Have you ever found a lost or discarded flip-flop?

We’re willing to bet the answer is yes. These cheap, practical shoes are worn all over the world, from Californian beaches in the US to downtown Accra here in Ghana.

Ghanaians call flip-flops chale wote, which translates as “My friend, let’s go” – a very poetic way to describe their slip-on-and-go appeal, if you ask us.

The phrase has even inspired an annual street art festival in Accra.

Unfortunately, chale wote can make a mess. They come off easily and wear out quickly. All too often, they end up as trash in a public space.

In coastal areas the problem becomes even worse. The world’s oceans are full of plastic waste, and that includes flip-flops. Lots of them.

Many are washed up on the beaches of Africa, where they spoil scenery, harm wildlife and affect local industries such as fishing.

A bright idea

In 1997, a marine conservationist named Julie Church saw children on Kenya’s Kiwayu island collecting colorful flip-flops and turning them into toys.

Over the next 15 years, she helped turn the children’s instinctive ‘upcycling‘ into a community business.

In the hands of creative Kenyans, those discarded chale wote became desirable things: art, fashion and toys.

Julie’s company Ocean Sole now makes everything from jewellery to large-scale animal sculptures.

As you can see, its products look fantastic – and they help keep Kenya’s beaches clean too.

Ocean Sole’s work has been:

• Featured in BBC documentaries
• Sent to major museums
• Shown on catwalks
• Recognised with an Energy Globe Award

If children’s homemade toys can grow into all this, how many potential businesses do you think there are in our Galimoto! gallery?

Here are a few more pictures to feast your eyes on:

Photos: Official flickr account of UniquEco Designs / Ocean Sole

Pinned to: Seating and Shade Structures

Our last Pin of the Week was from Lusaka, Zambia. For our latest we’ve selected a picture from Brighton, some 7,000 miles away in Britain.

They’re very different posts from very different places, but both reflect ideas and principles we want to bring to Playtime in Africa.

The picture shows an outdoor space at Longhill High School. Its winding, colorful seating structure was designed by students and made out of recycled plastic.

It ticks a lot of boxes that we like: community-level design, sustainable materials, and bags of visual and physical interest.

• Community design: When we began our planning work for Playtime in Africa last summer, we did it right here in Dzorwulu. Folks of all ages got involved, including young people who represent the project’s end users.
• Sustainable materials: This summer we’ll be launching a drive for reclaimed wood. It could be a felled tree on your land or a bookcase you no longer want – if you’re in Accra and have something you think we could use, drop us an email.
• Visual and physical interest: We’re not planning a bare yard and a basic classroom. PiA is about sensory experiences and exploratory play. We want a multi-level environment filled with color and texture.

It is easy to forget how stimulating a varied outdoor environment is to a curious child. We really like the approach of our supporter Chris Berthelsen, who documents exactly that in his booklet ‘Tokyo at Child Scale’:

As well as checking out the rest of our ‘seating and shade’ Pinterest wall, take some time to explore the gallery of unusual learning spaces that this week’s pin originally came from. It’s packed with ideas, from a brainstorm room with blackboard walls to a gorgeous tree mural for an outdoor teaching environment.

Some of Adwoa’s contributions put rhyme in a Ghanaian context, so we’ve transcribed a few highlights at the bottom of this post.

Check the original TVO page to for some book recommendations from the panel. Adwoa’s choices include Atukei Okwai’s A Slim Queen in a Palanquin, which we recently added to our kids’ booklist on Pinterest.

You might also like Tahinta! A Rhyming Play for Children, by Mmofra’s founder Efua T Sutherland. There’s an audiobook sample on the Made by Mmofra page.

Transcriptions

The numbers are time references. If you don’t have time to watch the whole video, you can use them to go straight to Adwoa’s sections.

3:25: On why rhyme is effective

“I think that it’s the patterns, and also the fact that you can anticipate what’s going to happen. Everybody wants to belong, and to belong you have to know what’s going to happen.

