Wolff Olins Travel Grant 2015

For the last two years, I have been involved with a charity called the Akili Trust. This is a very small organisation which has built two community libraries in Kilifi County, Kenya, and which provides bursaries for secondary school students who would otherwise be unable to remain in education. Though coastal (and therefore in parts, a tourist attraction), the area is one of the poorest in Kenya, with low levels of literacy and school attendance, especially at secondary school.

In February, the opportunity of an Akili trustee visit came up, to conduct some training with the librarians and engage with them, students, schools and community members. Wolff Olins were able to support the trip, through the annual travel grant available to anyone who works here, as part of our learning and development programme. Working with Ellen O’Connor in particular, I wrote and shaped a proposal, outlining what the trip would involve and how it would benefit the Akili community, what Wolff Olins could learn from it, and how it would contribute to my own personal development.

I had hoped to come back with loads of insights, answers and solutions that we could learn from and use to inform how we think about critical issues and industries in places that are less known to us (not only developing areas but rural ones too). That was naïve and arrogant. I didn’t come back with any grand solutions, but with a snapshot of how things are in a particular area at a particular point in time. I have lived in Uganda and spent a decent amount of time in Kenya before, but long enough ago that many memories were out of date. If there was any big lesson, it was not to discount the basics:

- Listen to what people have to say rather than make assumptions about what is best.

- Progress will always be piecemeal without the proper infrastructure to support communities.

- Education is vital: increasing access and opportunity not only to a young generation but to parents throughout communities makes a difference.

 First, and most importantly, this was a trip that shone a light on issues close to our heart: access, education and opportunity. In Kenya, primary schools are universally free. However, this is a deceptive statement: many schools are desperately under-funded and under-resourced, with parents expected to pick up the shortfall through the PTA (Parent Teacher Association) as well as ancillary costs for schooling (uniforms, materials, and so on, which aren’t cheap). Secondary schools experience a drastic drop in enrolment as people cannot afford to pay the school fees (from 84% to 50% across the country).

In one way, these issues are quite simple (though not the solutions to tackle them): there is a fundamental lack of structural ingredients to provide a universal service which many people – justifiably – take for granted.

Secondly, it dispelled for me some lingering myths that kick around about developing countries. Africa as a single entity is often represented as an exciting and vibrant place, where the economy is growing and everything is poised to take off. All of this is simplistic, even if there are truths in there. Kenya, for example, is a country of similarly high inequality to the UK: however, without the safety nets and infrastructure that the most vulnerable in the UK mostly benefit from. This is reflected in critical areas of life: despite the government pledging insecticide-treated mosquito nets for every household, malaria is still a killer, affecting the least educated and least solvent. I spent a lot of time talking with local nurses about the mismatch between access (to nets and other preventative measures with malaria) and education (about why they are important and how to use them). Primary education is notionally available to everyone: however, comparing the two schools where Akili has built community libraries (where one is nearer to a tourist area), for the more isolated Kakuyuni primary school, it means an eight classroom and 400 desk shortfall. In a classic catch-22, the government provides no more teachers until the classrooms exist for them to teach in. The solution is never as simple as making a grand pledge for access or just providing money: fair and effective distribution of resources so that potential is not wasted is hard to get right.

Thirdly, and most encouragingly, there is so much human potential. This sounds like an awful phrase about production per capita, but what I mean to describe is amazing things people are doing when given the opportunity and means. Unsurprisingly, education sits at the heart of this, and not just generic exam results but people reading for exploration and discovery. We heard that all the students who qualified for bursaries for secondary school in one school were in and out of the Kakuyuni Community Library all the time. Hearing stories from the librarians about how the libraries are used, by children, students and people who lived nearby as well, was incredibly humbling, especially given the casual disregard for libraries here. Education matters, and reading for reading’s sake can – over time - change lives.

Not making assumptions about what the right answer is or what is best for someone is so crucial to growing a healthy and mutually beneficial relationship. The first library that was built by the Akili Trust came about because the local community were asked what they wanted if some people were to get involved in the area. Their reply was not a school classroom or building but a community library. Working over time in that spirit, in partnership with different people in the area, we have seen the effect that libraries can have on a community. And not just in the transactional sense of more people reading more, but in the hub it creates, the opportunities it creates and the stability it gives to an area where so much of life is precarious.

To see more photos from Dan’s Trustee visit, check out our Facebook page.

Dan Gavshon Brady is a Lead Strategist at Wolff Olins London. Follow him @DanGB88