African American aviation pioneer, John Robinson, who constructed his first airplane out of spare automobile parts in the 1930s, found opportunity in Africa when he went to the aid of embattled Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia before World War II. Today Mr. Robinson is known as one of the founders of Africa's most reliable premier Ethiopian Airways.
Like Haile Selassie, in 2017 Neema Mushi, founder of Licious Adventure in Tanzania, was eager to make a U.S. connection. She was looking for U.S. companies willing to carry the African textiles and other items her shop sells to the tourists her company's guides lead up Mount Kilimanjaro and to the beaches of Zanzibar. Now, however, not U.S. companies but Chinese ones, such as Anningtex, Buwanas, Hitarget, and Sanne, fill Ms. Mushi's shelves with mass produced, Chinese-made "African" textiles, called kitenge. Locally-owned African textile producers in Nigeria and Ghana, unable to compete with lower-cost Chinese goods, have gone out of business.
The point is: if you are an importer; photo journalist or documentary filmmaker looking for a story; someone interested in trying out a new teaching or low-cost home construction technique; a miner or an adventurer seeking opportunities of any kind, Africa welcomes you.
Two essential ingredients help you get started: money and contacts. With a nest egg, car to sell, or Sugar Daddy, you can plunk down $1000-plus for an airplane ticket and head for Africa immediately. Although a crowdfunding appeal, saving from a job, or persuading a media outlet to fund your project, will delay your take off, keep an eye on the prize.i Also consider submitting a Scholar Registration to Birthright AFRICA at birthrightafrica.org. This new non-profit in New York City is the brainchild of Walla Elsheikh, an immigrant from Sudan who began his career in finance at Goldman Sachs. His vision is to send young African-Americans on free trips to Africa to explore and connect with their cultural roots. On these trips, young adults also have an unique opportunity to discover ways they could begin their careers in Africa.
Economic officers in foreign Embassies and consulates should be able to provide helpful local contacts in Africa, but don't neglect seeking assistance from missionary communities. Religious orders in your home country can put you in touch with their superiors in African host countries. For example, in Namibia, Africa, China built a container terminal and nearby oil storage installation at Walvis Bay, and South Africa's De Beers Group extracted 1.4 million carats from the offshore coastal waters. I also saw Sister Patricia Crowley, at the St. Scholastica Monastery in Chicago, was about to leave for Windhoer, Namibia, to serve as spiritual director on a one year assignment at a Benedictine missionary community there. An appointment with Sister Patricia in Chicago could lead to a letter introducing your purpose and background to those who could help you in Namibia.
Likewise, visiting communities of Dominican nuns in a home country could provide contacts with the nuns who teach girls to make a living by sewing and using a computer in Bukoba, Tanzania, and the nuns who teach farmers to plant hybrid tomato crops that withstand heat and insect infestations in Nairobi, Kenya.
On their outposts in Lagos, Nigeria, and Nairobi, the Jesuit order can provide inspiration and information for those investigating Africa careers. While assigned to the Jesuit Refugee Service in East Africa, Father James Martin, author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, helped set up tailoring shops, several small restaurants, a bakery, a little chicken farm, and the Mikono Centre that sells African handicrafts. By following in the path of African-inspired Picasso and a Mozambican wood carver who sold a three-foot-tall ebony sculpture at the Mikono Centre, artists from around the world may find fulfillment working in Africa.
In Hia, Ghana, Bishop Afoakwah would appreciate a visit from a journalist willing to investigate the complicated land ownership rights, deeds held by chiefs, and government's incomplete database of mining concessions. Although the bishop thought the church held a legal deed to land a chief donated for a clinic and nursing school, Chinese miners began digging "Mr. Kumar's" gold mine on the property.
Ghana is not the only African country in need of land use planners, legal assistance, doctors, teachers and others willing to discover career opportunities in Africa.
Showing posts with label Ghana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ghana. Show all posts
Monday, March 2, 2020
Sunday, February 4, 2018
Olympic Games Blur Country Borders
It certainly is more fun and less dangerous to compete under the five linked Olympic rings representing the sporting friendship of all people than to engage in a worldwide arms race. After all, with the mingling of countries and cultures in today's world, its hard to tell which country wins or is bested at an international sporting competition. A sample of the athletes who will begin competing in PyeongChang, South Korea, on February 9 uncovers the multicultural passion for sports.
Peninsula communistic and democratic rivals from North and South Korea will enter the Olympic arena together, and their women will compete together on an ice hockey team.
Figure skating pair, Ryom Tae Ok and Kun Ju Si from North Korea trained for the Olympics in Montreal, Canada.
As a refugee, Shannon-Ogbani Abeda learned to ski in Alberta, Canada, where his family fled from Eritrea, Africa, but he'll be competing for Eritrea at the Olympics.
Born in Ghana, Aftica, Maame Biney will be lacing up her speed skates to represent the U.S.
Bobsledders from Nigeria, Africa, will match skills with Canadians and Germans.
In the winter games, Pita Jaufutofua from Tonga will trade the taekwondo competitors he had in Rio's summer games for the Norwegians, Swedes, and Russians he'll meet, when he straps on his cross country skis.
Magnus Kim, a cross country skier whose dad is Norwegian and mother is South Korean, will compete for South Korea.
Chloe Kim, whose parents are from South Korea where her grandmother still lives, is a Californian riding her snowboard for the U.S.
Born of Chinese parents, Nathan Chen will leave his Salt Lake City home in Utah when he hopes to land a record number of quad figure skating jumps for the U.S.
So, when athletes from diverse countries and backgrounds come together in PyeongChang, let the world honor Baron Pierre de Coubertin's 1896 vision for the modern Olympics. Show a shared love of athletics really can help the people of the world understand each other.
