Distant Shorelines
The view from the sixth floor window of my hotel is quite spectacular. Atlantic Ocean combers break upon the beach just a little way from the Boulevard de la République. Far offshore, open wooden fishing boats harvest for local markets. An ancient iron pier, a legacy of the German empire before Versailles, rusts into oblivion while serving as a shelter for some who would otherwise be homeless. The ocean water is warm, carried upon the Guinea Current across the Bight of Benin and into my vision.
Along the Boulevard, motor scooters, hundreds of them, serve as cheap urban taxis. The air at street level is tinged blue with uncontrolled emissions from Yamaha, Suzuki, Vespa and Tata. Crews of women, bent at the waist, sweep sand from the pavement using short brooms made of leaves. Just to the west, and visible from my vantage point, is the border crossing to Ghana where I will travel in a few days' time.
* * *
This is a glimpse of Lomé, capital city of the tiny African nation of Togo. I visited this part of west Africa with two Canadian colleagues in late June on behalf of the Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF). Our mission was to identify likely education partners for long-term projects aimed at improving teaching and learning conditions. Local partners will create these projects, known as SODEP or social development projects, and CTF with funding provided by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Projects will support the UNESCO objective of "Education for All" as outlined most recently at Dakar, Senegal, in April 2000, and will fit with plans developed by national governments to achieve this most worthwhile goal.
Lomé was our first destination. The city has an interesting history, as far as education on the African continent is concerned. Much of that history has to do with one man, a former teacher from Ghana named Tom Bediako. Tom presently serves as chief coordinator of the Africa region of Education International (EI), the body representing most of the world's teacher organizations. Tom is well known to his African colleagues and to those of us in western teacher organizations who have at least a passing interest in international development as it relates to teachers and students.
Why Tom has lived in Lomé for so many years is a long story and worth telling another time. Suffice it to say that many years ago, Tom left his native Ghana under threat of extreme prejudice from his homeland's government of the day. Being a teacher and an activist for trade union rights, and being remarkably successful at both, he became a serious thorn in the government's side. Conditions have changed for Ghana and for Tom; he now travels freely between Lomé and Accra and, indeed, throughout all of Africa.
As a result of Tom's residency in Lomé, the office for Education International was established there when he became the Africa regional coordinator. And because of Tom's interest in linking African teacher organizations, the Pan African Teacher Center (PATC) also found a home in Lomé in a rented building across the street from the EI office. PATC is the brainchild of Tom Bediako and Bob Barker, former director of CTF international programs, and was established to serve as a centre of excellence for education on the African continent. Our small band of Canadians had come to visit the centre to examine ways in which it could take on a renewed profile as a participant in the SODEP program.
Our next destination was Ho, Ghana, reached by road after passing through the complexities of a Togo-Ghana border crossing. A meeting of leaders of several African teacher organizations had been organized to further examine the merits of rejuvenating PATC through the SODEP process and to determine a new course for the centre to pursue. There was unanimous agreement to proceed and to encourage Canadians and others to support a new program of educational research based on African realities. Those at the meeting agreed to promote the involvement of other African teacher organizations during the July meeting of Education International that would take place in Thailand.
The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) then transported us to Accra for an examination of SODEP programs that might be possible in their country. We met with representatives of GNAT, the World Bank, the Ghana Ministry of Education and international agencies working within the country. The upshot of those meetings is that the Ghana National Association of Teachers will be recommended as a SODEP partner. One model program that shows a lot of promise supports beginning teachers in remote school settings in northern Ghana.
This visit reinforced for me the high esteem with which African teachers hold their Canadian colleagues. Canadian teachers and their organizations are well known across the continent for the support and services they provide through Project Overseas and other CTF programs. The funding provided to the Pan African Teacher Centre by the Alberta Teachers' Association and the involvement of some of our distinguished educators in Togo and Ghana was a common starting point for many conversations. My French-speaking colleagues in Lomé were keen to know about Anita Muller, until recently principal of Ecole Beau Meadows in Beaumont, who had conducted French-language workshops for West Africa women educators. Two Project Overseas teams were to visit Togo and Ghana shortly after my departure. Selina Kruchten, a teacher at Ecole St. Gérard in Calgary, was assigned to the Togo and Burkino Faso team and Katherine Wilkinson, of Fulham School near Edson, would serve in Ghana. The arrival of these Albertans and the other team members was eagerly anticipated.
SODEP planning trips have now been completed to a number of promising partner countries and teacher organizations. The tempo of project development will speed up this fall when a SODEP coordinator is appointed at CTF headquarters in Ottawa. While the number of programs initiated will be few, the potential they will create as models for long-term educational development will be significant.
It's possible that opportunities will arise for Alberta teachers to take part in some of these projects. Those teachers may see distant shorelines for themselves and they will meet overseas colleagues who are close at heart.
