Feature

TheReview Wednesday, March 13,1991 — A9

e speaker personalizes African issues

In 50 minutes, David Odhiambo
tries to change students’ percep-
tions of Africa.

Through describing his own
experience as a boy in Kenya,
showing a video on African reco-
very and role-playing, Odhiambo
fries to personalize the problems
faced by developing African
nations,

“T only have 50 minutes of the
students’ lives,” he said. “I try to
personalize the issues, to give a
feeling of what it would feel like to
be oppressed.”

Odhiambo was at Parkland
Secondary school in Sidney Feb-
Tuary 26 as part of the Africa 2000
B.C. high schools participation
program.

Sponsored by the United
Nations Association in Canada
and funded by the Canadian Inter-
national Development Agency, the
program sends three speakers to
secondary schools throughout the
province.

From September 1990 until May
this year, the speakers will visit
162 schools, Odhiambo said. His
own schedule included 12 secon-
dary schools between Sidney,
Sooke and Duncan between Feb.
25 and March 8.

Information on Africa in the
Canadian media is not that exten-
sive, Odhiambo noted, leading to
many misconceptions.

In his presentations, Odhiambo
describes the change in his fam-
® ily’s life through the post-

colonization period in Kenya.

“T try to put a human element
into the information in the texts,”
he said.

He was 12 when his family
emigrated from Kenya to Canada

in 1977. Before joining the Africa
-2000 project, he worked as a

‘l try to put a
human element
into the
information in the
texts’

Changer swiped

The coffee shop at the B.C.
Ferry terminal at Swartz Bay was
broken into a bill changer pried off
the wall during the early moming
hours Friday, Sidney RCMP said.

The incident is under investiga-
tion and police ask those with
information to call CrimeS toppers.

Also at the ferry terminal, car
speakers valued at $130 and three
cassette tapes were stolen from a
vehicle after a passenger-side win-
dow was smashed out while it was
parked in the pay parking lot
overnight Wednesday-Thursday.

a

community radio journalist in
Ottawa, where he started writing
plays on African issues.

He tells students how their lives
would be different if they had been
born in Africa and encourages
them, through role-playing, to find
effective solutions for poverty.

As the students discover the
bamiers facing Africans struggling
to develop their countries, Odhi-
ambo hopes they also gain a
realization of how colonialism
affected the continent.

-He also hopes students learn to
think more critically when reading
reports Or Opinions on Africa.

A video tape he shows on Afri-

can recovery illustrates how sup-
posedly simple solutions can have
far-reaching implications. For
example, agricultural production
must be increased to make African
countries self-sufficient.

Increasing the amount paid for
food stimulates more agricultural
production but increases food
costs for low-paid urban workers,
Odhiambo explained.

If urban workers are unable to
buy food, the resulting unrest
could lead to an overthrow of the
government, he said.

Through his presentation, he
hopes students gain new perspec-
tives on development issues.

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ISSUES IN AFRICA are personalized for students by David
Odhiambo of the United Nations Association in Canada.
Odhiambo spoke at Parkland Secondary February 26.

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