Peninsula communistic and democratic rivals from North and South Korea will enter the Olympic arena together, and their women will compete together on an ice hockey team.
Figure skating pair, Ryom Tae Ok and Kun Ju Si from North Korea trained for the Olympics in Montreal, Canada.
As a refugee, Shannon-Ogbani Abeda learned to ski in Alberta, Canada, where his family fled from Eritrea, Africa, but he'll be competing for Eritrea at the Olympics.
Born in Ghana, Aftica, Maame Biney will be lacing up her speed skates to represent the U.S.
Bobsledders from Nigeria, Africa, will match skills with Canadians and Germans.
In the winter games, Pita Jaufutofua from Tonga will trade the taekwondo competitors he had in Rio's summer games for the Norwegians, Swedes, and Russians he'll meet, when he straps on his cross country skis.
Magnus Kim, a cross country skier whose dad is Norwegian and mother is South Korean, will compete for South Korea.
Chloe Kim, whose parents are from South Korea where her grandmother still lives, is a Californian riding her snowboard for the U.S.
Born of Chinese parents, Nathan Chen will leave his Salt Lake City home in Utah when he hopes to land a record number of quad figure skating jumps for the U.S.
So, when athletes from diverse countries and backgrounds come together in PyeongChang, let the world honor Baron Pierre de Coubertin's 1896 vision for the modern Olympics. Show a shared love of athletics really can help the people of the world understand each other.
Monday, January 29, 2018
Follow the Interest
Just as criminal investigators are advised to "follow the money," "follow the interest" is good advice for those hoping to engage young people in world affairs.
A variety of interests might draw a student to Africa. Consider fashion. What inspired Ruth E. Carter, the costume designer for Black Panther, the comic book-inspired movie kids are eager to see? Like Carter, who studied African tribal patterns, colors, and silhouettes, fashion conscious movie goers will be inspired to think about how they too could incorporate the Ndebele neck rings Okoye wears in the movie into their outfits.
Students interested in film careers won't think twice about casting people of color from any country in the movies they plan to make. They know Lupita Nyong'O, a young Nigerian-raised star won an Academy Award for her supporting role in 12 Years a Slave.
Fashion designers-in-the-making also have seen Nyong'O modeling African-inspired clothes in Vogue. The magazine also introduced them to Nigeria and the Lagos-based Maki Oh, the designer responsible for the dress Michelle Obama wore on a trip to Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2013.
Paul Simon's interest in music caused him to sing with Mama Africa Miriam Makeba in South Africa in 1987 and to record his Graceland album with South Africa's Ladysmith Black Mambazo choral group. The British hip hop grime of Ghana's Stormzy draws the current generation of music trend setters to Africa.
With the Olympics approaching on February 9, student downhill skiers, cross-country skiers, bobsledders, figure skaters, and speed skaters might want to learn more about what produces champions in Austria, Germany, Russia, Canada, and Sweden.
Those interested in soccer, already follow their favorite sport in Barcelona, Madrid, Manchester, and Brazil.
And if students like food and cooking, those interests can take them anywhere in the world.
A variety of interests might draw a student to Africa. Consider fashion. What inspired Ruth E. Carter, the costume designer for Black Panther, the comic book-inspired movie kids are eager to see? Like Carter, who studied African tribal patterns, colors, and silhouettes, fashion conscious movie goers will be inspired to think about how they too could incorporate the Ndebele neck rings Okoye wears in the movie into their outfits.
Students interested in film careers won't think twice about casting people of color from any country in the movies they plan to make. They know Lupita Nyong'O, a young Nigerian-raised star won an Academy Award for her supporting role in 12 Years a Slave.
Fashion designers-in-the-making also have seen Nyong'O modeling African-inspired clothes in Vogue. The magazine also introduced them to Nigeria and the Lagos-based Maki Oh, the designer responsible for the dress Michelle Obama wore on a trip to Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2013.
Paul Simon's interest in music caused him to sing with Mama Africa Miriam Makeba in South Africa in 1987 and to record his Graceland album with South Africa's Ladysmith Black Mambazo choral group. The British hip hop grime of Ghana's Stormzy draws the current generation of music trend setters to Africa.
With the Olympics approaching on February 9, student downhill skiers, cross-country skiers, bobsledders, figure skaters, and speed skaters might want to learn more about what produces champions in Austria, Germany, Russia, Canada, and Sweden.
Those interested in soccer, already follow their favorite sport in Barcelona, Madrid, Manchester, and Brazil.
And if students like food and cooking, those interests can take them anywhere in the world.
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Unemployment Breeds Poor Choices
Without a job, people realize how much their lives lack, not only money, but also structure and a community of friends and associates. From this perspective, preparing students to be entrepreneurs or to move into the careers of the future becomes a priority when traditional jobs are declining and the global population of young job seekers is increasing.
Patrick Cook-Deegan, co-director and designer of Project Wayfinder (projectwayfinder.com), has been thinking about how to help high school students develop a sense of purpose that will motivate them to prepare for the future. Being told what to do and taking tests for four years fail to connect students to their work in the future. Asking students to consider what the world needs and what their interests and strengths are can lead to the conclusion that life requires a broad outline that accommodates twists and turns rather than a narrow path. There is a need to connect students with mentors from local industries so that they begin to see how their natural instincts to listen to music, play video games, build with LEGOs, study fashion magazines, or read detective stories apply to solutions for real world problems. There also is the need to ask students to think about how to resist being pressured into a career they know they will quit.
In developed and less developed countries, resilient people can avoid becoming a target for opportunists, because they know what their goals are (they keep their eyes on the prize) even when they are young, old, fat, black, uneducated, poor, disabled, working at a fast food counter, or tending bar.
