What a great time! It was the evening of July 12th and we had 9 students who made it through three months of French study celebrating a great experience. The full gamut of study experience was there. Of course the man who finished with the best grade had already completed six years of elementary school but then there was a man who had no formal study history who was #1 in dialogue and another who had never been in school who came in 4th. It is so good to hear them speak. It is so good to see them catching on to reading. It is SO good to see the joy in their eyes as they say new things, as they hear new things with understanding and as they read for the first time.

Olala! This is great stuff. They are entering into a literate life style. They will be able to better care for their families and their communities. They are stepping into a new level of modernity which will empower them to make a much greater difference in the future of their country. I am one happy man.

#1 Dialoguer!

Now we will see where the future goes. We hope to begin a second level in September. We will redo the first level hoping that many more will sign up and slog through the difficulty of getting a grip on this difficult language. Then, we are hoping that we will be able to open a first level class for night guards as the current class is for day guards. We will have to build in a lot of elasticity as well to help accommodate guards who have constantly changing work schedules.

As the French class was going on, there were also 6 students working with a tutor, financed by GDA, preparing for the exam that would give them entry to senior high school (brevet). They had a little party on July 20th. Four of the six had passed their exams and head to the next level of studies. Don’t they look great! They all worked hard and we are pleased with them all. We want to give our congratulations to Mamata Halidou Beidari, Oumarou Adam Yerima, Mohamed Elh Raliou and Mohamed Issoufou Al-Farouq. Good work Friends. God bless you as you step into the next level! I am planning on seeing you step into great works in the not too distant future!

Some sharp people working hard!

Going to l'école (school)! . . . some for the first time.

Well, we have begun! 11 Tuareg men, mostly day guards, are enrolled in our French class. They will work for the next 3 months on learning French – speaking as well as reading and writing. If they can improve their French, doors will open for them. Many of them don’t speak enough French to do a good job at guarding because, at some time or other, they have to speak with their employer who doesn’t speak Tamashaq, the language of the Tuareg.

We are hoping that this will provide a jump start on improving their earning ability as well as helping them become more involved in the community with a greater knowledge of what is going on. Our goal is to see this take off and be a big help to these 11. Then we will start a class for night guards and grow it out to meet the needs of as many people as we can. These men say they are ready to work! It looks like a great thing is taking off! May it produce powerfully positive results!

This is a man with incredible knowledge of the systems of Niger and of the people as well. What a huge help!

Here’s Boubacar, my administrative assistant and another breath of air in a dry and torrid world. Soon he will be going out with me to a village where he will give training on the rights and responsibilities of village health committees. Although the health services are seen as property of the local population and a local committee is established to run them, health workers often abuse the authority they have. This often results in insufficient medicines for the people. Systems are established that can circumvent this abuse but most villages and the committees that are to manage their health facilities are ignorant of those systems. Boubacar is very knowledgeable in the operation of health facilities and is ready to spread that teaching to help the villages break out of this sad situation.

Boubacar is currently the head of the management committee for the “Health Hut” in his village. He has served in that position for almost 5 years. He is also the president of the health committee for the greater region of which his village is a part. He has served for 7 years in that position. As such, he has made a great effort to put into place the management systems which keep operations transparent and running well. He loves to say, “With our system of autonomous management no one can even steal a single Tylenol tablet!” In these two positions he handles all the expenses for the local Health Hut as well as for the district.

The biggest burden on the heart of this good man is that of the people who are held under the fierce grip of HIV/AIDS. He plays a huge role in the fight against this plague and that is what he wants the world to know about him.

On a continent where accounting seems to be done, all too often, in the foggiest way possible thus making fraud easy to hide, this is wonderful. Boubacar is another great Nigerien who is doing all he can to help his population move ahead.

The Excellent Speaker

There are people in this world who seem to drain everybody around them. Have you met some like that? The wonderful thing is that there are people who bubble over with energy spent in great ways that help those around them. Adamou is one of those men in Niger. He is a leader that I love to watch. As he speaks, even though I do not understand the Fulfulde language that he uses, I see people following almost entranced by his thoughtful, sensitive words. His actions are those of a true man of peace, a man who longs for the advancement not only of himself but of his community. He gives himself tirelessly and without remuneration for any project that will benefit his community or those nearby. Working with this kind of man is a fantastic joy. He is of that quality that will help Niger come out of the doldrums of poverty and into strong and sustainable development. By the way, he just happens to be married to Aissa who came up with the dream declaration in my last post.

Adamou at Play - he helped a Canadian school by taking their "Flat Stanley" on several village adventures.

Aissa

Had a great visit to a village this week. It was a restart to our community health education program. The meeting we had with the local committee was mostly an evaluation of what we had done through last year. As we were speaking about the goat lending program that we ran last year, our good friend, Aissa, came up with a phrase that is every development worker’s dream. Out of the blue, as we spoke of widows having new provisions through the goat distribution, she said, “Poverty is on it’s way out of town!” That is about as good as it gets.

Well, the fact of the matter is that there was another pretty wonderful declaration. We were talking about the village leadership committee and their willingness to help other villages move ahead with the same projects that we had done in their villages.When asked if they were ready, the president of our partner group said, “We are more than ready! We have our running shoes on and are just waiting for you to let us know.”

Well, we are happy about this kind of attitude. May it continue! May it grow! May Niger see poverty truly hit the road out of Niger and be GONE!

Imagine our amazement when we got to the oasis area of Timia. We saw oranges growing along with other citrus fruit. There were other plants as well! We were blown away. It was so beautiful and so productive. We found out that some of the oranges we had eaten in Niamey, had come from this oasis.

Those oranges typify to a major extent the dreams that I have for Niger. I believe that in the midst of barrenness, God wants to help people and bring them to a new degree of fruitfulness. I am looking forward to seeing Nigeriens get to the place where they can be ready for drought and continue living well with their own knowledge and abilities having learned some new ways and having received the help that would bring them to a new threshold of capacity. I am looking forward to the day when Niger becomes an orchard and feeds others. This kind of thing can happen as we work together and as we seek the help of that one who is Almighty and All Compassionate. It can happen! May we be instruments bringing it to be!

This page will be dedicated to letting people see what comes across the desk of the director of a little NGO in Africa. It will be a journal of perceptions, many of which could be totally bonkers, that pop up along the way.

For me the word “Director” is a word that does not imply a one man leadership story. I see directing as keeping my team on the same page and facilitating their dreams and the projects that they have set themselves to accomplish. To direct implies knowing where we are going. May God keep us on the way that pleases Him. BUT, on the other hand may all of us keep in mind where we have decided to go together for the best possible outcome for the people of Niger that we believe we must help.

There you have a wee bit of the idea. Of course I must complete with the fact that I am not a leader alone. I will lead, or direct, with the able assistance of the precious woman that God entrusted to me a long time ago. We will work together to help our team do the very best job of all that comes up for us to do.

Ain’t it great!!!