From Computer Class

From Computer Class:

In computer class today, we were learning about the internet. We were looking at allafrica.com, a good source for African news, and there was a link with a picture of Obama. It read “Ask President Obama about Africa.” Upon clicking the link, we discovered that allafrica.com was going to compile a list of questions for Obama from its readers’ submissions and then present the questions to him when he visits Ghana on July 10-11. Here is our question:

We are employees of the National Organisation for Welbody,a Sierra Leonean NGO. We run a clinic that focuses on giving free health care and education to the amputee community in Kono District, Sierra Leone.
As you may know, Sierra Leone suffered a terrible civil war for eleven years, during which amputation was used to intimidate and torture innocent people. These amputees continue to face great challenges in their daily lives and the climb out of poverty is even more difficult for them.
Africa is home to many different groups of marginalized people. Fortunately, there is now plenty of funding for the largest groups, for example HIV/AIDS victims. However, we want to know: how will you include smaller marginalized groups, like the amputee community, in your development plan for Sub-Saharan Africa?

We brainstormed together, and then wrote it together, and then after they typed it in (a process that took about twenty minutes) I edited it. To be honest, though, the issue for a group like the amputees is not just money. It’s opportunity and options as well. Like anyone else on the planet, amputees and their dependents need education and capital to get ahead, to make their ideas work. Handouts are not helpful, but sometimes foreign policies like cotton subsidies crush the economic possibilities of a West African farmer without him ever knowing it. It’s also important to remember that even the amputee communities are not free from corruption*; any aid needs to be monitored to make sure that it is being used in good faith. In the end, there is no single idea or perspective that will catapault areas like the Kono District from the fifteenth century to the twenty-first. It’s going to be a slow process, with many disappointments. With NOW, Katie and I have front row seats to (we’re even participating in) the struggle to eradicate poverty and provide all human beings with the opportunity to have a healthy and fulfilling life.

*I’m compiling a longer blog entry on corruption that I will post eventually. It’s a subject that requires care, and I want to give an accurate picture of both how corruption fits into the Sierra Leonean society and how Bailor and NOW interact with it. For now, suffice it to say that Bailor’s passionate desire to keep NOW a transparent and honest role model organization is effective and inspiring but not without challenges.