During the 2008 crisis in the United States, families could not afford the mortgages on their homes and manufacturing jobs continued to disappear. The Governor of Wisconsin promised to return 250,000 jobs to the State. With his promise still unfulfilled in 2017, the Chinese firm, Foxconn, offered to bring 13,000 jobs to Wisconsin. In exchange, the State agreed to provide financial incentives totaling $3 billion worth of taxpayer revenue and to exempt the company from environmental laws and the need to gain approval to build or relocate power transmission lines.
The story in Ghana is similar. Traditionally, non-citizens were prohibited from the practice, known as "galamsey," that allows small scale gold mining by licensed local residents using hand tools on their own land. With half the 15-24 year-old population unemployed, Ghana's farmers willing allowed Chinese miners to work their land with excavators and heavy duty dredging machines, to reduce export revenue by smuggling gold out of the country, to pollute rivers, and to encroach upon land farmed for cocoa. As the number of foreign gold miners increased so did trafficking in the cocaine and other narcotics miners use to help them work long hours in mud-soaked, dangerous conditions.
In the 19th century, China itself was a victim of drug trafficking, when its society fell prey to an opium addition from British imports its inefficient. militarily weak government could not stop.
Seeing how unemployment creates a climate for poor choices by individuals, States, and countries reinforces the need to prepare young people for the careers, global careers, that will employ them in the future.
(Additional information about gold mining in Ghana is covered in the earlier post, "Africans Learn to Play the Game".
Patrick Cook-Deegan, co-director and designer of Project Wayfinder (projectwayfinder.com), has been thinking about how to help high school students develop a sense of purpose that will motivate them to prepare for the future. Being told what to do and taking tests for four years fail to connect students to their work in the future. Asking students to consider what the world needs and what their interests and strengths are can lead to the conclusion that life requires a broad outline that accommodates twists and turns rather than a narrow path. There is a need to connect students with mentors from local industries so that they begin to see how their natural instincts to listen to music, play video games, build with LEGOs, study fashion magazines, or read detective stories apply to solutions for real world problems. There also is the need to ask students to think about how to resist being pressured into a career they know they will quit.
In developed and less developed countries, resilient people can avoid becoming a target for opportunists, because they know what their goals are (they keep their eyes on the prize) even when they are young, old, fat, black, uneducated, poor, disabled, working at a fast food counter, or tending bar.
During the 2008 crisis in the United States, families could not afford the mortgages on their homes and manufacturing jobs continued to disappear. The Governor of Wisconsin promised to return 250,000 jobs to the State. With his promise still unfulfilled in 2017, the Chinese firm, Foxconn, offered to bring 13,000 jobs to Wisconsin. In exchange, the State agreed to provide financial incentives totaling $3 billion worth of taxpayer revenue and to exempt the company from environmental laws and the need to gain approval to build or relocate power transmission lines.
The story in Ghana is similar. Traditionally, non-citizens were prohibited from the practice, known as "galamsey," that allows small scale gold mining by licensed local residents using hand tools on their own land. With half the 15-24 year-old population unemployed, Ghana's farmers willing allowed Chinese miners to work their land with excavators and heavy duty dredging machines, to reduce export revenue by smuggling gold out of the country, to pollute rivers, and to encroach upon land farmed for cocoa. As the number of foreign gold miners increased so did trafficking in the cocaine and other narcotics miners use to help them work long hours in mud-soaked, dangerous conditions.
In the 19th century, China itself was a victim of drug trafficking, when its society fell prey to an opium addition from British imports its inefficient. militarily weak government could not stop.
Seeing how unemployment creates a climate for poor choices by individuals, States, and countries reinforces the need to prepare young people for the careers, global careers, that will employ them in the future.
(Additional information about gold mining in Ghana is covered in the earlier post, "Africans Learn to Play the Game".
Monday, February 13, 2017
Oscar Nominations Enlighten the World
This year's Oscar nominations for live action short films provide a view of France, Denmark, Hungary, Spain, and Switzerland that is both particular to those countries and inspiring to countries throughout the world.
In Ennemis Interieurs (Enemies Within) and Silent Nights we see French concern for residents from Algeria who might be terrorists and a man from Ghana who finds in Denmark abuse from local and Arab neighbors rather than the income he expected to send to his family back in Africa. In both cases disillusioned men do things they never intended, and we wonder if their new countries could have acted differently to prevent these outcomes.
Sing from Hungary won the Oscar in this category on February 26, 2017. This film tells the story of a friendly elementary school girl with a heart and a new girl who is told by the chorus director to just mime the words to songs because she doesn't have a good voice. By convincing all the children in the chorus to mime the words to every song at a competition, the two clever girls undermine the director who they consider unfair. Children everywhere in the world could benefit from seeing how to treat new kids in their schools and how they can work together to right an injustice.
Spain's Timecode gives hope to everyone who has ever had a boring job. After his shift as a security guard who watches the cameras that keep an eye on a garage parking lot, he uses the whole garage as a dance floor to practice his moves. The woman who takes over after him sees his performance and decides to do her own routine for the cameras. After the male security guard sees her dancing, they join up for a duet that the manager sees when he is introducing a new guard to the job. The film ends with the new employee telling the manager, "I don't know how to dance."
A woman's daily gesture of waving a Swiss flag at a passing TGV train before she rides her bicycle to her pastry shop leads to an exchange of messages and gifts of cheese between the woman and the train's engineer in La Femme et le TGV. You never know where simple gestures might lead.
In Ennemis Interieurs (Enemies Within) and Silent Nights we see French concern for residents from Algeria who might be terrorists and a man from Ghana who finds in Denmark abuse from local and Arab neighbors rather than the income he expected to send to his family back in Africa. In both cases disillusioned men do things they never intended, and we wonder if their new countries could have acted differently to prevent these outcomes.
