Power and Policy

Well, big news to report. The power is finally on in my little house. This is huge for me. It means that I finally get to call a place home. I am very excited about it. I will include pictures some time, but it is really not much different from the States. I am not living in a mud hut or whatever your picture of Africa is. It has two bedrooms (one is my office) and two and a half baths. There is a lot of space. The only real difference from the states is that all the floors are tile, but I have a few rugs. Hopefully, with time I will be able to call it home.

Well, I promised my thoughts on the policy initiatives that I think the community schools should pursue. First of all, for those who don’t know I am working with community schools not government schools. These schools are privately financed to serve impoverished communities that are not served by the government schools. The plan is for these schools to eventually be strengthened enough so that they can be run by the government. That is the Zambian governments plan to help meet the UN Millenium Development Goal (MDG) of providing universal primary education by 2015.

Through my observations and readings, these will be my four suggestions for possible advocacy initiatives. The first issue is to focus on teacher accreditation. The Zambian government does not count time spent working in community schools as time teaching. Also, paths to teacher certification for these teachers are not transparent or manageable given the fact that the teachers are not paid. There must be clear and manageable paths for these teachers to be trained and certified. My brief training will not do. There has to be longer term solutions. The second issue is the issue of teacher deployment. Under the new mandates provided by the government for community schools, the government should be deploying their trained teachers to community and government based schools at an equal rate based upon need. This is not happening; therefore, the government needs to be “pressured” to fulfill their promise. The third issue is the transparency of the grant allocation process for community schools. Presently, the government does provide a small amount of money for community schools. The allocation process is murky though. Administrators have told me that during the last allocation, money was given to schools that did not exist. They were a little bit upset at that fact. Finally, the fourth issue is providing classroom or school libraries. Research has proven that when books are present children’s reading scores increase. It is not rocket science. The only books in the schools are text books and writing books. There are no books for children to simply read for enjoyment. If gains are to be made, this must change.

There is one more issue that I really care about that I will bring up, but I doubt that they will go forward with it. That is the issue of early childhood education. In order to meet the MDGs, Zambia must strengthen this sector of their education system. This initiative needs to start with the urban and rural poor. This is where it is needed the most. My mind races to beginning something like HeadStart in Zambia. (HeadStart is an early intervention childhood program that focuses on individuals in poverty in the US). To strengthen their system Zambia must start with a solid base (early childhood education, 1st, and 2nd). Of the 110 pages in the National Implementation Framework for Education 2008-2010, there are two pages on Early Childhood Education. The issue must be forced. Ok, I will get off my soapbox for now.

That just gives you a short overview of the issues presented when dealing with this type of education system. There are so many other issues I could bring up but my suggestions would be to start with those. In many ways, the schools are in a transition period. Resources have been promised, but there has not been follow through by the government.

By the way, some people have been asking about an address if you want to send letters, etc. to me. The address is:

David Bramlett

PO Box 70519 30 Lualaba Road,

Kansenshi

Ndola, Zambia

Still a Vagabond!

Well, I finally got my bed situation straightened out; therefore, I will have a place to sleep when I move into my house. Yet the power has still not been turned on in my house. I am still staying at another guest house. It will be a huge relief when I have my own place so that I can settle down and rest. Hopefully that will come soon because living out of a suitcase and moving from house to house is getting old. Since of end of June I have not spent more than one week in the same physical space. For the past two months, I have been a vagabond (sort of in a privileged way); therefore, I am really looking forward to actually settling down.

Work is continuing to go well though. I am going to Mapalo today to start my observation period of schools. At the same time, I am starting to develop a long term plan for teacher training and starting to work out the logistics of that process. On Friday, we have a big meeting with a group of community school leaders to discuss policy initiatives that we want to pursue. These leaders will be from some other community schools with whom I will not be directly working but with whom we we partner in other endeavors. Basically, they are within the network that we run. I will be giving a short presentation on my brief observations of schools and readings of Zambian education policy. Evidently nobody has read through the policy manuals that I have; therefore, my job is to throw out ideas and let the leaders use their experience to decide on the actions. Even though taking a back seat from the leadership standpoint of the initiatives is hard for me, it is a much better system in the long run. The leaders in the communities need to be leading these efforts. They need to be at the forefront and need to have ownership of the movement. Our job is to help them with the process and to encourage them along the way. That does not mean that we don’t provide leadership. It means that our leadership is in the form of support and strengthening. I will be sure to write a blog soon about the specific policy measures that I am recommending, but that is it for now. Hopefully, I will post more pictures of Mapalo and the community after I visit today. Peace!

Pictures from Mapalo

Well, here are some much anticipated pictures from Mapalo (the compound in which I will be working). One is of the Bread of Life Church and its school (bottom left) . The others are of some homes in the community and a few of the children. That's it. More comments to come later, but I wanted to show those pictures while I was thinking about it.

When Is A Queen Not A Queen?

So I moved into my new apartment this weekend, but two things were wrong. First of all, I still don't have electricity. For the past two weeks, they were supposed to turn on the power. Whoops!!! That did not happen!!! For the time being, I am staying in another guest house. Martha Temfwe is going to the power company today to see what the problem is. They are hopeful the power will be turned on today, but I am not holding my breath. Secondly, I went to put my mattress on my bed and the mattress was to long for the bed frame. Both of them were supposed to be queen sized. The mattress and the bed frame were bought at different stores, but evidently there is no standardization of size. Concerning both of these issues, Lawrence Temfwe said "This is Africa!" Unfortunately, I feel like I am saying that entirely too much.

