Education That Pays For Itself Conference
Education That Pays For Itself Conference
Located in Karatara’ Eden Campus in Sedgefield South Africa
November 18th -20th 2008
Despite Air Malawi’s best efforts, Matt and I eventually made it to Karatara, albeit a day behind our schedule and moments before the conference began. Due to a fueling issue, we were held up getting to Johannesburg and missed the connecting flight. We ended up spending the night in Joburg and catching the earliest flight the following day.
After a solid three hours of sleep another flight and an hour taxi ride, we set our feet upon Karatara’s beautiful Eden Campus. We’d come, along with over a hundred other delegates from 52 countries, to hear some of the brightest minds in the field share what they know about sustainable education.
Eden Campus itself is an experiment in sustainable education through the entrepreneurship of its staff and students. Students are trained in business by actually starting their own business and working in school-run trades. The school itself is a collection of small businesses created for the dual purposes of funding the school and teaching the students and staff applicable vocational skills.
Matt and I entered Eden hall as Martin Burt positions himself at the lectern for the opening presentation. I did not know he was going to be attending but I was absolutely thrilled to see him standing up there. The man is somewhat of a celebrity in the development world, and especially at my Alma Mater University of the Pacific. 29 years before myself, Burt graduated from UoP, but that’s just a small line item on a résumé including achievements and accolades such founding several NGOs serving as Paraguay’s vice minister, receiving the Inter-American Development Bank 2004 Microfinance Award for Excellence in Social Responsibility, and holding the position of Mayor of Asuncion, Paraguay’s capital.
These are only a small portion of his many impressive awards and interesting achievements and I could have spent the week studying this man’s life, but at the moment I was more concerned about his involvement with Eden Campus and, even more excited about La Escuela Agricultura de San Francisco. The latter is 100% sustainable, or in other words, it completely pays for itself.
The school is home to around twenty businesses many of which are large scale. For example, the school has 1,500 chickens they use for selling eggs. They have trained professionals running the farm, but they are educators as well. The students learn how to manage a large scale chicken farm along with the business side of things. The school is quite an attraction, and that’s why there is a legitimate hotel on site with children an full-time employees working together. The seniors at the school independently run the 100% student owned cooperative general store.
While it would be easy for me to go on about Mr. Burt and his exploits, he was just one of the “development” luminaries at the event. Other keynote speakers included Ivor Blumenthal, Douglas McMeekin and James Tooley. Mr. Blumenthal is the CEO at SETA, a for-profit social investment group that trains the rural populous in skilled services. Douglas McMeekin is the executive director of four institutions in rural areas. His schools favor teaching students inpractical knowledge like vocational skills over irrelevant and often archaic curriculum based studies. James Tooley is one of the most ambitious people I’ve ever met. Based out of Hyderbad, India, Tooley is working on a chain of private schools for the poor. His unofficial goal is 3,000 schools, while realistically aiming for 20 sustainable schools by 2010.
The lectures were complemented by discussion groups and group projects. Everybody there was wealth of ideas and some of the most important things we learned came just from chewing the fat outside the lecture hall with fellow attendees.
Sharon and Melinda from a project in Uganda hipped us to the idea of having our own brick machine instead of waiting for guys in the village to fire-burn our bricks. If we combine this idea with Burt’s, then we have a school-run brick building business. Not only will we never be short of bricks again, but the high demand for materials in the areas will generate income for the school and the kids will learn a new trade.
We spoke with permaculture experts and left with plans for a bat house and a bag of worms (we had to smuggle them, don’t ask how) for a worm farm. A worm farm constructed from a column of stack car tires turns garbage into carbon-rich topsoil in 6 weeks. For virtually no input, you get gardeners gold.
Jeff intrigued us with stories about the struggles of school building in a Taliban region of Afghanistan. Between his bravery and wry humor, he somehow brought levity to stories of the mullah’s threats of decapitation to the “great snake”.
After 3 days I left Karatara feeling inspired and overwhelmed. I’m so full of new ideas for Nanthomba that I feel like a glass about to tip over. We brought with us dozens of new goals and philosophies that will shape HELP’s future in the coming years. Of course there are many remaining question marks, but as of today the question that keeps popping into my head is “how am I going to make it to Paraguay to visit the Escuela Agricultura?”
Cheers,
David