Sing from Hungary won the Oscar in this category on February 26, 2017. This film tells the story of a friendly elementary school girl with a heart and a new girl who is told by the chorus director to just mime the words to songs because she doesn't have a good voice. By convincing all the children in the chorus to mime the words to every song at a competition, the two clever girls undermine the director who they consider unfair. Children everywhere in the world could benefit from seeing how to treat new kids in their schools and how they can work together to right an injustice.
Spain's Timecode gives hope to everyone who has ever had a boring job. After his shift as a security guard who watches the cameras that keep an eye on a garage parking lot, he uses the whole garage as a dance floor to practice his moves. The woman who takes over after him sees his performance and decides to do her own routine for the cameras. After the male security guard sees her dancing, they join up for a duet that the manager sees when he is introducing a new guard to the job. The film ends with the new employee telling the manager, "I don't know how to dance."
A woman's daily gesture of waving a Swiss flag at a passing TGV train before she rides her bicycle to her pastry shop leads to an exchange of messages and gifts of cheese between the woman and the train's engineer in La Femme et le TGV. You never know where simple gestures might lead.
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Become A Discriminating Chocolate Consumer
Buy a chocolate bar and only 3% of the price usually pays for the raw ingredients (cocoa, butter, milk, and sugar). Buy a chocolate bar that comes from one country, such as Madagascar, where the cocoa is processed and the bar is manufactured and more people are employed, companies make more money, and countries collect more taxes.
When there is more money to be made, why don't the many cocoa growers in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Sao Tome and Principe, Papua New Guinea, Grenada, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, and Vietnam become single origin chocolate producers for the chocolate bar, bulk cocoa, and fine chocolates market?
The obstacles are many. Dedicated people have to prune, deliver, and peel cocoa beans. Since the manufacturing process determines the finished chocolate product's taste, setting up a factory requires a major amount of investment and production expertise. Current labeling doesn't help consumers determine if the raw cocoa and the finished chocolate product come from the same country. Finally, there is the challenge of breaking into European and US markets dominated by companies, such as Hershey.
Nonetheless, kids search for Pokemon Go characters, why not look for African stores that carry Chocolat Madagascar chocolate bars?
When there is more money to be made, why don't the many cocoa growers in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Sao Tome and Principe, Papua New Guinea, Grenada, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, and Vietnam become single origin chocolate producers for the chocolate bar, bulk cocoa, and fine chocolates market?
The obstacles are many. Dedicated people have to prune, deliver, and peel cocoa beans. Since the manufacturing process determines the finished chocolate product's taste, setting up a factory requires a major amount of investment and production expertise. Current labeling doesn't help consumers determine if the raw cocoa and the finished chocolate product come from the same country. Finally, there is the challenge of breaking into European and US markets dominated by companies, such as Hershey.
Nonetheless, kids search for Pokemon Go characters, why not look for African stores that carry Chocolat Madagascar chocolate bars?
Saturday, July 9, 2016
Africans Learn to Play the Game
Whether a child is playing Candy Land or trading Pokemon cards, an innocent young child can be tricked into trading a valuable card for one less useful. But as they learn how to play the game this kind of trickery no longer works. Africa has a lot of valuable "cards," and Africa will learn, and is learning, not to be fooled by those who take advantage of corruption, questionable land titles, promises of employment, and pretend friendships.
Since Africa has valuable mineral deposits, the continent has been a target of questionable mining deals. After the Democratic Republic of the Congo seized First Quantum Minerals, the close relationship of an Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) partner with Congo President Joseph Kabila caused First Quantum to question the financial deal that enabled ENRC to purchase its seized copper assets. The legal dispute did not end after Luxembourg-based Eurasian Resources Group (ERG) acquired ENRC and strengthened its position in Africa's copper belt. In fact, ERG's stake in the former ENRC became even more valuable after the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and China's Export-Import Bank provided $700 million to build the copper and cobalt project that made ERG the world's largest producer of the cobalt used in batteries. The UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) continues to investigate ENRC's original deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In Hia, Ghana, Bishop Afoakwah walked through mounds of dirt and deep puddles to do his own investigation of a gold mine digging a massive pit on church land. Earlier, after one of the mine's earthmoving machines cut an electrical line that left the town without power, Bishop Afoakwah had met with local chiefs. He understood the church held a legal deed to the land that had been donated by a chief for the purpose of building a clinic and nursing school. During his meeting, the bishop learned various chiefs claimed to protect land for other chiefs and, taking advantage of the interwovern land rights and the high per ounce price of gold, a Chinese mine owner provided a payoff to secure a mining concession on the church's land. At the gold mine, workers said a "Mr. Kumar" owned the Hia site. Two Chinese engineers dashed into the bush, when they saw the bishop approaching. Ghana's Minerals Commission only has eight officials to investigate the country's illegal mining and an incomplete database of mining concessions. President Nana Akufo-Addo, who took office in January, 2017, put Ghana's Chinese miners on notice that he intends to enforce laws governing gold mining.
Not only have gold mining operations destroyed agricultural land that has fed local farmers for generations, but heavy machinery has buried and severely injured untrained workers and health-damaging cyanide and mercury used to extract gold from stone have contaminated air and water. Farmers who sell their land to miners enjoy only a short-term gain that lasts a few years. Even if the land is returned to them after the mine is exhausted, the three feet of top soil are destroyed and the poor quality clay soil underneath cannot support a family. Yet, workers who fear losing salaries from mining jobs willingly risk their health and ignore environmental consequences. In fact, miners have thrown rocks at inspectors and even killed a fleeing official by rolling over him with a car.