The view from the sixth floor window of my hotel is quite spectacular. Atlantic Ocean combers break upon the beach just a little way from the Boulevard de la République. Far offshore, open wooden fishing boats harvest for local markets. An ancient iron pier, a legacy of the German empire before Versailles, rusts into oblivion while serving as a shelter for some who would otherwise be homeless. The ocean water is warm, carried upon the Guinea Current across the Bight of Benin and into my vision.
Along the Boulevard, motor scooters, hundreds of them, serve as cheap urban taxis. The air at street level is tinged blue with uncontrolled emissions from Yamaha, Suzuki, Vespa and Tata. Crews of women, bent at the waist, sweep sand from the pavement using short brooms made of leaves. Just to the west, and visible from my vantage point, is the border crossing to Ghana where I will travel in a few days' time.
* * *
This is a glimpse of Lomé, capital city of the tiny African nation of Togo. I visited this part of west Africa with two Canadian colleagues in late June on behalf of the Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF). Our mission was to identify likely education partners for long-term projects aimed at improving teaching and learning conditions. Local partners will create these projects, known as SODEP or social development projects, and CTF with funding provided by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Projects will support the UNESCO objective of "Education for All" as outlined most recently at Dakar, Senegal, in April 2000, and will fit with plans developed by national governments to achieve this most worthwhile goal.
Lomé was our first destination. The city has an interesting history, as far as education on the African continent is concerned. Much of that history has to do with one man, a former teacher from Ghana named Tom Bediako. Tom presently serves as chief coordinator of the Africa region of Education International (EI), the body representing most of the world's teacher organizations. Tom is well known to his African colleagues and to those of us in western teacher organizations who have at least a passing interest in international development as it relates to teachers and students.
Why Tom has lived in Lomé for so many years is a long story and worth telling another time. Suffice it to say that many years ago, Tom left his native Ghana under threat of extreme prejudice from his homeland's government of the day. Being a teacher and an activist for trade union rights, and being remarkably successful at both, he became a serious thorn in the government's side. Conditions have changed for Ghana and for Tom; he now travels freely between Lomé and Accra and, indeed, throughout all of Africa.
As a result of Tom's residency in Lomé, the office for Education International was established there when he became the Africa regional coordinator. And because of Tom's interest in linking African teacher organizations, the Pan African Teacher Center (PATC) also found a home in Lomé in a rented building across the street from the EI office. PATC is the brainchild of Tom Bediako and Bob Barker, former director of CTF international programs, and was established to serve as a centre of excellence for education on the African continent. Our small band of Canadians had come to visit the centre to examine ways in which it could take on a renewed profile as a participant in the SODEP program.
Our next destination was Ho, Ghana, reached by road after passing through the complexities of a Togo-Ghana border crossing. A meeting of leaders of several African teacher organizations had been organized to further examine the merits of rejuvenating PATC through the SODEP process and to determine a new course for the centre to pursue. There was unanimous agreement to proceed and to encourage Canadians and others to support a new program of educational research based on African realities. Those at the meeting agreed to promote the involvement of other African teacher organizations during the July meeting of Education International that would take place in Thailand.
The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) then transported us to Accra for an examination of SODEP programs that might be possible in their country. We met with representatives of GNAT, the World Bank, the Ghana Ministry of Education and international agencies working within the country. The upshot of those meetings is that the Ghana National Association of Teachers will be recommended as a SODEP partner. One model program that shows a lot of promise supports beginning teachers in remote school settings in northern Ghana.
This visit reinforced for me the high esteem with which African teachers hold their Canadian colleagues. Canadian teachers and their organizations are well known across the continent for the support and services they provide through Project Overseas and other CTF programs. The funding provided to the Pan African Teacher Centre by the Alberta Teachers' Association and the involvement of some of our distinguished educators in Togo and Ghana was a common starting point for many conversations. My French-speaking colleagues in Lomé were keen to know about Anita Muller, until recently principal of Ecole Beau Meadows in Beaumont, who had conducted French-language workshops for West Africa women educators. Two Project Overseas teams were to visit Togo and Ghana shortly after my departure. Selina Kruchten, a teacher at Ecole St. Gérard in Calgary, was assigned to the Togo and Burkino Faso team and Katherine Wilkinson, of Fulham School near Edson, would serve in Ghana. The arrival of these Albertans and the other team members was eagerly anticipated.
SODEP planning trips have now been completed to a number of promising partner countries and teacher organizations. The tempo of project development will speed up this fall when a SODEP coordinator is appointed at CTF headquarters in Ottawa. While the number of programs initiated will be few, the potential they will create as models for long-term educational development will be significant.
It's possible that opportunities will arise for Alberta teachers to take part in some of these projects. Those teachers may see distant shorelines for themselves and they will meet overseas colleagues who are close at heart.