Alioune Badara Camara, may his soul rest in peace, was a friend of education and lifelong learning, which he supported and exemplified. When at the International Development Research Center (IDRC), he supported research across Africa on teachers and students creatively and strategically use technologies like computers and internet and mobile phones to change teaching and learning, making it more active and engaging and more up to date. He supported the Education Research Network for West and Central Africa (Ernwaca) in working with hundreds of researchers and policymakers. As important as the IDRC grants were the expertise and experience he willingly shared, in a spirit of dialogue and partnership, of co-construction.

FERGUSON, MO. The Rev. Tommie Pierson was meeting in his church a week ago Saturday when, only blocks away, multiple bullets fired from a Ferguson police officer’s pistol pierced the body of Michael Brown, leaving the unarmed African-American teen dead on the street.

A cashier at a café at Johnson Country Community College (Kansas, USA), where I spend a few hours most days these days, inspired me to share something I read earlier this year by a friend of a friend. The cashier explained how some people, while they order and pay for their breakfast or lunch or snack with him, chat on their cellphones and toss debit or credit cards at him, never making eye contact or otherwise acknowledging him as a person. An essay by a friend of a friend on the importance of greetings came to mind, and I thought I’d share it. Here goes…

The fifth edition of the Journal of Educational Research in Africa contains eight papers on educational issues in North and West Africa. They relate to technical training, higher education and curriculum reform as well as overeducation, child labor, religious pluralism at school, and the influence of mothers’ educational levels on their children’s academic performance. The [...]

Pede Hollist’s So the Path Does Not Die, published by Langaa in 2012, was named 2013 Book of the Year for Creative Writing by the African Literature Association (ALA) at its annual meeting in April 2014 in Johannesburg, South Africa.This award is for an outstanding book of African literature, whether novel, nonfiction prose, play, or [...]

Three persons lost their lives outside a Jewish Community Center in the Kansas City area one week ago, as a result of hate crimes, which we deplore. Our thoughts go out to their loved ones. The article below, from the Johnson Country Community College newspaper by a young journalist that found himself at the Center near the time of the tragedy, attests to hope and humanity, and the power of youth.

Les déchets électroniques et informatiques peuvent poser des problèmes de santé publique s’ils ne sont pas bien gérés. C’est ce qui ressort de l’entretien avec l’économiste de l’environnement du Centre de recherches pour le développement international (Crdi), Ramata Molo Thioune, qui affirme que les pays comme les nôtres peuvent tirer des opportunités du recyclage de ces déchets.

April 7 is the Day of Remembrance to honor the victims of the Rwanda Genocide, which started 20 years ago. As part of the process of healing the wounds of genocide, at the commemoration in Dakar, Senegal, the following poem by Kim Claire was sung by Kim and her friends.

Lately, Bitterman has been spending a lot of time thinking about Troost Avenue [in Kansas City] and all the failed efforts to overcome the inequities of black and white, east and west. “We see Troost as a problem, but it’s a symptom of a problem,” he said. He asked himself, What if the city was segregated, but it was me? That question is the basis for a film in progress, “Half Life.” As he writes in his synopsis: “Haunted by a city that seems permanently divided, the artist wakes up on a bus to find himself transformed — half black, half white — a personification of the city itself. An existential crisis unfolds.”

Unlikely allies in 1950s Kansas, modernize college sports, & parallel the Civil Rights movement that would transform an entire nation.