“I think pattern is just intrinsic to the human soul. Everybody craves it, even when we move. Everything we do has a pattern to it.”

6:45: On rhyme in Ghanaian languages

“Our languages are more rhythm than rhyme. If I think about the songs and the chants [that I grew up with] you would approach rhyme more through repeating a refrain than creating rhymes.

“Now rhyming is more and more common as people are doing hip-hop in Ghana. But before, we would do it by repetition, or by adding sounds like ‘ei’ and ‘o’ to our sentences.“

After this Adwoa performs a chant from her book Nana’s Cold Days.

12:50: On learning nursery rhymes in Ghana

“Yes, I did. I think one of the best ways to get into language is to use children’s rhymes. That’s how we learned.

“We knew all those Mother Goose-type poems. I still recite them with my children. I think everyone should have a huge volume of verse and poetry for their children.”

Confession: we didn’t have to look very hard for this week’s Fida Find. This African-inspired cartoon project has been on our radar for a while, and first appeared on our Animated Africa Pinterest wall back in January.

But the buzz around Spider Stories has grown louder since its creators John and Charles Agbaje hit their fundraising target on Kickstarter. With $30,000 raised, their production company Central City Tower can now get to work on a pilot episode.

One of the things we love about the Agbaje brothers is that their creativity comes from a story-rich childhood. In an interview with Africa Is A Country, John says that he and Charles began experimenting with writing and drawing at an early age, partly inspired by folktales their parents told:

“There isn’t a turning point that got us into animation and storytelling, it’s more that we never grew out of it. Our parents would also tell us folktales from Nigeria as children. … That has been kept up through reading, watching movies, and trying our hands at the creative process.”

The right time for an African ‘toon

Before Spider Stories the Agbajes created Project 0, a series of graphic novels. The story took place in a beautifully realised sci-fi universe, but like most sci-fi and fantasy it had no clear links with Africa.

By contrast, Spider Stories draws heavily on the brothers’ West African heritage. The main characters are a young warrior princess with a love of technology, a drummer who acts as both ‘spirit guide’ and griot, and a Spider Spirit who is based on the folk character Ananse.

Character artwork for the series blends traditional dress with futuristic weapons and accessories. Drummer Ayan wears a blue and white dashiki, while President Gamba wears an agbada fronted with high-tech armour.

With so few precedents, what convinced the brothers that an African-inspired cartoon could find a large audience? John explains in an interview with Harbus Online:

“We are at the point where we should start to see more and more of these types of stories. … Now that technology and streaming services are making their way further and further into the African continent, things can really pick up steam and suddenly you’ve tapped into the global African diaspora. You’re not talking about a percentage of the U.S. population anymore, but a global population of nearly 300 million people.”

There are others on the same road. Shrinkfish Animations has created The Legacy of Rubies, a 23-minute animation by Nigerian writer-director Ebele Okoye. Here in Ghana, Otoo Studios delivered a brilliant short cartoon based on the traditional game Chaskele, and subsequently worked with 6miludo Media on an animated music video for Jayso & Sarkodie.

The African cartoons for younger children we have come across include:

• Bino & Fino (Nigeria)
• Bouba & Zaza and Tounga (Senegal)
• Abeba & Abebe (Ethiopia)
• Tinga Tinga Tales (inspired by Tanzania, made in Kenya)
• A Malta da Paz e da Alegria (Angola)

So while John and Charles are breaking new ground, they are doing so in good company.

Kickstarter success

When the Agbajes turned to Kickstarter to get Spider Stories up and running, they took it very seriously.

Their campaign gave ample proof of their commitment and artistry – see the clip above – and was kept updated with new rewards and progress reports from the brothers themselves.

Later in the Harbus Online interview, John says: ”We did a ton of preparation work [for Kickstarter]. We created a lot of artwork, shot some video, and refined the story.”

What’s more, they didn’t give up when progress seemed slow:

“We went to other conferences, made more phone calls, made frequent updates to the website, developed new rewards for backers, and brought more people into the fold to make them feel like they were part of the pilot.”

