Translator: Silvia Nogueira Reviewer: Claudia Sander
I had a great opportunity to live almost three years in Africa,
where I was involved in school building projects.
Today, I came to share with you a little of what Africa has taught me.
When I was there, I wanted to understand what was happening around me.
Somehow, I wanted to help those people.
But most of all, I wanted to do good.
However, during this period, I understood that things don't quite operate like that.
There is no point in wanting to "do good"
because most of the time the meaning of "good"
goes beyond our limited perception
of what it really means for those we want to help.
A story that illustrates this very well happened in one of various communities
where women have to walk during long periods,
even miles, to find water.
The first impulse of an organization that wanted to help, was to build wells
around those women's houses.
And this looks obvious, logical.
It looked as the problem was solved.
However, what the organization'’s staff
hadn't understood was that this action,
that moment, those hours when women went out to get water,
was not simply a walk to get water;
it was one of the rare moments they had to be just among each others,
talking and exchanging experiences in a protected environment,
free from male oppression and control.
So, in that moment, when they lost these female social nets,
the structure of the community as a whole changed.
So, most of the time, we think we are doing good,
but there are many invisible things that we don't realize within that context.
It's not because we live in a certain manner,
that our lifestyle should be repeated for everyone,
as a unique example of how those people's life should be.
When I was in Liberia, in South Sudan, in Rwanda,
I was in touch and I saw countries undergoing a reconstruction process
after violent civil wars.
The conflicts in Liberia and Sudan were very recent.
In Rwanda it had been almost two decades.
But at any rate, in all of these places,
the memories and marks of the war were still very strong.
For the first time, I was closely in touch with death-related subjects.
But, contradictory as it might seem,
they were the greater lessons I have had about life.
During the process of helping those people to build schools,
every single day I realized that actually
that was an in-depth process of deconstruction of concepts.
And two of these concepts I want to bring to you today.
Has anyone of you already thought about education dissociated from school
and about abundance dissociated from money?
I know it seems to be very challenging when we live in a society
that delegates to school the role of education
and we live captive by money in order to survive.
However, when I visited various rural communities in these countries,
very little of them had schools.
And the first impulse of someone raised in a society in which school
is the natural and obligatory way for all children and youngsters,
was to see that as a major error, as a problem that should be addressed.
I think that almost everyone here shares the same view.
So I started to question myself, how so, there is no education?
What about all centuries lived by those communities,
their own language, their story, their culture, traditions?
Since when these things are no longer education?
We live in a society
that confuses schooling with education.
Our first wish is to think that everybody should be in school.
As a result of this, we came to a point
where education has become a business,
a product that we buy, sell, and as I witnessed, also export,
since those few schools that I saw in those communities
were part of a recent past
and were brought by outside interventions.
Therefore, to what extent is education really dependent on schools?
And having children in schools really ensures them education?
Is that so simple?
We build the facilities, we put the children inside them,
and, suddenly, we have education?
There is a global movement, initiated in the year 2000
by the United Nations, called Millennium Goals.
On this document, parameters of development were established
to be achieved by all countries.
Number 2, in a total of 8, says,
"Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike,
will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling."
From that moment on, it was established and institutionalized this great confusion
that in order to have education we need schools and children inside them.
As a reflex of that, I saw popping up through all corners of Africa
innumerous constructions.
Just to give you an idea of what that means,
the World Bank published a document in 2009
estimating that between 2005 and 2015
in 33 Sub-Saharan countries it would be necessary to build 2 million classrooms
with their related water and sanitation infrastructure.
If we consider the cost of a classroom at approximately 15,000 dollars,
which is a medium to low cost,
we would have a total bill of 30 billion dollars,
not considering water and sanitation infrastructure
and not even all those facilities that need to be rebuilt in a few years
due to lack of maintenance and poor quality of constructions.
So, what happens, is that we look for a solution
without even understanding what is happening.
It is an insane race, in which we run to build schools
in a scenario that lacks so many other things.
And few people ask themselves
about the real dimension of that for those people.
Many people say that education is liberating, and it may be true;
as any tool, education can set one free but it can also imprison them.
I know, we can't deny
that globalization has already reached almost all corners of the planet.
Yes, there are individuals that will be stimulated
and need to receive this western-style education.
There are individuals, children and young people,
that naturally have a leadership, and they need to be stimulated.
However, giving these young people
a chance to study or to access a quality education
is quite different and opposed to what is being done:
imposing a unique and universal system,
as if western-style education was the only solution for those problems.
The curriculum implemented in these schools
are based in foreign languages,
which at a first moment already cause conflicts between generations.
