Helping African runners with donated computers

My 'active awareness' of Africa began with Sport Aid in 1986 with the globally-run 10K races and its focus in New York City. I started running due to this incentive and by 1990 was well aware of the, apparently inherent, superiority of the African runners due to their performance times and prominence in European and American race results. Were they born this way, or was it a desperate attempt to escape poverty?

(a) They seemed to have running as the sole purpose of their lives;
(b) They did not care about their own countrymen, let alone have awareness of their own country's political and economic situation as related to economic progress and empowerment.

This gives the lie to the idea that Africans can only run, as a reaction to poverty -THEY WANT TO RUN.
The ability and desire to run comes from Africans' genetic suitability as athletes combined with a distinct lack of external stimulation -including economically. This paradoxically puts them ahead of Western athletes in terms of focus and environmental factors -a simplistic lifestyle combined with a lack of physical and material distractions.
See African Mentality section on Africa page for more details and analysis

I got in touch with the founder and head of Aid into Africa, Alan Cable and set up a Web site for this effort to attempt at that time to address their apparent potential to show the same characteristics in the only activity that is useful and recognised -productive industrial effort.

My vision was that (1) a Web presence was essential for the sake of communication and to prove one's efforts, (2) technology was the key to helping Africans -they would become self-motivated and thereby empowered with educational tools, and they would realise what has made the West (and other areas like Asia) rich -the value added through technology and innovation applied to products.
Therefore the direction was always going to be that Africans had to be shown the right way, not that they lacked the tools to do the job. This attitude shows whether the industry is agriculture or computers.

The result of all this effort was that many tons of pencils, books, toys and clothes were sent to Kenya and Tanzania through donations and campaigning but no Africans were taught and no Africans became empowered -they never improved their vision or awareness of the outside world and never became more ambitious.

From this point on, it became a key focus for me to get the resources necessary to give computers to Africans who would need them, and most likely runners -they had proven themselves with their work ethic and wanted to progress in life.
I contacted the legendary Kenyan runner Paul Tergat back in 2001 who promised me that computers for his runners and (local) schools would be appreciated and used. He said he could arrange this with the then educational attache in London, Leah Rotich -no result came of the repeated guarantees and efforts.

I had roughly the same experience with Lornah Kiplagat's camp, situated in the small town of Iten near Eldoret in Kenya's Rift Valley. She and her husband Pieter Langerhorst were e-mailed and called many times about an equivalent project. They wanted machines but constantly mentioned delays, inefficiency and corruption with the government with regards to shipments and customs and logistics. I gave up after numerous attempts to find out how I could help her female athletes with computers and merely wanted a list of equipment I could buy with the relevant software -a few months later in January 2004 the manager of the camp asked for the computers because 'their athletes had nothing to do outside training'!

I recently tried to further the aims of this project by making my own efforts -relevant contact details are given below.

People/athletes/organisations contacted to donate computers for African runners

Athletics Kenya was contacted (Sammy Cheruiyot) and they kindly gave a list of athletes once I had explained my project. I personally phoned and e-mailed these people, including-

• Patrick Sang

• Noah Ngeny

• Ibrahim Hussein

Hussein never returned calls or e-mails. Ngeny said yes then never did the essential thing, to contact the charity which would ship the recycled computers and GUARANTEE that these donated machines would be used for educational purposes at his camp. This was the same with Sang who delayed then accused me of a 'colonial' attitude when I criticised his apathy and incompetence, along with an excuse about a lack of electricity at his camp, a moot point if he did not have a supply in the first place.

Instead of adapting to the situation and making sure that he gets to the required destination, he, like so many Africans, retreats to his roots then starts blaming others for his failings.
This is a key point -this would not be the reaction in China, or the Arab countries, or Israel -only in Africa where they want to live the way they always have, do not adapt to circumstances and only exhibit potential when it refers to their NATURAL capabilities, ie running and natural resources.

The Ethiopian Athletic Federation provided much the same story with even a meeting with the local Ambassador proving fruitless. The EAF's general secretary Adam Tadesse (see contact above) wanted computers but was not prepared to provide the effort of even contacting the relevant charity so that the machines again would be GUARANTEED to be used for education.

This tale of woe is meant as a warning to others who think that (a) the giving of resources implies that they will be consumed properly, (b) people are inherently useful once empowered. The evidence suggests otherwise.