As a result, they beat their $25,000 target by an impressive $5,000.

There’s a good lesson here for aspiring creatives: neither raw talent nor online tools guarantee success. Hard work and ‘offline’ networking have to be a part of the mix.

Luckily, the Agbaje brothers seem to have the whole package. We can’t wait to see the pilot, and hope it will prove there is a huge global appetite for animated content set in Africa.

A big ayekoo! (well done!) to John and Chris for taking the project this far.

Pinned to: Africa Inspirations

This week’s picture comes from the First Lubuto Library in Lusaka, Zambia. But as you’ve probably noticed, it isn’t a picture of the library itself. It doesn’t show shelves, books or children reading. So why have we chosen it?

Let’s look at what it does show. The caption to the original picture is “Insaka, where children wash their hands upon entering.”

An insaka is a round, open-sided meeting place. According to Zambia Vernacular Architecture, the word means ‘place to gather’ in Bemba. So the picture shows that where there is a library, there will be people. Libraries can bring communities together.

Inside the insaka is a tap and basin. We can tell from the faces of the children that they didn’t pose for the picture. Nobody told them to use the washbasin. It is simply part of their visit to the library.

When a library becomes a community meeting place, it also becomes a platform for other things. Here it helps teach children the importance of sanitiation – not just for personal hygiene, but for protecting books that can be damaged by dirty hands.

Lubuto Library Project’s mission statement says:

Lubuto’s full range of preservation, reading promotion, educational and social service activities are a model for the valuable role libraries can play in national development. …. The significance of publicly accessible libraries as a gathering place and safe haven cannot be underestimated.

Reclaiming local literature

As well as establishing community libraries, the Lubuto project helps introduce Zambian kids to the children’s literature of their own country.

Its staff and volunteers hunt down forgotten books in local languages, digitising them and making them available online.

In the video below Mulenga Kapwepwe, the chairperson of Zambia’s National Arts Council, talks about why the project is both important and exciting:

Could Ghana do the same?

If a team of volunteers went in search of Ghanaian children’s books from previous generations, what would they find? Are there forgotten books hidden in your house?

At Mmofra we’ve produced modern versions of our founder’s work for children, including an award-winning illustrated audio- and e-book of Voice in the Forest.

We found this passage in a lecture given at the National Museum of Ghana in 1970. The lecturer was a Mr Ken Akatani, then director of the UN Information Centre in Accra.

“Wherever I travel these days, if I can set aside a few hours I try to do two things. One is to visit the museum and the other is to see the botanical gardens.

…

By seeing the botanical gardens, I not only enjoy and taste the beauty of the gardens themselves, but I try to sense the love the people have for their nature and the environment.

These are yardsticks which have served me very faithfully in assessing the qualities of the peoples I have visited.”

We’re not sure what conclusions Mr Akatani would draw from the official gardens of Accra – Aburi, Legon or Efua Sutherland Park – today. But if they disappointed him, we hope our plans, or some of the private gardens of our supporters, would renew his faith.

As for the National Museum itself, he would no doubt be encouraged to see groups like Friends of the National Museum and Adventurers in the Diaspora campaigning to keep it on the agenda of the government and the public alike.

The text can be found in an original booklet of 1969 and 1970 lectures given at the museum, issued by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board and printed by Accra Catholic Press. Among other pieces, it also contains an interesting essay on beads and a history of Ghanaian urbanism.

A small number of copies are available in the museum shop at five cedis a copy – which is one more reason to pay the institution a visit.

What’s special about this tough, colourful rope? It’s made from waste. Over to Random Specific, whose blog we spotted it on:

“Recently in Ahmedabad I got on the hunt for upcycled rope – made from plastic and foil packing waste. … I came across street-side rope spinners, distributors using scooters and rickshaws plus a number of examples of the rope applied to bed bases. At the hands of savvy Indian micro-entrepreneurs, packaging life-cycles are extended and waste is transformed.”

