There is nothing like meeting poverty, needs and resilience in the face to spur you on and nothing like the feeling of actually being able to do something about them, to give your life its real meaning. My name is Annie O’Connor, the founder of the kanga project, a registered UK charity (1119375). My story is not much different from those of the people who started the many small charities in the UK that are helping small communities or even just schools in Africa but I hope it inspires you to join me. I certainly could do with some help.
I have been “in love with Africa and its people” since an incident that happened when I was about 8 or 9 years old in the early 1960′s. My sister, who had recently started secondary school came home one day with a letter, photo and a bag of coffee beans that had been sent to her by her new penpal from the Ivory Coast. I must explain that I was born in France and that the Ivory Coast, a French colony had just become independent and that it had become fashionable to have an African penpal. The picture was passed around and it showed a family in magnificent traditional dress posing in a photographic studio; I can still see it in my head. But that is not why I fell in love with Africa. I fell in love with Africa and especially its people because of the reaction of my family to the picture. I am ashamed to say that they all had a good laugh. May be it was not malicious, may be it was just ignorance, after all it was the 1960′s (and I do know their attitude has changed) but to me, even then, it was an insult. Since then I have been “on their side”, interested in their struggles and dreaming to visit one day. Unfortunately life has a habit of getting in the way of dreams and it was not until 2004 that I realised it.
By then I had moved and settled in the UK, married, had two daughters, divorced and between bringing up young children and working full time, life had taken on a boring regularity. In my mid 40′s, I read a book by Dervla Murphy called “In Ethiopia with a mule” and the stirring to travel resurfaced, (I have since then read nearly all of her fascinating books). As the girls were needing me less and less I started to think of studying again, hoping that I could move into the world of aid agencies as my interest in issues of development and in particular in relation to Africa was no longer just that, I wanted to know more and do more. I enrolled with the Open University for a degree in International Studies that was to take 6 years as I was doing it part time. By the end of year 3, I put my name down for voluntary redundancy and a dear colleague said. “Now you can take that trip to Africa and see what it’s really like”, “you’ve bored us enough with it” she added laughing. Within days I had booked myself on a volunteer trip of 6 weeks, destination Tanzania. Well, you didn’t think I’d go in a 4* hotel on a white sandy beach in Kenya did you? I wanted to see the real Africa. I knew it was going to change my life and I was prepared for that, but I did not think it would happen so quickly, and I certainly had not banked on meeting the charismatic Gloria Nkungu…….Me and friends
Gloria, a single mother of two who teaches English in a primary school was then teaching Swahili to foreigners. She was also studying Internal Relations and Public Administration at the University of Dar Es Salaam. Then, in her late 30′s she had developed an interest in Political Science and as part of her studies she had spent time working at the Department of Poverty Eradication Unit in Dar Es Salaam. This experience had widened her insight into policies that are concerned with poverty and the means of developing, monitoring and evaluating these policies. We seemed to have a lot in common; single mothers, late students and a deep wish to make a difference; we even share the same birth sign. Gloria wanted to help rural women because she felt they were the ones with the least choices and the hardest lives. I had seen old women scavenging for seeds and roots, I had seen a woman, helpless to help her very sick child, I had seen the despair in their eyes; but I had also seen their strength, generosity, curiosity and resilience. So I did not need much convincing
“African educated women should aspire to initiate more support to alter the difficult situation of the poor women in their communities and beyond. When I look at the people around me I see an intelligent, hard-working, warm community that deserves the chance to find a way out of poverty. Many of the women in Tanzania are living on less than one dollar a day, working every daylight hour in an attempt to house, feed and clothe their children. I want to find a way for these women to develop into the successes they could be. I believe that many of the problems Tanzanian women face are due to a lack of education and little understanding of how they can develop themselves and their businesses and so improve their quality of life.” The seeds were sown that October 2004.Gloria Nkungu
“I’ll see what I can do” were my last words to Gloria before returning to the UK. Within a few months Gloria had set up an organisation, the Rural Women Development Association (RWDA) and, in between work, family and finishing our degrees we managed to get started. In 2007 I ran out of friends, acquaintances and family arms I could squeeze and so I registered a charity to help me with raising funds. I don’t know if you’d agree but I thought that calling it Rural Women Development Association too would have been too much of a mouthful. So I settled for the kanga project as I also wanted our new charity to be a celebration of African Women’s uncrushable hope for the future and of their ingenious resourcefulness in the face of seemingly insurmontable problems. They constantly strive at becoming more independent, more skilled, more knowledgeable and that drive is only matched by their huge capacity to love, to laugh, to be beautiful, drapped in their vibrant traditional kangas. From the simply wrapped up versions to the tailored ones, kangas are the visual trademark of what it is to be an African woman and it seemed fit to make it our own trademark.
