Field Stories

Field Stories

The Most Reverend Dr Solomon Tilewa Johnson, 1954 – 2014

Solomon Tilewa Johnson, archbishop of the Province of West Africa, was the spiritual leader of over a million Anglicans in the region. In 1990 he became the first Gambian to be appointed as the country’s bishop, a see also covering Senegal and Cabo Verde, and represented his Province, to which he was to be elected as archbishop in 2012, at the Lambeth Conference of […]

Field Stories

Nelson Mandela, 1918 – 2013

Nelson Mandela for decades served as the inspirational leader of worldwide opposition to one of the most roundly vilified systems of political racism the world has seen. His lifelong struggle against apartheid saw him spend 27 years as a political prisoner, eighteen of which he served at the notorious Robben Island prison. After his release on the 11th of February, 1990, he was elected […]

Field Stories

ICT, social media and an image make-over for farming in Kenya (repost)

Until recently, many young Kenyans saw farming as an unskilled, unrewarding profession, suitable only for the retired or the uneducated. Now, however, a group of determined young farmers are challenging traditional prejudices and trying to explain the attractions of farming as a profession. They are the ‘Mkulima Young Champions’ and have become figureheads for a digital initiative to change the way farmers are viewed […]

Field Stories

More crop per drop (repost)

The weather is an important factor in the success of any farming enterprise. A good farmer should always plan for possible change; “cursing the weather”, as the saying goes, “is never good farming”. In much of Africa, however, getting accurate information about the weather, in order to make decisions about activities, such as sowing, irrigation and harvesting, has always been difficult. Climate change, which […]

Field Stories

From the African Continent

Africa never stops changing. Since the Namibia edition of eLearning Africa in May, we’ve been keeping our eyes peeled for fresh developments on the Continent. And what a few months it’s been: Africa seems more buoyant than ever, with new eLearning projects blossoming everywhere. International interest in Africa is also growing – the Obamas visited Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa at the end of […]

Field Stories

Technology Enhances Learning and Life

Technology vendors Dell and Microsoft have been working to deliver classroom technology for remote regions and, in particular, into schools that have not previously had access to any form of computing technology. Mamoeketsi School in Lesotho is profoundly aware of the importance of technology in educating and empowering young people. The school is located in Lesotho, near Maseru. HIV/AIDS affects a third of the […]

Field Stories

Comics for peace – Shujaaz and the Kenyan elections

On March 4, 2013, Kenya successfully and peacefully held a historic election, the first one after the inauguration of the ambitious democracy-protecting Constitution of Kenya 2010. In the run up to the elections, multi-media communications company, Well Told Story (WTS), was approached by the Independent Elections & Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and the Kenyan Ministry of Education to create a campaign that would engage school […]

Field Stories

Harnessing TV White Spaces for Learning

What constitutes good connectivity?  The answers to this question seem to be related to personal experience: dial-up users think that every other option is great, whereas ADSL users want cheaper, faster upload and download speeds.  So we need to start with the premise that good connectivity is subject to the individual user’s experience, and this is by no measure an observation unique to South […]

Field Stories

Seeds 2.0 to Modernise and Boost the Agricultural Sector

“Really? But what has the agricultural sector got to do with Web 2.0?” That was the sarcastic question I was asked one day when I was describing the Web 2.0 training that I provide to CTA (the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation). It was an understandable question; on the one hand the Web 2.0 concept seemed to be a current reality reserved […]

Field Stories

African Vision

When we were building Teachers Media’s strategy for Africa, I decided that we should attend the Conference of Ministers of Education of the African Union (COMEDAF) in Abuja, Nigeria. At COMEDAF, many education ministers, passionate educators and decision makers decide the vision and focus for African education. On my way to Abuja, I landed in Lagos, not realising that the local and International airports […]