The path to legal mining in Ghana and in other developing countries is a difficult one. It requires learning "to play the game" without corruption and payoffs, with only those foreign investors willing to train employees and commit to some community development, and with activists like Bishop Afoakwah who are willing to take on lengthy court battles for damages done to the land by illegal miners. In the end, Africans will come to the same conclusion that Cardinal Peter Turkson, archbishop emeritus of Cape Coast, Ghana, did. "It is...unjustifiable for developing countries to fuel the development of richer countries at the cost of their own present and future."
While Ghana continues to sort out land ownership issues affecting local gold miners, a group of 33 illegal gold miners in Uganda spent four years forming the first gold mine the UK's Fairtrade organization certified in Africa. The Syanyonja Artisan Miners Alliance (SAMA) now boasts: 1) a timbered pit unlike the dangerous open pits where dirt walls collapse, when heavy downpours swamp quarries and whole families of miners, and 2) gold extraction processes that employ proper handling of mercury and cyanide. SAMA's certified gold mine offers small-scale coop members the prospect of premium prices, savings, a local health center, and subsidized school fees. Now that the association pays taxes SAMA members find they have more government influence. SAMA also benefits from the "I Do" campaign sponsored by the Fairtrade Foundation's focus on commodities campaign in the UK, which alerts couples to choose Fairtrade Gold wedding bands.
Earlier posts involving Africa's resources include:
Since Africa has valuable mineral deposits, the continent has been a target of questionable mining deals. After the Democratic Republic of the Congo seized First Quantum Minerals, the close relationship of an Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) partner with Congo President Joseph Kabila caused First Quantum to question the financial deal that enabled ENRC to purchase its seized copper assets. The legal dispute did not end after Luxembourg-based Eurasian Resources Group (ERG) acquired ENRC and strengthened its position in Africa's copper belt. In fact, ERG's stake in the former ENRC became even more valuable after the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and China's Export-Import Bank provided $700 million to build the copper and cobalt project that made ERG the world's largest producer of the cobalt used in batteries. The UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) continues to investigate ENRC's original deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In Hia, Ghana, Bishop Afoakwah walked through mounds of dirt and deep puddles to do his own investigation of a gold mine digging a massive pit on church land. Earlier, after one of the mine's earthmoving machines cut an electrical line that left the town without power, Bishop Afoakwah had met with local chiefs. He understood the church held a legal deed to the land that had been donated by a chief for the purpose of building a clinic and nursing school. During his meeting, the bishop learned various chiefs claimed to protect land for other chiefs and, taking advantage of the interwovern land rights and the high per ounce price of gold, a Chinese mine owner provided a payoff to secure a mining concession on the church's land. At the gold mine, workers said a "Mr. Kumar" owned the Hia site. Two Chinese engineers dashed into the bush, when they saw the bishop approaching. Ghana's Minerals Commission only has eight officials to investigate the country's illegal mining and an incomplete database of mining concessions. President Nana Akufo-Addo, who took office in January, 2017, put Ghana's Chinese miners on notice that he intends to enforce laws governing gold mining.
Not only have gold mining operations destroyed agricultural land that has fed local farmers for generations, but heavy machinery has buried and severely injured untrained workers and health-damaging cyanide and mercury used to extract gold from stone have contaminated air and water. Farmers who sell their land to miners enjoy only a short-term gain that lasts a few years. Even if the land is returned to them after the mine is exhausted, the three feet of top soil are destroyed and the poor quality clay soil underneath cannot support a family. Yet, workers who fear losing salaries from mining jobs willingly risk their health and ignore environmental consequences. In fact, miners have thrown rocks at inspectors and even killed a fleeing official by rolling over him with a car.
The path to legal mining in Ghana and in other developing countries is a difficult one. It requires learning "to play the game" without corruption and payoffs, with only those foreign investors willing to train employees and commit to some community development, and with activists like Bishop Afoakwah who are willing to take on lengthy court battles for damages done to the land by illegal miners. In the end, Africans will come to the same conclusion that Cardinal Peter Turkson, archbishop emeritus of Cape Coast, Ghana, did. "It is...unjustifiable for developing countries to fuel the development of richer countries at the cost of their own present and future."
While Ghana continues to sort out land ownership issues affecting local gold miners, a group of 33 illegal gold miners in Uganda spent four years forming the first gold mine the UK's Fairtrade organization certified in Africa. The Syanyonja Artisan Miners Alliance (SAMA) now boasts: 1) a timbered pit unlike the dangerous open pits where dirt walls collapse, when heavy downpours swamp quarries and whole families of miners, and 2) gold extraction processes that employ proper handling of mercury and cyanide. SAMA's certified gold mine offers small-scale coop members the prospect of premium prices, savings, a local health center, and subsidized school fees. Now that the association pays taxes SAMA members find they have more government influence. SAMA also benefits from the "I Do" campaign sponsored by the Fairtrade Foundation's focus on commodities campaign in the UK, which alerts couples to choose Fairtrade Gold wedding bands.
Earlier posts involving Africa's resources include:
- Wood: Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels, Uncover the Economic Value of Wood
- Coffee: Invest in Africa's Agricultural Future; Coffee Prices Going Up; Allowances Going Down?
- Cocoa: Become A Discriminating Chocolate Consumer, Chocolate Tasting Party and More; Chocolate's Sweet Deals
- Palm oil: Can Small Farms End Poverty?
- Oil: Nigeria's New Beginning
- Diamonds: Diamond Flaws
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Characters with Diverse Nationalities Populate A Summer Reading List
Children who read for fun under a shady tree or beach umbrella this summer will be in good company. Microsoft's co-founder, Bill Gates, considers "the chance to sit outside reading a great book" summer's gift for "gutting out" the rest of the year inside.
No doubt young people will find the reading list selections made by Elizabeth Perez, a children's librarian at the San Francisco Public Library, more to their liking than the books Bill Gates put on his list:
The Vital Question by Nick Lane, who explores the role energy plays in all living things, and
How Not to be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg's take on the role of math in all things, and
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, in which Noah Yuval Harari speculates on the way things like artificial intelligence and genetic engineering will change future humans.
