On April 25th 2012 John Dada paid a rare, and somewhat unexpected, visit to London as described in Nikki's blog -
http://www.dadamac.net/blog/20120425/john-dada-uk We videoed that discussion and I have written notes to give you an idea of scope of the conversation and to help you can find the bits that may be of interest to you. The location is "the studio cafe" at Westminster Hub so there is noise from other people working /having discussions in the space - however we were very lucky to be given that space, where we could chat, set up a camera, and know we would not be asked to move on.
I invited Steve Podmore - who had only recently come across Dadamac's work - to lead our conversation with John as he would look at everything with new eyes.
-
http://blip.tv/andybroomfield/john-dada-at-hub-westminster-6134072 .
Times are very approximate in minutes and seconds.
1 - living in Leeds
1.30 Heard about Grameen
2 . Describing Nigeria - and Kafanchan
3 - John was in Uk as economic migrant - the situation back home was getting harder for people
4 village economies
5 start of their micro-finance
6 local factors
6.30 honesty factor of women
7 women petty traders
7.30 starting m.finance with funds from own pockets
8.30 example of the women who make palm oil
9.30 issues of sustainable development and agriculture
10.15 ? local technology - how my mother did it
11.30 not going hungry in the village
12.30 external pressures that made things change
13.30 problems of fertilizers and monoculture instead of "old fashioned " mixed which is more like permaculture.
15.30 I interrupted to introduce
Doug Morrison of Mardi who had recently arrived..
21 the conversation has turned to
micro finance and Steve turns to Costanza of FINCA
21 mins - John says - "I had found my niche"
25 health
25.50 nutrition
26.30 tying in nutrition for children with education
27 how the various programmes tied in together
28 Cisco academy and refurbished computers
30 practical problems with computers failing because of heat and "dust" (not so much the "domestic dust' we think of but more the fine red dust from the fields and compounds and untarred roads etc.)
30.20 Paul Richardson's pioneering low power solid state computer (This was a project that we helped to field test in 2002 in SW and SS and then around 2005 with Fantsuam) It pre-dated OLPC idea and had various excellent ideas relating to technology transfer and local economic development, but it was under financed and was overtaken by other projects later.
solar power
32 grid power problems
33 reality on the ground not top down - the connection between micro-finance and the HIV Aids programmes
34 doing this all from UK so need to relocate
need to rely on volunteers
37.20 more about volunteers
38.20 questions about setting up systems
- organisational development plan for 5 years time and issues of specialisation or organic integrated development
40 - how one things leads to another
40.50 the scope and scale of the problem - just being led by our hearts and things falling into place.
43.40 drama group - sex education in church - dramatic impact - rescue of children - vulnerable members of community being blamed for HIV/AIDS and accusations of witchcraft. John's response. Child protection programme.
44 Bad experiences? tempted to just give up and take away the communicaiton mast - people's response to that - not wanting it to go.
45 other aspects of taking ownership and documentation - not able to do that enough
46 training up local people (because people with qualifications who live in cities don't want to live in places with the poor water supply, lack of electricity etc problems of rural areas) - and then losing these people to better paid jobs once they are trained. Accepting this and recognising that providing this training up and then losing people to live a better quality of life is in a way one of the services that FF provides to the community.
49 rural urban issues and solar charging and things located in rural areas
50 Doug joining in again
51 Steve referring to "Sustainable power for all programme" that he's been at in the morning
53 Dadamac lifeline and importance of all his networking
54.30 his dream of "making it work in that village - so others can copy it in theirs, customised to fit local circumstances"
56 - making it work in Kafanchan (AKA Fantsuam) - if it could work there it could work anywhere
(another ref to Dadamac)
57 sickle cell project and support of diaspora
57.50 Costanza - explaining about FINCA
1.04 John speaking
The conversation continued as other guests joined us and I hope there will be some more video clips later - but I'm not sure how soon.
I hope this is useful in giving you a better idea of John and his work and the general feeling of Fantsuam Foundation and Dadamac.
