weak; if you tell a man he is poor, he will be poor.” Like many children of Africa, Gideon is not the fragile child of our uninformed stereotypes. It’s not that simple.
He’s just a kid. A bright, strong, playful, funny, hopeful, sometimes mischievous, 10-year-old boy.
While his poverty has absorbed our attention, it’s actually his potential that’s far more interesting, and in which we’re investing at Epic Change.
We’re not supporting Shepherds Junior because it is a school that serves poor children. We’re partnering with this school because it’s a place that empowers all its students, regardless of their economic status, with the education they need to become leaders in their country, and to overcome their poverty. We’re supporting it because it provides these children with role models, in Mama Lucy, the teachers and the parents’ committee, of strong local leaders who are intent on improving their own lives and their own community. We’ve chosen Shepherds Junior not because it has so little, but because they do so much with the little they have.
We are investing in Shepherds Junior not out of pity, but out of incredible respect, awe at their potential and a shared hope for the future of children like Gideon and the beautiful country they call home.
Posted: April 26th, 2008 under Story Spot, The Foundry.
Comments: 9
(The story below was originally published during our most recent trip to Tanzania in December 2007.)
On Monday, Glory was absent from school. We’d taken her on safari on Sunday, and she seemed fine, so her absence was curious. Her teacher Nancy chalked it up to the fact that we’d fed her too much on our trip. But Tuesday came, and still Glory was missing. Teacher Nancy told Leah to stop by Glory’s house on her way home to see what was wrong.Glory Abraham is a 9-year-old orphan who’s been raised for years by her sister, aunt and grandmother, switching houses intermittently when the situation becomes too crowded or uncomfortable. She’s ranked #2 in her class and wants to become a teacher. She currently lives with her sisters in a house made of mud and sticks that has a patch of banana trees in front where their outhouse is located and both their parents are buried. 
The sisters have been fighting with their grandmother for years begging her not to sell this small patch of land which seems to be the only thing the girls have left of their parents.
When Leah returned to school on Wednesday morning, she told Teacher Nancy that Glory would be absent again; she’d lost the sole on one of her shoes, the only pair she had to walk the mile or more to school. Glory was missing school because she had no shoes to wear. Teacher Nancy sent Teacher Rachel over to investigate further. Teacher Rachel went over to Glory’s house and went door to door in the neighborhood looking for a pair of shoes for Glory to borrow for the day. She found some and on Wednesday morning, Teacher Rachel returned with Glory to school. On Friday, Mama Lucy went to buy the child a new pair of her own.
On Friday, too, Sanjay and I received 40 thank you notes from the children in Classes 1-3. While many of the children copied the sample note their teachers had written, Glory’s was different. Of course, she’s a good student, and had copied the note her teachers had assigned, but at the bottom she added an additional sentence, and one which none of the other 39 cards included.
She wrote: “Dear Teachers: I am so lucky.”
I cried as I read it. It’s probably not the adjective I would have used to describe her, but that, above all else, illustrates simply and perfectly why we’ve chosen Shepherds Junior, despite many obstacles, challenges and our admittedly limited knowledge about building a school in a third world country.For some reason, the parents, teachers and students at this school are optimists. Despite surroundings and statistics that seem almost hopeless, the children, parents and teachers and students retain hope. And theirs isn’t an idle faith; they work incredibly hard to make sure these children live a “brighter destiny” as their motto appropriately asserts. At many other schools, for example, no teacher would have visited Glory’s house, and she may never have returned to school. It would be nearly impossible to find teachers working for about $100 a month who will clean the children’s laundry when they spill or get sick, show up on weekends for parents committee meetings, insist on personally contributing nearly 20% of their own monthly salary toward the school’s first photocopier, stay late into the night to prepare home-cooked meals for a field trip, or bathe a child who doesn’t receive adequate care at her orphanage to ensure she’s not ostracized by her peers.
Just this week, the school arose to another challenge. Though they only had a week to prepare, the teachers pulled together an amazing hour-long program and on Friday, which marked the school’s closing day for the holiday break, the students delivered their performance at a local restaurant called ViaVia which graciously donated their outdoor amphitheater for the event. The performance was the school’s first Epic Change fundraiser and, in only a week, the teachers sold 140 tickets, and raised nearly $400 USD – an incredible success! This represents their first earnings toward paying back the loans that we are providing. Given that the wire for their initial loan has not yet even arrived in Tanzania, we’re incredibly excited that the school is paying back a loan they’ve yet to receive.Speaking of which, this week, we signed an agreement with the school for their initial loan from Epic Change; we’ll be loaning the school $30,000 USD to secure the land and begin initial construction. In order to qualify for future Epic Change loans, we’ve established a few requirements. Here are some of the most significant:
When they meet these requirements, we’d like to be in the position to provide another similarly-sized loan. To help us meet this new fundraising goal, we’re looking to establish Epic Change chapters across North America and, hopefully, on other continents as well. If you’re committed to helping Epic Change in your area, I hope you’ll email us and let us know.
We leave Africa on Wednesday – hopefully we’ll be able to post once more in advance of the holidays! Until then, be well . . . and buy some holiday cards!!!
Posted: December 2nd, 2007 under Story Spot, The Foundry.
Comments: 6