View my page on A Literate Africa

I have started a network on ning focused on bringing together people who are interested in supporting the development of universal literacies in East Africa. Please visit, and consider joining A Literate Africa, my new network on ning. Pole sana, right now the network is just getting started, so bear with me for a while.

Mt. Meru Coffee Farmers

During my last trip to Tanzania, I was able to have a visit with a local fair-trade coffee cooperative on Mt. Meru. Friends of mine, Frank and Beate, are working with a group of 30 local coffee farmers to help them collectively market their wonderful coffee.

They begin by providing small loans to the farmers for the equipment and materials they need to grow the coffee (They were engaged in micro-finance without even knowing they were doing it!). The co-op members meet regularly to discuss business, and the ongoing work they are doing with a Moshi agricultural training center.

As the harvesting season begins, the farmers bring their green beans to Frank and Beate, where they are paid a fair price for their beans (double what they would receive from the general market for exporting!). The beans are then hulled, roasted, ground, and shipped to customers directly overseas. Frank and Beate have built a market in Norway (Beate's home) for the coffee, so the market for the coffee is growing by leaps and bounds.

Additionally, the co-op is currently engaged in creating a foundation for organic coffee. They have a coffee nursery, where they are grafting off small organic plants, and then providing them to each small farm to transition over time from current plants to all organic plants. As they begin producing organic plants, the western interest in and need for their product will also increase.

I am currently working on setting up appointments with a large coffee importing co-op here in the states - that is focused on supporting fair trade co-ops overseas by importing only fair trade co-op coffee. Hopefully, this will also open up the American market to the co-op and be of help the the local people living and farming on the slopes of Mt. Meru. Included here are two pictures from my coffee co-op visit.

Long Time Coming, Long Time Gone

It has been many months since I last posted on this blog. Work is running me over, as it is with most people who I know. To update you - the work at St Jude's has been tied up, and completed. My colleague and I made a trip to the school to work with new staff in November of last year, and with one final visit in April, we are finished.

The school has made great progress, doubling the school sites, doubling the teachers, and really building lots of capacity on the ground to support teacher practice and student learning. They are attracting very well-qualified teachers, given that the kind of support and opportunity they are offering teachers is unprecedented in the area, and the good work of the school has made it the place to teach. They have transitioned into a full local faculty, and so have westerners on site only to manage the larger efforts of the schools, and to support ongoing teacher development.

I myself am currently back in the US, and working with the Striving Readers project to support teacher training in integrated adolescent literacy. Very busy, and seeing lots of progress from teachers on this side of the pond as well.

Hoping to be back in Tanzania for both holiday and work in the coming year, and always looking for ways I can be of help in the exciting developments taking place in East Africa in general with teacher training and professional development.