Hello!
There’s so much to tell and nowhere to start! I just returned to Lomé a couple days ago after spending 5 days in the village of Tsiko where my boss and several of my coworkers are from. It is incredibly beautiful with mountains and forests and everywhere knows everyone and it is here that JVE first got started. In fact there was a celebration in the village to celebrate it’s commencement 8 years ago..it’s very inspiring and refreshing to see how a now international organization began with a group of young people in a small town in Africa. It’s always remarkable to see that everywhere people are starting movements and making real changes. It is especially powerful here where daily life takes so much more effort and yet it is because the issues have a much more acute and daily affect for people here that is also why there is much more energy
I was warmly welcomed into the village and it wasn’t long before I felt completely at home there. I learned from the women how to prepare Togolese cuisine (including slaughtering and cooking a goat for our celebration), went to my first African Jehovah’s Witness service (which I found really interesting, but no worries: I won’t be converting any time soon), played soccer, explored the mountain, and slept out on the roof….
Togolese discuss the issue of the urbanization that has occurred here like in most African countries; Young people come to the city for education and work, but most people and especially my coworkers miss and prefer their hometown village life to life in the capital. After my experiences in both places over these last couple weeks I have similar sentiments and I have been invited to split my time between living in Lome and living with them up in Tsiko… I’ve been so happy to find that I already have found good friends here: in particular my boss Sena and my coworker, Mama. Getting to know Mama and spending the past days with her and others in Tsiko has been one of the most wonderful things about my time here so far… we were able to discuss and share much. She was recently one of five youths who was a ‘climate witness’ at the Global Humanitarian Forum headed by Kofi Anan in Geneva last week. The Forum brought together 250 political, economic, and scientific experts with the intention of uniting those who work in fields that do not collaborate enough to meet on this issue of climate change and show its real and acute consequences for people (and especially youth) around the world. Mama spoke about what she has seen and experienced in Togo. corn disappearing, mountain forests being chopped down, no clean drinking water, wildlife and plants disappearing...(watch these video links to see mama speak along with the others at the Forum and also for a brief news report summarizing the forum: http://www2.ghf-ge.org/multimediacentre.cfm?tab=20&id=73 and http://www2.ghf-ge.org/multimediacentre.cfm?tab=20&id=64 ) It was her first travel outside West Africa, and if was fun to hear her reactions to Switzerland when I picked her up at the airport (The Swiss are way too organized and eat too much cheese).

At work I have been working on editing and creating grant proposals to get further funding for several of the JVE projects which relate to among other subjects reforestation, solar cooking, and a dam construction dialogue in Togo. I spend a lot of time sitting with my coworkers discussing in French the projects including purpose, logistics, budgets, contextual information, etc. and then work on writing an outline in English in order to get funding: I spent almost all of today side-by-side with two coworkers going through the deforestation research project and its budget proposal line-by-line to accurately describe what JVE wants to accomplish as well as to fit what the donors are willing to finance. …More specifically it is a grant proposal for a deforestation research and adjoining workshop with farmers, community women and local authorities in the Kloto region of Togo. These are the populations that should be informed and consulted in order to find alternatives as well as ways to best meet their needs. After being in the mountains, land, and forests and meeting/talking with the people in Tsiko (almost all who are farmers who grow corn for a living) it shed new light on the issues that we are outlining in the project proposals: the challenges of protecting the area and the interests of the people who live there… That is also the case with the solar cooking project: young women’s groups learning to make and promote solar cookers that can reduce their workload of searching for wood and coal to prepare food while also reducing deforestation and fossil fuel carbon burning…

In addition to the grant proposals I’m also doing a lot of keeping in contact (written, telephone, personal) with representatives of organizations abroad who are existing or potential donors of JVE since almost no one here speaks English (and surprisingly at times in dutch as well since many dutch NGOs and government fund such projects). While there is a fair share of administrative work and things move slower also just because of unreliable electricity, computers, and internet/phone connections I find the work interesting and challenging..and while I can’t say that I’m sure the projects and approaches are the solutions to the profound problems here, I am positive about the small but definite steps and involvement that I see in what is being done…

Another subject at work is CDM (Clean Development Mechanism): this involves Kyoto countries that are struggling to meet their carbon emissions reductions targets (so most northern developed countries) to implement sustainable business plans in southern developing countries to essentially buy credits to offset their own emissions. For example JVE has links with a sustainable investment company in Europe that wants to start a rubber tree planting project here which has the intention of both reducing carbon, aiding reforestation, and creating jobs...while of course also generating revenue for their company. CDM projects may be a way to address carbon emissions while also aiding social-economic development but it may also be a market strategy that lets developed countries avoid having to change practices by starting business projects in the south. The CDM plan has a lot of critics and at the moment JVE is working on informing themselves about the pros and cons of implementing such a project here in Togo. So, I’ve also been reviewing the information and communicating with that company to help look more into that …
Okay that’s enough for now, but next time, more about Togo itself as I’ve been learning lots about politics, government, food, music, etc….