You could think of ‘upcycling’ as recycling with style. Upcycled products start out as waste, but the material isn’t just reused. It is turned into something better.

Sometimes upcycling is an informal street activity, taking place in towns and cities everywhere.  But there are also small and medium-sized businesses doing it, often inspired by ingenious ideas from everyday life.

Check out these examples from Africa:

• In Ethiopia, Sole Rebels uses old tires for the treads of its Fair Trade-certified shoes. They are made in local communities and shipped all around the world.
• Here in Ghana, Mmofra Foundation’s near neighbours Trashy Bags make bags, laptop cases, wallets and more out of discarded water sachets and old billboards.

‘Upcycling’ will be a key element of our Playtime in Africa project. Using scrap for seating, shade and other elements will help keep our playspace low-cost and environmentally friendly. It will also help teach our visitors to think creatively about the world around them.

But the benefits don’t stop there. Designs that uses cheap, readily available material are easier for other people to replicate. So if a community far away from Dzorwulu likes the look of what we’ve done, they can build their own version!

This summer we’ll be focusing on reclaimed wood. There is plenty of it in Ghana, and it can be used for both practical and ornamental objects.

Take a look at these bookcases made of disused canoes at a hotel in Madagascar, or these huge slices of tree trunk we spotted hanging at a beach resort in Ghana.

There is sensory value in their appearance and texture, and they can also help teach curious kids what the inside of a tree looks like!

If you see any examples of recycled wood, let us know. Email us at info@mmofraghana.org, or @ us on Twitter. We’ll share it with our followers and give you a mention.

 Pinned to: Galimoto! Self-Made Toys

Our Galimoto! wall is dedicated to homemade toys from Africa. This has to be the most high-tech one we’ve ‘pinned’ yet.

The picture shows 15-year-old Nigerian teenager Odo Gerald with his range of self-built diggers, bulldozers and dumper trucks. But these aren’t just push-toys. Thanks to a sophisticated system of pipes and syringes, these miniature machines really work.

Odo was exhibiting his creations at Maker Faire Africa, an invention and handicraft showcase that came to Lagos in 2012. They caught the eye of African tech writer Erik Hersman, who featured them on the Maker Faire blog:

“Odo has 4 toys he’s made over the last 4 months. They’re made of painted plywood, syringes, wooden pieces, wire, water and small tubes along with a motorcycle battery to run it all. His next big project is to make a small helicopter that he can get off the ground.”

Check out Hersman’s video to see them in action:

Creative play builds real skills

As the Galimoto! gallery shows, ‘play’ is not just a break from the serious business of ‘work’. It can promote ingenuity, experimentation and independent learning.

Who knows where those habits could take you? Check out our post from last year about a 15-year-old radio whizz from Sierra Leone. You might also remember the three Nigerian girls featured in the same post, who designed a urine-powered generator (also exhibited at Maker Faire in Lagos).

Closer to home there is Mmofra Math, a math-focused computer game designed by Accra teenager Leovi Nutakor and tested by kids from our own Language Club.

Boys’ toys?

Part of Mmofra’s mission is to encourage and provide opportunities for creative play. So while we love to see examples of it, we are also interested in challenges to it. Try taking another look at our Galimoto! gallery with these questions in mind:

• Where are the girls?
  You’ll find some, but they are under-represented. Why? Do they play less? Do they make fewer toys? Or are boys just better at getting in front of the camera?

• Where are the middle-class children?
  As incomes rise, will hands-on toy-making be replaced with ready-made products? What effect could that have on children’s creativity?

Londoner Kelvin Okafor is an artist whose reputation, to his parents’ relief,  is growing by leaps and bounds.

“They were afraid of it not being very lucrative, for me to make a living from it”, he explains, “ but they’ve been very supportive and that’s helped me a lot to build more confidence.”