Perez chose books featuring characters with diverse nationalities, including children from Mexico, the Caribbean, Guatemala, Ghana, Somalia, and Korea. Her choices also include children who have dual nationalities, American and Vietnamese, for example. She has age-appropriate selections for students from age 4 to age 14.
For ages 4-8
Emmanuel's Dream: the True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah by Laurie Ann Thompson.
A Ghanaian boy, born with one less developed leg, becomes a professional athlete.
For ages 5-8
I'm New Here by Anne Sebley O'Brien
Children from Guatemala, Somalia, and Korea begin to adjust to a new school with the help of new classmates.
Mango, Abuela, and Me by Meg Medina
A parrot becomes a go-between for a little girl who doesn't speak Spanish and her grandmother who does.
Mama's Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation by Edwidge Danticat
Librarian Perez advises adults to read this book first before deciding if children should find out letters are the only way some children have contact with their parents in detention camps.
For ages 5-9
Juna's Jar by Jane Bank
Juna uses a Korean kinchi jar to store her dreams.
For ages 6-10
Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras by Duncan Tonatiuh
A non-fiction book about an illustrator famous for drawing Mexican Day of the Dead skeletons.
For ages 8-12
Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai
Unwillingly an American girl visits Vietnam with her Vietnamese father and grandmother to learn what happened to her grandfather during the Vietnam War and to discover the Vietnamese part of her identity.
Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton
This book uses a half Japanese girl's interest in space to describe her feeling of being an alien in a town where almost everyone is white.
For ages 9-12
The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
An heroic young girl is determined to save her Caribbean island from the ghostly Jumbies that appear in folk tales.
For ages 10-14
Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan
During World War II a harmonica weaves together stories about a family living in Nazi Germany and a Mexican-American family and Japanese-American family living in the United States.
No doubt young people will find the reading list selections made by Elizabeth Perez, a children's librarian at the San Francisco Public Library, more to their liking than the books Bill Gates put on his list:
The Vital Question by Nick Lane, who explores the role energy plays in all living things, and
How Not to be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg's take on the role of math in all things, and
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, in which Noah Yuval Harari speculates on the way things like artificial intelligence and genetic engineering will change future humans.
Perez chose books featuring characters with diverse nationalities, including children from Mexico, the Caribbean, Guatemala, Ghana, Somalia, and Korea. Her choices also include children who have dual nationalities, American and Vietnamese, for example. She has age-appropriate selections for students from age 4 to age 14.
For ages 4-8
Emmanuel's Dream: the True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah by Laurie Ann Thompson.
A Ghanaian boy, born with one less developed leg, becomes a professional athlete.
For ages 5-8
I'm New Here by Anne Sebley O'Brien
Children from Guatemala, Somalia, and Korea begin to adjust to a new school with the help of new classmates.
Mango, Abuela, and Me by Meg Medina
A parrot becomes a go-between for a little girl who doesn't speak Spanish and her grandmother who does.
Mama's Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation by Edwidge Danticat
Librarian Perez advises adults to read this book first before deciding if children should find out letters are the only way some children have contact with their parents in detention camps.
For ages 5-9
Juna's Jar by Jane Bank
Juna uses a Korean kinchi jar to store her dreams.
For ages 6-10
Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras by Duncan Tonatiuh
A non-fiction book about an illustrator famous for drawing Mexican Day of the Dead skeletons.
For ages 8-12
Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai
Unwillingly an American girl visits Vietnam with her Vietnamese father and grandmother to learn what happened to her grandfather during the Vietnam War and to discover the Vietnamese part of her identity.
Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton
This book uses a half Japanese girl's interest in space to describe her feeling of being an alien in a town where almost everyone is white.
For ages 9-12
The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
An heroic young girl is determined to save her Caribbean island from the ghostly Jumbies that appear in folk tales.
For ages 10-14
Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan
During World War II a harmonica weaves together stories about a family living in Nazi Germany and a Mexican-American family and Japanese-American family living in the United States.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Chocolate Tasting Party and More
Controversy about the taste of $10 chocolate bars produced by Rick and Michael Mast in the Bronx, USA, suggests kids throughout the globe might enjoy their own chance to sample the world's chocolate.
Mast's chocolates claim to be made from paste of melted chocolate from Valrhona, a company chef Alberic Guironnet founded in France in 1922. The Mast bars come in three flavors: dark, almond, and goat's milk.
Other expensive chocolates, often found at airport newspaper shops, are Scharffen Berger Extra Dark and Green & Black's Dark.
Less expensive chocolates can be found in a bag of Nestle's morsels used to make chocolate chip cookies, Hershey's bars, and Mars bars.
Serrv (serrv.org/chocolate), a fair trade nonprofit organization, provides a wide variety (dark, dark with mint, dark with raspberries, milk chocolate with hazelnuts, etc.) of Kosher-certified, 3 and a half oz. $3 bars. Serrv bars use cocoa produced by the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana, Africa, which strives to increase the earnings of cocoa farmers and to run programs designed to bolster the confidence of women cocoa farmers.
While sampling a piece or two of chocolate candy or building replicas of the Leaning Tower of
Pisa or Great Wall of China out of chocolate (like those shown in the February, 2016 issue of National Geographic Kids), there are a few things about chocolate to consider. Chocolate was a popular food of the Maya people who lived in what is now Mexico and Central America over a thousand years ago. The Mast brothers say they learned small-batch chocolate making by studying methods used by Mayans.
