Hoosiers and Africa
It’s time we change the way we think about our relation to Africa. Look at the images of Africa we see on TV, read the stories that make it into our newspapers. The problem isn’t exactly that the news is almost invariably bad, the images almost always disturbing … Africa is indeed a wounded continent. Of course we need to balance the bad news with an understanding that the continent is also filled with stories of beauty and hope, even in the midst of conflict and crisis.
No, the problem with the disturbing images and stories is that they shape the way we Americans think of our connections to Africa. The crises seem hopeless, overwhelming, insoluble. Even wealthy international institutions such as the United Nations or the US Agency for International Development seem all but impotent in the face of AIDS, bone-crushing poverty, wars and genocide. Our natural response is passivity, fatalism, resignation. Even the beauty can seem strange and foreign, distant from our lives.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The reality is there are very tight links between Africa and communities in a state such as Indiana. Powerful Hoosiers have had an impact -- probably no state has produced a trio of individuals as influential as Sen. Richard Lugar, outgoing head of the World Food Program Jim Morris, and USAID chief Randall Tobias. But three guys from Indiana are not why Indiana really matters to Africa. The real reason: thousands of ordinary people in Indiana are engaged in helping Africans find solutions to the problems they face. In fact, there are more than a thousand initiatives to address African AIDS and poverty in Central Indiana alone. Every church, every university, civic organizations, even individuals, all forming partnerships with counterparts in Africa that usually bypass national governments in DC or Africa. When you think about it, that's amazing. The flow of physical and financial resources is significant, but the greater impact could be less tangible. Personal transformations of Africans and Hoosiers, of churches and communities are tough to measure, but they do matter.
No, the problem with the disturbing images and stories is that they shape the way we Americans think of our connections to Africa. The crises seem hopeless, overwhelming, insoluble. Even wealthy international institutions such as the United Nations or the US Agency for International Development seem all but impotent in the face of AIDS, bone-crushing poverty, wars and genocide. Our natural response is passivity, fatalism, resignation. Even the beauty can seem strange and foreign, distant from our lives.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The reality is there are very tight links between Africa and communities in a state such as Indiana. Powerful Hoosiers have had an impact -- probably no state has produced a trio of individuals as influential as Sen. Richard Lugar, outgoing head of the World Food Program Jim Morris, and USAID chief Randall Tobias. But three guys from Indiana are not why Indiana really matters to Africa. The real reason: thousands of ordinary people in Indiana are engaged in helping Africans find solutions to the problems they face. In fact, there are more than a thousand initiatives to address African AIDS and poverty in Central Indiana alone. Every church, every university, civic organizations, even individuals, all forming partnerships with counterparts in Africa that usually bypass national governments in DC or Africa. When you think about it, that's amazing. The flow of physical and financial resources is significant, but the greater impact could be less tangible. Personal transformations of Africans and Hoosiers, of churches and communities are tough to measure, but they do matter.
Kenya is a good example. When the story is told some day of how Kenya survived the 21st century, its relation with Indiana will be an important chapter. You can learn about these Indiana-Kenya connections at Sagamore Institute January 26. The idea for this discussion began when the International Interfaith Initiative proposed sending a bus to Wright State University in Dayton to hear a talk by Kenyan Wangari Maathai on January 30. The choice of Maathai for Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 represents a new way of thinking about "peace" since Maathai's organization, the Green Belt Movement, encourages women's groups to plant trees to conserve the environment and improve quality of life ... worthy endeavours, but not within the scope that has been awarded Nobel Prizes in the past. Some Kenyans view the acclaim for Maathai with a bit of unease because her Movement's goals sometimes seem to give "Nature" priority over ordinary people's livelihood. (See the article by my Sagamore colleague Carole Kariuki.) Even more controversy over Maathai resulted when it became widely known that she believed AIDS was deliberately engineered to kill Africans. (She has since toned down this view.)The meeting at Sagamore on January 26 was intended to provide context for Maathai's Dayton talk ... but it quickly became evident that there are more than enough Indiana partnerships (existing and aspiring) in Kenya to justify and sustain an important conversation. Start with what the IU Medical School has done in Eldoret in partnership with Moi University. So remarkable have been the Med School's achievements that all of IUPUI is being drawn into partnering in Kenya. Even more, the Med School's Kenyan connections are redefining IUPUI's view of civic engagement as teams from the university are now trying to form parallel "strategic partnerships" in China, Mexico, and India.
There's more. IU's Kenyan activities have cut a channel to Eldoret through which other organizations in Indianapolis have flowed to Kenya, then have fanned out on their own throughout the country. The Rotary Club of Indianapolis is launching a very ambitious program. North United Methodist Church has opened a home for HIV-positive orphans in Eldoret and a shelter providing support for HIV-infected women in crisis. Through NUMC's work, Global Interfaith Partnership of Indianapolis is establishing a very ambitious program to help orphans and vulnerable children in Chulaimbo, Kenya. The list goes on and on.
When people hear about the IU partnerships in Kenya, they want to be part. The program has generously made it easy for you to make a financial contribution, but if you are so inclined you really ought to attend an arts fundraising event at the Studio School & Gallery February 10. It should be a great way to experience the beauty of Kenya as well join other Hoosiers who are helping Africans find solutions.
We have other opportunities to learn about Africa in ways that should provoke new thinking about solutions. "South Africa" is one of this spring's Great Decisions series, giving us a couple chances to hear from very cool local folks who are engaged in connecting Indy and South Africa. February 21 Terri Jett will talk at Church of the Saviour. Terri leads a summer seminar to South Africa for Butler students who are considering a call to ministry or other community service. March 6 Kelly Campbell will talk at Butler University to the Indiana Council on World Affairs. In addition to having studied in South Africa, Kelly is VP of Ambassadors for Children, which provides a chance for people to make short trips to Africa to work with kids. 
You should take advantage of the off-beat events that will connect you better to Africa, whether learning about weddings in Nigeria at IMA on February 1, or watching a ton of films from Africa this spring at the Indianapolis International Film Festival.
For more information about the brainstorming event about Indiana and Kenya at Sagamore on January 26, contact John Clark at john@sipr.org. If you want an idea of why I think these local-to-local partnerships solving global problems matter, look at the case study of the Indy Rotary Club's 15 year relation with a Rotary Club in Savanna la Mar, Jamaica. My co-author Courtney Burkey recently has helped take that partnership in a new and even more interesting direction by introducing a nonviolent conflict resolution program into schools in Sav la Mar... I look forward to hearing how that is going. To find out more about IU's vital work in Kenya, contact Fran Quigley at quigley2@iupui.edu. If you want to learn more about South Africa before attending Terri Jett's and Kelly Campbell's talks, the Foreign Policy Association has assembled a nice collection of studies and articles. (The images above in this posting come from the IU-Kenya Partnership photo gallery. The picture of the Rotary bus stop in Eldoret below came from Neil Moore.)
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