Giant_and_Dwarf-FIN

Low Hanging Fruit. Central Europe and Development Aid for Africathe fifth-tallest mountain in Africa, Mount Meru. Remembering the aid and friendship thatKNZM received from numerous American and Canadian community foundations when itwas established, the executive council decided to pass it on and enter into a “sibling” relationshipwith the AMCF. This relationship includes an internal pledge of long-term moral,technical and financial support for the foundation in Arusha.During the first three years of this partnership the KNZM has sent a financial donationto its sister organization in Arusha along the lines of €1,000 to €1,500. This is not a hugesum of money but its importance is much larger than most people are able to comprehend.It has a huge symbolic value as this is the only money from abroad that the AMCF has everreceived as all its other funding is domestic. The money from Banská Bystrica and Zvolen isa thin thread of aid stretched across the ocean and half a continent. The funds are indeedof high importance as the AMCF has been able to use these funds in cooperation with theKNZM to support innovative projects, meaning they are used for technology transfer.The kind of technology transfer we are talking about may seem humorous to the averageEuropean. Funds donated by the KNZM are used, for instance, to construct clay ovensfor cooking in school canteens. When one says school canteen in Africa, it’s important topicture a small, smoke-filled shanty in which tea is brewed for hundreds of students overan open fire pit burning wet wood. The schools in many countries cannot afford to give studentsanything more than tea, and sometimes even this is a luxury. Arusha is by no meansa laggard. It is the third largest city in Tanzania with a population larger than Bratislava. It isalso the headquarters of the East Africa Communities, a regional grouping with 130 millioninhabitants combining Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. It is something ofan East African Brussels.Only the schools in this “Brussels” continue to cook over three rocks. But some of theseschools no longer have to: thanks to the KNZM’s support and the Bratislava-based Centerfor Philanthropy, such ovens have been built in four school canteens (In Arusha they proudlycall them efficient stoves) including installing chimneys (also an innovation in Africa) andpurchased cooking burners. It looks a bit trivial, but for Tanzanian schools without investmentfunds, it is almost as if you took an old coal boiler room in Slovakia and converted itto a modern condensing boiler. The result is that these schools burn up to two-thirds lesswood than when they cooked on the fire pit. This represents huge financial savings for theschools. The women who use them to brew tea are no longer breathing in the thick smokefrom the fire pit, thereby protecting their lungs, eyes and respiratory tracts.Before the AMCF began supporting the construction of school ovens, Tomáš Miléř, thehero from the previous chapter, arranged a working visit for the KNZM and AMCF in Arusha.The AMCF was holding a seminar for teachers for which Tomáš travelled to Kenya andpresented the many benefits of suitable technologies including solar cookers or cook topsfor cooking. We do not know what they took away from it and if the teachers will be ableto pass it on, but it’s not going to happen any other way. A core of teachers and educationwere the driving force for modernization in European society and in Africa it is unlikely tooccur in any other way.237