Fast forward to 2015. Ghana and the Cote d' Ivoire account for at least half of the world's cocoa that goes into chocolate. Much of the rest comes from Brazil, Nigeria, and Cameroon. In Africa cocoa bean farmers are not being replaced by younger farmers, because the income they earn keeps them below the $2 a day global poverty level. Ghana's cocoa farmers can earn as little as 84 cents a day; in the Ivory Coast, earnings may be 50 cents a day. A video produced in mid-2014 showed how excited cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast were when, for the first time in their lives, they tried chocolate made from the beans they grew and harvested.
The 2015 Cocoa Barometer report (cocoabarometer.org) issued by non-governmental organizations describes how the concentration of 80% of the cocoa-to-chocolate retail chain in a few companies provides no incentive to raise cocoa farmer incomes, to end child labor, to increase crop diversification, to improve infrastructure, or to provide market information for farmers.
(Chocolate also is the subject of the earlier post, "Chocolate's Sweet Deals.")
Mast's chocolates claim to be made from paste of melted chocolate from Valrhona, a company chef Alberic Guironnet founded in France in 1922. The Mast bars come in three flavors: dark, almond, and goat's milk.
Other expensive chocolates, often found at airport newspaper shops, are Scharffen Berger Extra Dark and Green & Black's Dark.
Less expensive chocolates can be found in a bag of Nestle's morsels used to make chocolate chip cookies, Hershey's bars, and Mars bars.
Serrv (serrv.org/chocolate), a fair trade nonprofit organization, provides a wide variety (dark, dark with mint, dark with raspberries, milk chocolate with hazelnuts, etc.) of Kosher-certified, 3 and a half oz. $3 bars. Serrv bars use cocoa produced by the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana, Africa, which strives to increase the earnings of cocoa farmers and to run programs designed to bolster the confidence of women cocoa farmers.
While sampling a piece or two of chocolate candy or building replicas of the Leaning Tower of
Pisa or Great Wall of China out of chocolate (like those shown in the February, 2016 issue of National Geographic Kids), there are a few things about chocolate to consider. Chocolate was a popular food of the Maya people who lived in what is now Mexico and Central America over a thousand years ago. The Mast brothers say they learned small-batch chocolate making by studying methods used by Mayans.
Fast forward to 2015. Ghana and the Cote d' Ivoire account for at least half of the world's cocoa that goes into chocolate. Much of the rest comes from Brazil, Nigeria, and Cameroon. In Africa cocoa bean farmers are not being replaced by younger farmers, because the income they earn keeps them below the $2 a day global poverty level. Ghana's cocoa farmers can earn as little as 84 cents a day; in the Ivory Coast, earnings may be 50 cents a day. A video produced in mid-2014 showed how excited cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast were when, for the first time in their lives, they tried chocolate made from the beans they grew and harvested.
The 2015 Cocoa Barometer report (cocoabarometer.org) issued by non-governmental organizations describes how the concentration of 80% of the cocoa-to-chocolate retail chain in a few companies provides no incentive to raise cocoa farmer incomes, to end child labor, to increase crop diversification, to improve infrastructure, or to provide market information for farmers.
(Chocolate also is the subject of the earlier post, "Chocolate's Sweet Deals.")
Monday, November 16, 2015
An Army Moves on Its Stomach
Napoleon was right. Whether its the army of ISIS, the French Foreign Legion, or the US Marine Corps, food fuels military operations. I remember reading about an incident in the US Civil War, when General Lee's army arrived at a supply depot, found it completely empty, and knew the South's cause was doomed. Hunger (and thirst) saps energy and morale.Countries, causes, and individuals that underestimate agriculture's value are in trouble. Mohsin Hamid describes the misdirected rural to urban rush in his book, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. The billion dollars worth of items Alibaba sold on Singles Day are no more able to feed a single person than King Midas' gold. It is a great misfortune that Pakistan, with 180 million people, has only 20% of its GDP devoted to agriculture and that in Nigeria, with 170 million people, agriculture produces only 23% of its $510 billion GDP.
Considering food's importance for everyone, not just armies, agriculture merits the attention of every country's best and brightest. Indeed, modern agriculture is every bit as dependent on skilled techies as fields that now employ digital whiz kids. To help kids discover the challenge of moving food around the world, draw or find a picture of a farmer on the right side of a paper or board and a grocery store on the left side. Start writing down all that needs to happen in between.
What does it take in Uganda, Africa, to go from the gift of a $500 heifer from Heifer International (heifer.org) that produces three gallons of milk a day to the sale, in a local market, of some of the milk the family does not use? Consider all the steps between the woman growing cocoa for the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana, Africa, and the retailers selling chocolate bars in Europe. Here are just some possibilities:
- Ask local farmers or Peace Corps volunteers to provide training for raising animals
- Grow feed crops
- Buy disease-resistant seed
- Cool milk
- Buy a truck
- Produce fertilizer from compost to increase crop yields
- Contract shipping space on a cargo ship
- Form a 4H chapter to interest the younger generation in farming
- Pass land use laws to protect small farms from encroachment by corporate plantations
- Lease an acre of land
- Provide police and security measures to protect farmers from gang violence and terrorists
- Build a warehouse to store cocoa beans rather than selling them all at once for a lower price than the revenue that could be earned by selling them over a period of a year
- Install irrigation and water pumps
Nowadays, the "Moo monitors" that dairy farmers attach to their cows' collars produce data about the health of their herds. Machines can pick almost every crop. GPS satellite technology enables farmers to monitor weather, judge the health of their crops, pin point the application of pesticide sprays and fertilizers, spot weeds, and measure yields as crops are being cut. Satellites even monitor the temperature and humidity of produce carried by sea in shipping containers in order to predict its condition for sale on arrival. Thanks to government funding and developers in companies like Planet Labs in San Francisco, which has developed small earth observation satellites that can fit in a shoebox, subsistence farmers will be able to utilize this up-to-date technology.
