Kaduna, Nigeria Discussions

Is Music any use for International Development?

John Powers prompted me to develop a thread on this subject and I hope a few people find it stuck out in the cobwebby Kaduna thread, I started.

In the NED Meet and Greet I claimed to be a musician, with a bit of talent. I have been playing piano since I was 3 and I played trombone to a decent standard. I played professional piano on a cruise ship and was also pianist for the National Youth Jazz Orchestra for a short time 20+ years ago. I also studied composition under Oliver Knussen in my teens at the Royal College of Music. I'm not a technical player, nor am I particularly well qualified in music, but I know I am quite exceptional as a musician. I'm a jazz musician mainly and although I am interested in world music, I'm nowhere near an expert in this field and would struggle to support in anything other than the basics in this area. All this means nothing really, because if you have a talent and don't use it very much, then why have it?

Currently I play infrequently in jazz groups and I no longer musically direct any shows. When I went to Nigeria last year to my chagrin I was unable to do any music at all, other than a brief pressured ten minutes on the Butterfly Project (see the other thread).

Nigeria has a number of gospel choirs and there is a massive desire to create vocal music. One of the reasons I guess is the dearth of musical instruments out there and in lack of reliable electricity for keyboards, amps and the like. The choirs I heard were enthusiastic, but not very creative and the few musicians there did not impress. I apologise for the comment here - it's not a criticism, simply a comparative judgement and nothing sparked me, that I saw and I did not have much time on this subject, so my experience was limited. I do know, however, that there is a uniqueness to the style, which is interesting, but this is more often "tainted" by overseas styles. The rural education system isn't going to mend soon in Nigeria, so I doubt that musicianship is going to improve overnight. Some singers use backing tracks and one in particular did a very good job, although the track she chose was pretty awe-inspiring!

I talk about all of this, because I want some ideas about how I can use my ability as a musician and social entrepreneur to develop a project to make a difference. I've explored the possibility of training up gospel choirs (Christians, naturally), which is a possibility, and I have developed a concept we call the "Streetkids Theatre Company", which local government seem keen to support. The type of theatre I am considering is musicals and it is designed more for an outreach to bring the young streetbeggars (mainly Muslims) into doing something positive and encouraging them back to school. Those who follow what I'm doing know that I am pretty new at this and I am ready to learn what works in Africa.

So, there we have it, at least for starters. Can anyone help by posting good links, ideas or good practice or simply a hello on the Kaduna group!

Last comment added: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:26:22 PST

Eco Village

One of the newest projects is the development of this rural site into an ecovillage, which will provide a base for visitors to work in the rural community. The photograph shows a site, which can house 100 people comfortably, but which is based no more than 400 yards from the local rural Kamuru village.

The objectives of the project are as follows:

A place to develop and test strategies for poverty alleviation
A place to stay and experience life in rural Kaduna
A provider of employment for local people in ecotourism
A means for visitors to immerse themselves in local culture
A place where visitors can live safely and comfortably, while they use their skills to support local Ikulu people
A Centre for local people to experience what life is like in a high tech environment, essentially - a "stimulus centre" for children and young adults

Any comments on the project would be appreciated

Last comment added: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:36:35 PST

The Butterfly Project

This is a project, which we are developing here in Kaduna State, although we have yet to secure funding for it. We are working on some initial research in the field and the objective with this thread is to gain some quality feedback on the idea, the methodology and the projected impact.

Firstly one has to start with the view that social entrepreneurs are people who are beneficial to disadvantaged society, perhaps, on average, substantially more beneficial. Thus the objective of the project is to encourage and create many social entrepreneurs in an area affected by substantial poverty.

In Kaduna state, Nigeria, 50% of children do not attend school, or at the very least have dropped out. Most of these spend their time either begging in towns or selling farm produce that they have gathered. it is a reasonable assumption that these 50% are equally as bright as those who are attending school. Since those who are gifted and/or talented are likely to underachieve or reject school, it is likely that this group also includes an equivalent number of gifted and talented children.

Most, but not all of these children live in rural areas, where schools are striving, mostly unsuccessfully, to provide suitable education and suffer from a lack of qualified teachers and resources. 20% of rural children are also dying before they reach age 10, due to lack of medical facilities.

Imagine if, from this group, you could find those children who have the most suitable characteristics to become social entrepreneurs - the Ashoka Fellows of this world - and then you provided them with all the support that could be mustered for them to achieve this potential, or indeed another, should this be more suitable. They would become people with the knowledge of how best to tackle social issues, but from a rural standpoint and with a passion to work in the hard to negotiate rural settings.

The Butterfly Project aims to take 48 gifted and talented young people, aged 7-15, from these rural areas, provide them with wireless internet access, mentoring from Ashoka social entrepreneurs, pairing with US counterparts through email contact, gather them together quarterly for activity weeks, support them in developing their own social projects, offer internet chats in which they can participate, provide English language tuition, if needed and encourage them to develop their IT skills, through the Virtual Africa project (to come).

Selection processes are to be tested next week, when 3 girls and 3 boys from rural environments have been chosen to participate in a special fun day, where they can enjoy a bit of luxury, but also find out their aptitudes in a variety of areas. We will be testing our selection methodologies, which we are striving to ensure will not favour those who have been educated. Two of the participants are several years behind at school, to to lack of appropriate schooling, but my belief is that they may actually be more intelligent than average.

If funding can be acquired for the project, then this selection methodology will be used statewide, by working with the Chiefs and Emirs to set up testing days in their locales, where young gifted and talented people are encouraged to participate.

If the project is successful we may be able to provide an injection of highly capable people into rural areas, who can be changemakers and perhaps ultimately Ashoka Fellows, or the equivalents.

Last comment added: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:00:12 PDT

Rural ICT Union

This is an interesting idea that we have developed since I arrived here in Kaduna. It is a blend of two (or more) ideas, which are I think complementary.

Essentially, the strategy for cooperatives is to gradually increase their size by merging them into "unions", so that they have a higher capacity for investment and also have a greater level of expertise and variety of products.

The main ICT problem in the rural areas is electricity, but also the cost of PCs and internet bandwidth. So this project combines the development of unions with training on how to use the internet to access national and international markets with a solar-powered internet development centre (IDC) provided by Inveneo (hardy and very low power consumption).

Although some funding might be needed for the initial purchase, the centre can be made sustainable if it is linked and handed over to a large cooperative to run, with support for at least a year in cybercafe management and technical support.

We would want to add the telecentre-style functionality too, as these IDCs are based in areas where education facilities are ill-equipped, but again these IDCs can be used to tackle low educational resources too.

I would certainly be interested in people's feedback on feasibility and whether this type of cooperative "linking" has been tried before.

Last comment added: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:28:49 PDT

Ethanol

I have recently been asked to look into the feasibility of developing an ethanol plant to provide consistent income for village dwellers in Southern Kaduna. They are mainly focused on the growing of Cassava, which amongst other things produces a flour, which can be turned into Ethanol. Cassava is a good provider of ethanol in comparison to, say, corn.

Seeing as even before I have done the research, I have a buyer for the product, it seems that this is a good and long-term solution for providing consistent jobs in rural areas, where farming is part of the culture. I can find very little information, however, where this has actually already been done in Africa, let alone Nigeria. Am I missing something?

Last comment added: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:12:38 PST