OAKLAND — Until a few weeks ago, the students in Amanda Ripa’s reading group had never heard of Malawi, a country in southern Africa, and didn’t know anything about what it was like to live there.
But after reading an account of one young man’s tough upbringing in a farming village and his struggle to provide electricity and water to his family by building his own windmill, the students decided they could make a difference.
The class is organizing fundraising events to send money to help students in Wimbe, a town in central Malawi, and the students have an ambitious fundraising goal to reach by the end of the year. They hope to raise $50,000, enough money to rebuild an entire primary school.
The seventh- and eighth-grade students are part of an interdisciplinary unit called Fuel for the Future. They have been reading books selected by teachers that connect to the overall theme of renewable energy and sustainability, according to Ripa.
Students have been learning about energy sources like wind and solar as part of the unit and constructed a model windmill as an example of what they’ve learned.
Over the last three weeks, the students read “The Boy who Harnessed the Wind” by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. The book describes how Kamkwamba, the son of poor farmers, was forced to drop out of school at age 14 during a drought and famine that left his parents destitute and unable to afford the $80 a year tuition.
Instead of sitting idly by, Kamkwamba went to his local library and started reading technical manuals and science textbooks. He came across a diagram for windmills that would produce energy and move water to help irrigate his family’s fields. He used scrap metal, wood and the parts of an old bicycle to build one for his family.
Pretty soon, neighbors were coming by the house to charge their cellphones, journalists took an interest and soon he was on a flight to Tanzania to give a TED Talk about his project, Kamkwamba told a TED audience in Oxford, England, in 2009. With help from donors, Kamkwamba returned to school and now attends the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa, according to his website.
For Ripa’s students, the book was eye-opening.
“It showed how hard they have to work to get what they have,” said Jenna Cassani, a seventh-grader in the unit.
“He didn’t go to school, but he’s still smarter than we are,” she said.
The dozen or so students in the class said they had a hard time relating to Kamkwamba’s story. It was hard to reconcile their comfortable lives with the tough conditions he grew up in.
“It showed us how fortunate we are to have all the resources we need compared to all the hard work they have to do to get by,” said Libby Hume, an eighth-grader.
In particular, Ripa’s class was struck by the knowledge that students in Malawi have to pay to go to secondary school.
“We think of school as something like, ‘Aw, we have to go there,’ but people in Malawi view it as something they can do instead of something they have to do,” Hume said.
“Sometimes families can’t pay for both food and school,” she added.
That problem is something Ripa’s students thought they could change. They’ve started raising money to provide scholarships for students through Kamkwamba’s economic development project, Moving Windmills. According to the project website, $2,000 can provide a year’s tuition for 20 students in both day and boarding schools.
The students have come up with a slate of activities to raise money. A “turkey gram” event last month brought in $60, and this week students can donate a dollar per day to wear a hat to school. The students are planning a holiday bake sale and a fun night later this month where students pay $5 to play games and dance to music provided by a live DJ.
After reading the book and learning about Malawi, “we realized that we could help,” said eighth-grader Eli Ross.
Peter McGuire — 861-9239
Send questions/comments to the editors.