Already, in countries with impassible roads that subject supplies and produce shipments to long delays, the widespread use of mobile phones enables farmers and fishermen to arrange trades, sales, and payment transfers.
Since we all move on our stomachs, we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." The world is depending on kids to get involved in producing and distributing the food we all need to live.
Also, check out a few of the earlier posts on food and farming:
Already, in countries with impassible roads that subject supplies and produce shipments to long delays, the widespread use of mobile phones enables farmers and fishermen to arrange trades, sales, and payment transfers.
Since we all move on our stomachs, we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." The world is depending on kids to get involved in producing and distributing the food we all need to live.
Also, check out a few of the earlier posts on food and farming:
- Can Small Farms End Poverty?
- Nigeria's New Beginning
- World (Food) Expo, Hybrid Crops & New Farming Practices
- Back to the Land
- Dairy Cows on the Moove
- The Bees and the Birds
- Chocolate's Sweet Deals
- Coffee Prices Going Up, Allowances Going Down?
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Chocolate's Sweet Deals
In addition to giving boxes of chocolates as gifts this holiday season, consider giving stocks in cocoa processing plants. But keep an eye on the competition, since the growing demand for chocolate among billions of people in emerging markets, which is expected to increase cocoa processing by 15% in the next ten years, can raise prices on the supply of cocoa beans which has suffered from drought conditions, and it will put a squeeze on profits.As an example of increased competition, check out how Olam International, headquartered in Singapore, has just become a major competitor with Barry Callebaut AG and Cargill Inc. In addition to shelling out $176 million to a U.S. peanut processor, Olam, which recently purchased the cocoa unit of Archer-Daniels-Midland for $1.3 billion, now has eight cocoa processing plants, including one in the Ivory Coast. The U.S. recently acted to block imports of the UK's Cadbury chocolate which has a higher fat content and creamier taste than Hershey's chocolate. Hershey claimed Cadbury's product names and packaging infringed on their trademark rights and licensing agreements.
Based on projections of a growing demand for chocolate in emerging markets, there is an opportunity for cocoa bean growers in developing countries, by themselves or in conjunction with major processors, to set up their own plants to satisfy local demand. Further, since chocolate can melt when transported in warm weather, local producers have a major incentive to supply emerging markets with locally-produced chocolate products.
The Kuapa Kokoo Cocoa Cooperative in Ghana, Africa, is already a working model of how cocoa growers can benefit by developing a relationship with processors and distributors. Before selling to the cooperative, growers were at the mercy of a state cocoa buying company that did not always pay on time and sometimes cheated when weighing their cocoa beans. Now, the cooperative, working with Divine Chocolate and the fair trade company, SERRV, (serrv.org/divine), participates in the profits generated from the production and marketing of a wide variety of gourmet chocolate bars, chocolate mint thins, Kosher certified milk and dark chocolate coins, and a day-by-day, chocolate heart-filled Advent calendar.
For other ideas of how to make a profit in Africa, see the earlier blog posts, "Never Too Young to Invest in the Future" and "Discover Africa."
Friday, October 24, 2014
Never Too Young to Invest in the Future
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Small and large scale investments offer money-making opportunities throughout the world. Check out $25 gift-giving ideas for kiva and other organizations at the blog post, "Gifts for Happy Holidays."A Special Report in the Financial Times (October 6, 2014) is cause to consider major money-making opportunities in Africa. Javier Blas wrote that high commodity prices, cheap Chinese loans, and improved governance have led to Africa's currently healthy growth. (Go to the later blog post, "Chocolate's Sweet Deals," to see how cocoa growers and investors can cooperate to benefit from the growing demand for chocolate in emerging markets.)
The African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association estimates there is now $25 billion worth of private investment in Africa. It is in basic household goods, power, telecom transmission and pipeline projects, not just commodities, oil, diamonds, gold, and other minerals. When the US Carlyle Group launched its maiden African fund with a $500 million target, it closed at $700 million. It's first African investment, $150 million in Nigeria's Diamond Bank, was followed by an investment in a tire and parts retailer in Johannesburg, South Africa. Runa Alam, chief executive of London-based Development Partners International (DPI), a private equity fund that invests in African businesses, observed that top business schools are producing investors with skill sets that include global and local networks that can sniff out investment worthy companies in Africa, not only in China and Latin America.
Indeed, private investment continues to find opportunities in Africa. In February, 2015, Actis Capital (a London-based private equity firm that concentrates its investments in emerging markets) and Mainstream Renewable Power (a Dublin-based clean energy developer) teamed up to invest $1.9 billion in a new Lekela Power venture that will operate solar and wind power projects in South Africa, Ghana, and Egypt.
That is not to say Africa is problem free. Economic conditions have not improved across the board. Potential unemployment hovers over large chunks of the new middle class. The young population of one billion, on its way to four billion by 2100, is disillusioned and under-educated. (See the later blog post, "Recess Differs Around the World," to get a glimpse of Africa's under funded schools.) Compared to Asia, Africa's young people are unqualified for manufacturing jobs. (The earlier blog post, "Discover Africa," however, tells how young Africans take advantage of entering and winning contests and are starting their own businesses.)
The Ebola crisis showed that disease can still devastate some parts of Africa; the abduction of over 200 teenage girls in Nigeria shows how religious and ethnic divisions persist; and corruption and greed continue to infest government and motivate leaders, except in Nigeria (See the later blog post, "Nigeria's New Beginning."), to cling to their positions after their constitutional terms of office end. With mobile phones and social media, however, young people have the means to voice their demands and frustrations and to receive solicitations from Islamic extremists. Nonetheless, young voters can be a powerful bloc capable of making their call for change heard. In the end, Africa is an investment opportunity that should not be overlooked.
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