Young African Leaders Rise to the challenge

Hello Friends,

The past two weeks, I have met some amazing brothers and sisters from the continent of Africa doing great work in their respective countries. I had barely returned from the US on a two week working visit when I received a phone call from our local US Embassy Public Affairs section. I was asked to join the current Mandela Washington Fellowship for the 2017 cohort. Due to the fact that I had just returned home after some time away I felt as if I could not take this up as I needed to be at home to attend to some pressing issues. In fact I had a project for my studies due for presentation and the notice I had been given was short. I immediately began discussing this opportunity with my mentors and made the decision to accept this after only 24 hours. I did not make a bad decision and here is why..

Since my arrival back in the US, I have met 24 selfless and humble individuals who are all working hard to contribute to the development of their countries. My new found friend Tolulope Songosanya is the Founder and CEO of LOTS Charity Foundation in Nigeria. She is working to improve the lives of young children in Dustbin Estate which resembles a slum that has inadequate water and sanitation facilities, proper schools, access to food or health services provision. She has become the self acclaimed mayoress of this community as she works to provide essential services for young children in her country. 

Anastacia De Klerk is a Mathematics and English teacher from Nambia working with young children. She also works for a charity that she co-founded which seeks to improve educational outcomes for young children. In a conversation with her she tells me, she wants to work on building a community centre that will be a one stop shop which will provide support to young children in her particular community.

I have just finished reading a book titled "The Girl Who Found Water" a collection of memoirs written by yet another colleague, Chibuzo Mirian Azubuike from Nigeria. A powerful narration of how focus and determination led to her providing the first safe water source in Bauchi, northern Nigeria, where fighting between rebels and government forces had taken root. I have now got an autographed copy of her book!

In South Africa, my new found friend, Molefi Nyofane is working to provide access to tertiary education for young children coming very poor and disadvantaged communities. His own life story is again a testament of hard work and sheer determination to succeed. To date over 3000 young adults have been supported by the Macro Informative Youth Agency (MIYA) an organization he founded 10 years ago. 

These are some of the inspiring stories I have been picking up and will be sharing more in the coming weeks. I am excited at the fact that I am with other leaders who are not sitting on their laurels doing nothing, leaders who want to serve and not be served, leaders who want to get their hands dirty in order to set the compass right and ensure that they lead in the areas of their passion.

Reflecting on these stories and more, makes me happy that I am part of a generation of young leaders who are determined to leave a lasting legacy.

Patrick Makokoro

Founder and Executive Director

Nhaka Foundation

Mandela Washington Fellow 2017

Education Matters!

Last month, I returned from a whirlwind tour of the U.S. As the Founder and Director of the Nhaka Foundation in Zimbabwe, I work to give hundreds of kids every day the opportunity to experience early childhood education. On my tour, I was an advocate for millions more.

Why does an early education matter? Children start to learn the alphabet. They learn shapes and sounds. They begin to develop fine motor skills like cutting and folding. They enter the world of numbers. These opportunities are their right, but I don’t take them for granted. When I was young, I didn’t have the chance to learn these essential skills. My own children laugh at me sometimes because I have trouble telling colors apart, like burgundy and red. I think many colors look the same. My children already know better because their education began early. I am still catching up, and probably will be the rest of my life.

This is why I’m so passionate about funding early childhood development programs.  Every child around the world deserves to learn these basic skills at an early age. Their brains are incredibly flexible, with neural connections developing hundreds and thousands of times faster than adults. It’s a crucial time for their development. The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is doing amazing work funding these opportunities for children. It is a powerful multilateral partnership working to fund education in the world’s poorest countries, inviting international donors to invest in their plan. It brings foundations, governments, organizations, and private donors together around a single purpose. We must continue to push our governments around the globe to fund it.  

I went to the U.S. to do a media tour about the GPE. I traveled to 11 cities, from Houston to Topeka, meeting with RESULTS volunteers and their local media outlets to explain the power of education. I shared my story, hoping the editors would recognize the importance of this opportunity for the U.S. to fully fund its portion of the partnership. They responded with nine media hits about the GPE, including 5 newspaper editorials. “By giving children an education, GPE is giving them a chance,” (The Topeka Capital-Journal). “The United States can and should hold up its role in the world to promote education,” (Hutchinson News). Other outlets included The Mercury, The Ottowa Herald, and the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

I was honored to meet with these editors and volunteers, and I take these experiences back with me to Zimbabwe. I look at my little children and I’m grateful that they know more about colors than I do. I want every child to get started on their education early in life, when it matters most.

Education Matters!

Patrick Makokoro

June 12, 2017

Promoting cross cultural partnerships

Dear Friends,

Pervasive poverty, HIV/AIDS and food insecurity are the biggest threats to the survival and development of children in Sub-Saharan Africa, Zimbabwe in particular. The high prevalence rate of HIV has resulted in increased death toll which in turn has eroded and in some cases depleted the safety nets of families and communities. The epidemic has a wide-range impact on the country, one of which is the rapidly increasing number of orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC).

In late February 2017, Nhaka Foundation with friends from 2 Seconds Or Less embarked on the establishment of a nutrition garden in Munyawiri village Domboshava. The project is being implemented at Munyawiri Primary School, with the aim of providing sustainability to the school feeding programme. The project is complementing the Government’s Home Grown School Feeding Program (HGSFP)[1] where the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is implementing a sustainable homegrown feeding solution whereby the government provides the grain for starch and the communities supply a protein or relish. This is one of the easiest ways of ensuring access to healthy diet that contains adequate macro- and micro-nutrients by producing different kinds of vegetables in the nutrition garden. They are especially important in small children’s diets to ensure normal growth and intellectual development. Munyawiri Primary School is one of the schools were Nhaka Foundation is implementing its programmes, after a needs assessment and feasibility analysis Munyawiri Primary School was chosen as a candidate for the pilot project. It is against this backdrop that Munyawiri School was supplied with garden tools and seedlings to kick-start the Project. 

The garden project is expected to supply the school and surrounding community with diverse range and year-round harvest of vegetables while generating income for the school from the garden produce. The revenue will be used to buy food supplies for the school feeding program allowing the school to provide a diverse diet and other nutritive foods for the learners. The income generation component of the project will contribute to sustaining the nutrition garden as the school will be able to buy more seedlings for themselves and eventually feeding learners on their own making the school feeding program sustainable. This will contribute to sustaining the nutrition garden as the school will be able to procure more garden inputs for themselves and feed their learners making the school feeding program self-sustaining. 

Nhaka Foundation is committed to supporting programs that are locally sustainable and value local level community engagement. 

As we celebrate our 10^th year Anniversary of “leaving a lasting legacy” we take a quotation from Grace Lee Boggs;

“We can begin by doing small things at the local level, like planting gardens or looking out for our neighbours. That is how change takes place in living systems, not from above but from within, from many local actions occurring simultaneously….”

Until next time,

Wilbert 

Field Officer 

---

[1] The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is spearheading the programme aimed at providing at least one balanced meal for pupils at primary level. "The benefits of investing in school feeding also linked to Sustainable Developmental Goal four, are that it provides a powerful institutional market and can produce impacts in the local supply chain and benefit communities”