Where’s Africa?

By the time I was 10 years, I knew a lot about Great Britain because I learnt about a boy called ‘Robert of Britain’ in primary three. I therefore knew that the United Kingdom was composed of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, governed by a Prime Minister and headed by the Queen.
I also knew that London was the Capital of England and that that the native language was English. I even read children’s story books such as Janet and John and Peter and Jane and their hairy dogs Scott and Jack.
Great Britain was in the Ugandan primary school syllabus and you had to know about it in order to pass your geography exams.
But it is different over here. Africa is hardly known in the UK and African studies is not on the British primary school syllabus.
It was therefore little wonder that some of my pupils thought Africa was a country, headed by a Prime Minister and with one currency. They also thought that “all Africans live in straw huts and trees with no water and food”.
However, as I stood in front of the classroom, it was clear that they were eager to learn about the continent they hardly knew.

Africa on TV

There has always been controversy about the Western media’s portrayal of Africa. While some believe that the Western media actually mirrors Africa as it is, others only see one-sided negative reporting.
So in as much as Western NGOs and aid agencies should be supported for all the work they do through fundraising campaigns to help Africans, they also play a big role in propagating the negative image that young people in the UK have about the continent.
These campaigns are often characterised by images of sad, starving and sick children clad in dirty torn clothing and rarely happy, healthy children. 
From ‘Live 8 concerts’ to ‘Walks for Africa’; the media has continued to present Africa as a ‘continent of chronic problems.’
As a result, all the young generation in Britain know about Africa is poverty, disease, hunger, war, death and dictatorships. They have also been taught to “donate £2 a month to help save a child from dying of hunger” or “just a pound a month to buy a mosquito net to save a child in Africa from dying of malaria.”
Richard Borowski, Project coordinator for the Leeds University Centre for African Studies (LUCAS) African Voices Schools Project, agrees that while the campaigns are well intentioned, they propagate a negative view of Africa in the minds of young people.
He explained: “The young people in Britain have a very unbalanced perspective of Africa. Their views come from development agency adverts and news reports and it’s also a view that is propagated by teachers because they feel that it’s good for young people to have empathy for the poor.”

African voices

The African Voices Schools Project attempts to address such concerns mentioned above. Now in its second year, the project is funded by the Department of International Development (DFID) and the University of Leeds. This year, the project saw 14 post-graduate students from eight African countries deliver lessons and workshops in 28 primary schools in Leeds. The project is based on the fact that African students are actually a valuable resource with regard to knowledge about their continent. The promoters believe that African students can help remove stereotypes about Africa.
As “Ambassadors” in 27 “Africa Days”, the students shared experiences with Year Five and Year Six pupils, trying to enlighten them about the ‘other side of Africa’ that they never see on TV.
The project entails a combination of personal experiences from Africa, ranging from generic and cultural activities in form of games, songs, folktales and dances, as well as participatory theme-based workshops.

Questions, questions

These activities generated a lot of unexpected questions. For instance, the children wanted to know why Africa was poorer than Europe when the former produced 75% of the world’s diamonds.
They wanted to know why children there could not afford chocolate and ice-cream yet 75% of the world’s cocoa comes from West Africa.
They also wanted to know why African children had no clothes to wear yet lots of cotton was grown on African soil and why the cotton grower earns £0.50 for the cost of a £25 pair of jeans sold in the UK while the retailer gets £12.50.
They wanted to know why Africa was regularly at war yet it did not manufacture those deadly weapons?
Why did so many children have to die of malaria and other preventable diseases yet a mosquito net costs only £3? Why were there no schools, hospitals and medicine?
Why there was hunger and famine yet the continent had the best climates and soils?
To provide answers, issues like globalisation, neo-liberalism and world trade policies that put Africa in a disadvantaged position had to be explained in the easiest of ways through games, quizzes and riddles.

Real progress

By the end of the project, there was a clear difference in knowledge as evidenced in the pre-evaluation and re-evaluation forms. The children understood that Africa was a continent and that the teaching student was from one country in that continent. They also understood that African countries are different in terms of climate, people, religion, culture and economies.
With this understanding, some of the pupils became more positive about Africa, even questioning global injustice.
In the projects interim report by an external evaluator, one teacher reported that “this was one of the best aspects” of the sessions. She felt the existence of an African person teaching her class created “a whole different atmosphere, an aura … which changed preconceived ideas and enabled pupils to see things from a different perspective”. 
Another teacher reported that the sessions caused “awe and wonder” and ‘the pupils were engrossed in all activities – they didn’t want to go out to play!”
“Certainly, the pupils came away with a more positive image of Africa, most previously believed it to be backward and underdeveloped,” another teacher said.
According to the interim report, “the pupils were left with a feeling of injustice…and saw how colonialism and trade favoured the West.” They also wanted African farmers to earn more from their produce.
“I now know how Africa got so poor,” one pupil commented.
“To the pupils therefore, the colonialism workshop was the ‘missing piece of the jigsaw’ that linked many other strands of their knowledge and understanding,” Borowski says. Some of the children promised to visit Africa in future and even get involved in voluntary work there. This was after realising that Africa is a continent full of potential, only needing an opportunity to make the best out of itself.
And it was not just the pupils. Even the teachers were enthusiastic and eager to learn. One teacher said: “I felt educated – I was cheated in my own education.”
More over, the project promoted racial awareness in these schools by providing role models (the PG students) and breaking down stereotypes.
“Some of the children wanted us to come back; they called after us as we left,” a student said.
At the end of the project, over 1,300 young pupils in Leeds had had an opportunity to interact with several post-graduate African students which helped change their ideas and perceptions about Africa.
Next year, Borowski says, the project will build upon the successes of this year. It will work with eight secondary schools and organise a Sixth Form Conference on contemporary African issues at the University.

Rewarding job

It was a rewarding experience for the African students. I particularly gained skills in developing interactive learning materials for young people to address complex issues in simple ways. Every day that I spent with 30 different young kids had an impression on them and changed the way they perceived Africa. What will have happen if 100 other African students do the same?
Children are targeted by this programme because younger people tend to be more outwardly interested and things that happen in school are likely to stay with them longer than if they were older, according to psychologists.
Indeed Borowski argues that it is important to change the perceptions of children at an early age when they are more open-minded and balanced.
“If you don’t, then you are at the risk of reinforcing images and stereotypes which will stay with them until they are adults,” he explains.

The author is a Ugandan student who participated in the African Voices Schools Project (2007-2008), This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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