These education values are based on individualism, competition
and rating students upon their grades.
However, if we look at the traditional values of these communities,
we'll see that they are exactly the opposite.
Those communities were based on collectivity, cooperation,
respect to the common well and the interaction between generations.
All of sudden,
if the only knowledge that is acceptable is the one acquired inside the schools,
all the verbal and intuitive traditions which existed in those communities
end up being undervalued.
And those wise elders, that once were the reference to the communities,
all of a sudden become unliterated and non educated.
Unfortunately, what I saw was that the majority of these youngsters
ends up losing themselves along the way.
They can't even move forward to enter in the job market
which in theory they were being groomed for,
and that most of the time doesn't even exist in those countries,
neither can they go back to reconnect with their traditions and roots.
Unfortunately, the education imported from countries in peace
do not bring peace to such countries, as the communities I have been to.
On the contrary, it generates more internal conflicts,
more misery and more conflicts among them.
It is curious, we live in the 21st century,
we have achieved impressive technological breakthroughs,
we consider ourselves as superior intelligence beings,
but on many occasions,
we simply don't allow ourselves to respect others as human beings.
Our colonizer nature still remains
and our decisions, most of the times, remain based upon power relations.
These youngsters, in that western-style, much more than only education,
they dream about having a life they don't even know.
That life is part of their imaginary and dreams.
They see it on movies and commercials,
on each one of those western-style models they have access to.
But no one tells them, that not even in the west
that dreamt education frees the way they imagine.
No one tells these youngsters
that not even in the west that education is unanimous and not questioned.
No one tells them that not even in the west
that education provides the so desired financial stability.
Here I introduce you to the second concept.
Every time I speak about my experiences in Africa,
the first question I am asked
is if there is too much poverty in the places I have been to.
I confess that as soon as I arrived in Liberia for the first time,
I would maybe have agreed with that,
or, that was the most I was capable of seeing.
The same way it happened with those women and the water,
many times we don't realize the invisible that is behind all of that.
It's true that in the urban areas,
as we see in Brazilian and Latin American cities
or in Asia or any other continent, there is poverty the way we know it.
There are many people
that can't afford basic services
because they don't have the money to pay for it.
But this is not the only one portrait from Africa
as we see many times in the press.
Africa is a huge continent
that has ethnic wealth in abundance,
and as much as it is being engulfed by globalization and conflicts,
it has enormous resources from its culture and its people,
besides having immeasurable natural and mineral resources
that, by the way, sustain our current lifestyle.
According to the World Bank's point of view, it is established
that a population that lives with up to 1.25 dollar per capita per day
would be under the poverty line.
But has any of you wondered what this poverty is?
One possible definition of poverty
could be shortage of assets, shortage of resources, scarcity.
I have met communities where there were no land owners,
that had community leaders
to regulate the use of the land.
They had water, fertile lands, fruit trees,
wild hunt, natural resources to build their houses,
they worked in a collective manner, in which they helped each other
and the communities that had a little more helped the others.
It's true, they were small communities,
so the impact was not so big and dealing with the territory was easier.
But if we look up the definition there was no poverty there.
On the contrary, they lived on the abundance of nature.
From the moment when life was monetized,
when it's expected to have a minimal income to leave poverty,
at this moment poverty was created.
In these communities there aren't many ways to generate income,
so, the money ends up coming through external sources or through government.
So, many times, in the urge to solve a problem that we don't even know
we end up creating new conflicts or new problems
which didn't exist before in those places.
A solution that's repeated like a stamp tends not to be helpful
because it doesn't consider each place's particularity.
To finish, more than criticize,
I wanted to show another side
of some almost unquestionable concepts from our society.
I wanted to show that differences should be respected.
I wanted to show that the great cultural diversity
is one of the most important factors
that guarantees our wealth as humanity.
Most of all, I wanted to show the importance of contemplating people
on each action or project we'll endeavor.
I'm not against education, on the contrary,
but I'm against schooling to be considered the only form of education.
I'm in favor of an education based upon human,
cultural and ethic values.
I'm in favor of an education
that it is not based on mere accumulation of knowledge,
but allows the individual to have a better understanding of himself
and of his surroundings.
I'm in favor of an education that doesn't reproduce a model
that makes no sense to a certain community.
Above all, I want to say that I believe that we are endless learners.
We are teachers and students from the school of life.
I believe that the greater wealth we have
are our human values and our talents.
So, if each one of us shares their best,
we'll find out that we can live in abundance.
And, this way, we break the cycles of poverty of spirit.
Thank you.
(Applause)