TZ Bound

Back again, pole so long since I have posted. I am in the middle of summer training here in the USA, working with a great staff to train 800 teachers in integrated literacy strategies in middle and high schools.

A few new events to update:

- I was recently made a Vice President in my organization, working on Program Design and Implementation. This means more responsibility and more work, but a great opportunity to help colleagues continue to improve their work and to build new skills myself.

- I went to the IRA national conference and made some new connections to work in Africa, as well as connections in IRA international development sector.

- Have started acting as a reviewer for IRA's Literacy Hub, an online clearinghouse for international literacy research reporting. Should be an interesting process, and an opportunity for me to learn more about the literacy work and research going on in the world.

- I am headed to Costa Rica in a few weeks for the IRA World Congress on Literacy, where I will participate in two presentations about the teacher training work in Africa. My colleague Freda Klotter and I will give our own presentation about the development of the primary literacy program, and I will partcipate in a panel presentation with the Special Interest Group for Literacy in Developing Countries to discuss the various projects going on with SIG members. World Congress should be a great opportunity to learn more about other work happening in developing countries, and to share some of my own learning with others.

- In August, I will be back in Tanzania - HOLIDAY! Still working on getting my local coffee company interested in importing the fair trade coffee from the Mt Meru co-op group, not making much progress on that end.

That's about it - enough I think!

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.