|
TEAA Progress
Henry Hamburger
|
|
Grants: Wide-ranging TEAA grant proposals are in various stages of progression at a dozen schools: from the talking stage during school visits, through correspondence to get specifics, to the writing of proposals, deliberation by the grants committee and steering committee, the various mechanisms of moving money, and finally back to the school visits which are devoted to followup as well as to getting things started. Trip: ... which brings us to Bill and Henry's excellent adventure in April of this year. The trip description appears - with photos!! - on the TEAA website at tea-a.org. Just click "What's Hot" (upper left) and then "Trip" (lower left). Exciting highlights for us were to meet with and learn about the work of the headmistresses in two girls' schools, one each in Uganda and Tanzania. You can see descriptions of them in the entries for April 11 and 21 in the trip report on the web page mentioned above. These two schools were selected to receive LCD projectors - an item topping the wish lists at several schools - as a kind of pilot experiment. In one it will be used by students, in the other as a classroom assist for teachers. Money: Among the above proposals, those approved or likely to be will incur a total outlay of roughly $20,000. Others under discussion but still not fully in focus could amount to another $5,000 to $10,000. For this reason it is reassuring, not to mention gratifying, to be able to report on the spontaneous generosity of TEAA members. In less than a year, starting with $1,525 from the raffle in Seattle, we have taken in a total of $17,600. This plus funds that were already on hand from earlier make the envisioned expenditures possible, but it will soon be time to raise more money, internally, externally or both. Web: "East Africa News" is a new section of the TEAA website (click it in the upper left). My goal is to provide all the key points and insights in the news in excerpts that take about 10-15% of the space that the original reporting takes, thereby saving TEAAers valuable time! A link to the source always lets you get the whole story. This all began in January as Kenya's post-election trauma got rolling. I started with international sources like Reuters and BBC and gradually added East African sources including newspapers online. I tried to find interesting backgrounders as well as hot stories. Topics: Then the LRA in Uganda seemed ready to make peace, so I did the same there, but it soon occurred to me that Tanzania should not be neglected just because it was being totally nonviolent. Then came Zimbabwe. "Education," "Technology" and "Economics" receive attention in regional or Africa-wide stories. These three topics as well as the four countries mentioned are clickable in the lower left after selecting East Africa News. I try to find some positive news, though that's not always easy to do. Check it out! Send suggestions! |