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Independence: Evidence of a Job Well Done

Humanitarian Aid - Wed, 09/01/2010 - 11:59

This past week I moved my oldest daughter into her college dorm two states away. The milestone, as it is for most parents, was bittersweet. I kept reminding myself that although I will miss her at home, this is the purposeful outcome of 18 years of parenting. We raise our kids with the intent of molding them into healthy, stable, independent adults. The fact that she can now take care of herself means I’ve done my job well.

A recent comment from our Kenya staff reminded me that our work in developing communities has a similar intention. The staff member said, “The community based institutions are showing signs of walking on their own without the help of World Concern.” Way to go World Concern, if I do say so myself! This is an indicator that we’re doing our job well.

School boys walking home from Lekanka Hills Primary School.

One of the young men who received help from our programs in Kenya is a living example of this principle. Otuma Taek had little hope of overcoming the cycle of poverty in his remote pastoralist village. He had a dream of becoming a teacher, but drought had taken its toll on his father’s diminishing cattle stock and his family could not afford the 22,000 Kenyan shillings (approximately $270 USD) annual tuition for him to attend high school. It seemed his eight years of hard work and good grades in primary school would be wasted.

But everything changed for Otuma when the village development committee chose him to receive a World Concern scholarship. Otuma enrolled at Narok High School where he had to undergo a qualifying year, which meant he spent five years in high school instead of four—another indication of his willingness to go the distance to gain an education. In addition to paying half his tuition, the program offered life skills seminars, which he says helped him avoid joining the wrong crowd in high school. He completed his final exam with a respectable C average.

Today, Otuma is a teacher at Lekanka Hills Primary School, where he teaches math to fourth and fifth graders and passes along the valuable education he received to the next generation. His hope is that this next generation of students will follow his legacy and someday make a difference in their village as well.

In this same way, we hope eventually World Concern’s support won’t be needed in this community anymore. The village will sustain itself, and we can say, “Well done.”

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Zuma buys more time for Mugabe

Zimbabwe Hope - Sat, 03/20/2010 - 18:52

So South African president Jacob Zuma came to Harare, saw with his own eyes the mess that the dithering of SADC has wrought upon the political and economic fabric of Zimbabwe and was overcome by the scheming of ZANU-PF leader Robert Mugabe and his cohorts.

With subdued fanfare and little to show for his half-hearted efforts, Zuma left the country with yet another promise of more talks and new deadlines for the resolution of the so-called outstanding issues of the so-called inclusive government. He met separately with Reserve bank governor Gideon Gono and attorney general Johannes Tomana.

If it is true that Zuma did not ask these two Mugabe henchmen to step aside for the good of the country. then this was a truly a lost opportunity. We can surmise though, that Zuma could have offered each of these men a golden handshake of sorts in South African rand in order to tempt them to do what even they must know to be the right thing: leave their posts and hope that given their relatively young ages, they might have a real chance to participate in rebuilding the country in the future. After all, what use is South African wealth if some of it is not brought to bear on situations such as this?

The departure of Gono and Tomana will likely result in a domino effect because once these two are out of the way, who knows on whom the axe will fall next? I find it difficult to believe that ZANU-PF will begin the process of dismantling its terrorist apparatus. Fear of the slippery slope complex will mean that we are likely to be talking about this case until at least after the World Cup.

I believe that there will be some face-saving movement within the government in the wake of Zuma's visit. Governors will be appointed from the MDC side but perhaps not to the full extent envisaged under earlier agreements. ZANU-PF needs to slow down the transition process in Zimbabwe because there is a very real probability that an accelerated pace of change could flush the party down the drain of political oblivion.

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