Well, personally, I am doing good. This past Saturday was hard because it was the first day of college football, and I could not watch a darn thing. All I was thinking about on Saturday was football and how for the past six years of my life I planned my work around watching certain football games. Well, I guess that I will have to find a new passion over here. Alright, I am off to figure out how to get a bed long enough to fit my mattress. Peace!

Pictures (Sort of!) and Meeting Results

Well, imagine the fact that I forgot my camera once again when I went to Mapalo. So, no pictures of the compound or schools in which I will be working. I promise that those will come next week though as I will spend three days observing the schools. I felt so bad about not taking pictures that I post three random pictures I took a few minutes ago. The first one is driving through downtown Ndola. The second one is the car that I just purchased today. That is a Toyota Carina for anyone interested. I have never heard of the car before, but it runs well and gets me from place to place. The third one is of the "park" across the street from the Jubilee Centre. As you may notice in the picture all of the land is burned. This is the way that Zambians control weeds. They burn everything to keep it down. Alright, I promise that pictures of the compounds are coming at the beginning of next week.

I am very excited after the meeting. It went great! The school leaders and pastors were very excited about the program, and they welcomed me into their community. There are still many challenges, as I am sure that I will find out at the beginning of next week, but this is a very big step into getting this program off the ground. Nobody has ever worked with these schools and actually cared to get them what they deserve. You could hear that tone in their voice, but you could also hear the excitement in their voice over the possibilities. I pray that we are not creating a white man savior mentality. I don't think that we are but you always have to be aware of those things here. Alright, I have to go but peace!

Meeting Today with Pastors

Well, today at 3 p.m. Zambian time (which means anywhere from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.), I am meeting with the pastors and principals of the community schools in Mapalo. I am very excited. Last weeks meeting was in partnership with another meeting; therefore, all we did was briefly introduce the program to a large group of pastors. There were 15 pastors at that meeting and out of those 15 only 3 of them run community schools. This week we are meeting with just the three pastors, their principals, and some others who are invested in the schools. At the meeting, we are going to present a three fold vision for partnership between the Jubilee Centre and the community schools. It will be to strengthen the curriculum of the schools, to train teachers in best practices, and to develop policy initiatives based off the partnership. We are also open to any other ideas the schools may have for our partnership, but that is the vision right now. This vision is basically my job. So if you ever wonder what I do, all you need to do is think about those three points. It all fits back into the vision of the Jubilee Centre though because we envisioned this partnership in order to strengthen the ministry of the church to the orphans and vulnerable children of Mapalo. Also, at the meeting, I have many questions for the pastors about the government’s involvement in the schools. According to the Zambian official policy, they should be providing training for the teachers while also having providing grants for individual schools. From preliminary questioning, this does not seem the case; therefore, out of these issues spring our policy initiatives. I am very excited about this partnership, but the challenge, according to Lawrence, is for us to communicate this as a partnership. I think I wrote this in my update email, but this is not a take over of the schools. This is about us coming in to support and provide training to further their ministry. We don’t want to run these schools. They are better run by the communities themselves because then they can be more responsible to the community. This organic nature is one of the strengths of this format. Alright, I have to go finish preparing for the meeting, but I wanted to provide an update. I will be sure to take and post pictures of Mapalo today. Peace!

All I Want to Do Is Look!!!

I need a car to get around Ndola by myself; therefore, David Temfwe and I stopped by the “car market” today. Buying a car is not that urgent, but it is on the to-do list. The “car market” is basically where men sit outside all day with used cars from Japan and wait for people to come haggle with them. Little did we know that just stopping by the car market would turn into a full day ordeal. We just wanted to look to see what the people had to offer, but that is not what the car dealers had in mind.

We stopped, looked, but did not see anything that we liked. One of the guys knew David though and said that he could bring a car by for us to look at. I asked David why we could not just leave and tell him that we were not interested, but he said that is not how business is done in Zambia. Therefore, the men brought a car by, but we did not like that one either. We had more errands to run, but before we could get back to the Jubilee Centre, the men had called David’s cell phone to tell him that they had another car that they wanted us to look at. They actually brought the next car to the Jubliee Centre! All of us stopped work for ten minutes to look at the car and drive it around. That car was in bad shape though; therefore, we told them no. We also told them that we would call them when we wanted to look at cars again. These people don’t take no for an answer though. At 4:45 p.m. in the afternoon, they brought another car by the office. Now that is persistent! I guess they think that we just hang out in the office all day and don’t work.

Their persistence may have paid off though. This last car that they brought by was in good condition with relative few kilometers on it. We will have to see what their price is. My color does not help the negotiations; therefore, I have taken a back seat in the process. I still don’t know what I think of their persistence. I love the effort that they are putting in to becoming a good salesman, but in all honesty it kinda puts me off a little bit. I kinda want to say, “Settle down!” I guess that I get this from my father. It takes him three months to make a major purchase. My father has been car shopping for the past nine months. He finally bought a new car last week. I seriously thought Jesus would return before my father bought a new car. Well, we will see. I am tired of all this shopping, but I guess that it is apart of setting up life in a different place. Peace!