People seeing Kelvin Okafor’s drawings for the first time can be forgiven for mistaking them for photographs.  Visit his website though, and you’ll learn from the artist himself that he is a Passionate penciled artist.  Highly interested in detail and precision.

Most of his marvelously lifelike drawings, like the one below titled “Timeless”, are in pencil and charcoal.

Kelvin provides a fascinating step-by-step “evolution” of many drawings on his website.

With each successive panel, you can follow this drawing of a little girl called “Mia” as it seems to come to life:

His subjects are often celebrities whose faces are instantly recognizable.  At other times, he might choose to draw a friend, or a visiting family member from Nigeria with an interesting profile.

Kelvin also generously shares his technique through short videos which are linked through his website.  He spends 90 to 100 hours on each portrait!

In this profile he talks about his inspirations and motivations.  He’s also got some good tips for aspiring young artists.

Pinned to: Mmofra Booklist for Young Adults

Aya: Life in Yop City collects the first three volumes of Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubriere’s award-winning series of graphic novels, which follow the day-to-day life of a young woman in the Ivorian capital Abidjan.

Aimed at young adults, the stories are loosely based on the author’s own childhood in the city’s Yopougon-Koute suburb – ‘Yop City’ for short. Abouet uses the books to depict ordinary human dramas, consciously avoiding the themes that dominate Western depictions of life in African countries.

In an author interview that appears in the collection, she says:

“The easygoing and careless [carefree?] impression of Africa that is found in Aya fortunately still exists. It would be nice if the African continent were evoked dropping the stereotypes of suffering, because Africa is really quite a large and diverse continent.

…

I can assure you that the Ivory Coast remains a beautiful country with nice neighborhoods, superb beaches, and a magnificent flora and fauna, despite its disasters. African women finally share the same dreams as other women on the planet, and all I want to do is show their daily lives along with their hopes and desires to find fulfillment as modern women in Africa.”

Abouet’s characters fall in and out of love, argue with family members, go to work; they are average middle-class people, depicted with warmth and humour. The light tone is reflected in wonderfully detailed illustrations by Abouet’s husband Clément Oubrerie, who works from his wife’s own visual concepts.

The Aya books come with an ‘Ivorian Bonus’ at the end, featuring lifestyle tips and helpful definitions. Palu is malaria, and claclos are deep-fried spiced ripe plantain dumplings (Ghanaians, take note). There’s also an illustrated recipe for chicken kedjenou and a guide to carrying a baby on the back using your pagne (brightly colored wax-printed cloth).

Bringing Aya to Africa

Following a familiar pattern, the Aya comics have been more accessible outside Cote d’Ivoire, particularly in the US and in France, where Abouet now lives. Fortunately for readers in Cote d’Ivoire, the author has been able to convince her publisher to sell cheaper softcover versions there.

We’d love to see the series more widely read by young adults everywhere, particularly in African countries, and so we’ve added several Aya collections to our Young Adult Booklist – one of our ‘wish lists’ of titles for our library in Accra. They also appear on our Animated Africa for Kids & Teens wall.

The non-profit organisation Friends of African Village Librarives (FAVL) is also a big Aya fan. It runs community libraries in Ghana and Burkina Faso, and has been campaigning hard to get Abouet’s books onto the shelves. For rural readers in West Africa, quality books that deal with familiar themes and environments can be all too hard to find.

Further reading

We noticed writer Nnedi Okorafor, who is a favorite on our Young Adult wall, added the first Aya book to a literature course reading list in the US last year.

The Brown Paper blog found “rich rewards [in] the characters, the setting, the gentle humour and the visuals.”

Wild River Review, which has an illuminating interview with Abouet, praises the comics for “drawing attention to the universal and relatable aspects of Africa.”

The Book Nest agrees: “The plot is a bit like a sitcom, with couples getting together or not, cheating on each other, getting in trouble and having problems with their parents. Older teens would find much to relate to and probably appreciate seeing their own problems worked out on a completely different continent.”

For French-speaking readers, here’s a video of Abouet discussing her work: