Worldreader

Inspiration and learning through e‐reading

Lau Dybbro ‐ October 14th, 2020

Something is spreading through the dark and dusty paths between the small rural villages scattered throughout West Africa. It has already gained its foothold in Ghana and is now creeping past the political and natural frontiers with no respect for international borders and slowly spreading itself throughout the rest of the West African continent.
This something is not a virus but a highly contagious learning project that kick started in 2009 and now comprises five African countries and close to half a million students.


The spreading of knowledge and prosperity through an Amazon Kindle

Ten years ago, in 2009, David Risher and Colin McElwee started a small project with a big vision. The project organisation was named Worldreader, which doesn’t leave much to the imagination concerning its purpose and goals. Never the less, the idea was simple enough!

Spread knowledge and culture in Africa through the power of reading by the means of digital books on e‐readers. The immense distances that cover the African continent have always been the down side in relation to the educational distribution progress. The general lack of funds added to the expenses of transport has made it practically impossible to get books delivered to the most remote regions on the continent. Therefore there is a huge demand for new and relevant books for both students and non‐students in these areas.

Ghana became the pilot country to recieve eLearning

This was the mission that triggered the Worldreader organisation into being. In collaboration with USAID they established in 2010 a pilot project in Ghana, which involved the distribution of e‐readers, filled with literary content, to pupils in the remote and rural areas of Ghana.

The initial project in Ghana involved the distribution of 500 content filled Amazon Kindle e‐readers to schoolchildren and their teachers.

The Worldreader project quickly became a huge success and its future potential for expansion was established.

The students are allowed to keep their Kindles for the duration of the project in order to encourage them to continue reading in their leisure time and to spread the joy of reading with their families.

Ghana now has 150 rural schools involved in the Worldreader program and thousands of Kindle devices are used all over the country ‐ but also in the neighbouring countries the use of the Kindle is spreading.


10 years later - Worldreader continues to penetrate in West Africa

What started as an idea ten years ago has today become an important cornerstone in the educational programs of children and adults in most rural parts of the West African continent.

After the success in Ghana in 2010, the project began to spread into the neighbouring countries: Benin (2012), Tonga (2015) and Burkina Faso (2018).

The Worldreader programme continues its active role in these countries embracing in total more than a thousand schools and education centres in West Africa. The e‐reader has been distributed to approximately 450.000 students that all are using the device as their main source for completing the educational syllabus.

The governments and institutions of these West African countries have all pledged to help the project along, embracing the idea of spreading education and digital books throughout the African countries.

Last month the Ministry of Education in Niger made a formal request to the Worldreader organisation wishing to implement the e‐reader program, initially, in the eastern part of the country. Niger is the sixth largest country on the African continent (1.267.000 km2) and the sheer size and diversity of the country will certainly pose new challenges to the Worldreader program, which this month has been active for a little more than a decade.


West Africa is helping itself

The initial experiences learned in Ghana, in relation to the distribution logistics of the project, has improved the speed of implementation in the neighbouring countries. It has also given rise to new challenges such as selection of recipients and choosing which areas are best suited and equipped to achieve success through the Worldreader project.

Worldreader has spred to several West African countries

Since covering Ghana the Worldreader project has moved on to provide educational help through digital content on e‐readers to rural areas in Tongo, Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger.

Attempts were made to introduce the program in the Ivory Coast but unfortunately it had to be put on hold due to the outbreak of a civil war back in 2015.


The rapid acceptance of the Worldreader programme in West Africa is valid proof that the idea is much more than just a simple educational accelerant. It has brought the stories and tales from the western hemisphere into the most remote corners of the African continent where the possibility of buying a book is close to impossible.

The need for new and up‐to‐date digital content is constantly on the increase. To that effect Worldreader has intensified its dialogue with authors and publishing houses in order to obtain free books for the e‐readers destined for Africa.

The e‐reader and its digitalised content also serves as an inspirational platform for African authors. Through the e‐readers, pupils are able to get a much closer relationship with their own culture, offering them the possibility of reading the thoughts and doings of their own countrymen and woman. This will ultimately serve as an inspiration, offering the readers a better understanding of their own heritage through the digitalised words and writings.



Education always prevails

The success of the Worldreader project, bringing digital books and education to remote rural areas, has proven to be a much larger project than first anticipated. From the pilot project and implementation in Ghana to Benin, Tongo, Burkina Faso and now Niger clearly indicates that the buck won’t stop in Niger ‐ an entire continent is ready to accept and learn through digital reading.

FIFA: Mafia Wars

What are FIFAs future plans when the new head of FIFA is elected on May the 29th. - the tie between Sepp and Blatter has kept us entertained for some time only to show the true face of both disaster and tragedy when it comes to leadership and proactiveness in the organisational heart of football also know as FIFA.

FIFA is an unpleasant reminder of what can happen!

Basicly every rule has been broken. Trafficking of influences, wiretapping, money laundering, illegal payoffs, electoral malpractice and racketeering - the list is long but funny enough not unknown to the public. The media has been raising their eyebrows and voices for years, warning about the collapse in the Fédération Internationale de Football Association better known as FIFA. 

What has made this so frustrating over the years is the fact that the FIFA perpetrators work in broad daylight with the whole world as an audience and apparently there are absolutely no one to stop them - until now.

Who went wrong?
As impotent spectators we can only shrug our shoulders and hope for changes and justice. We are still able to watch the games from the Champions League and World tournaments so why worry at all?

Sepp Blatter is a man of many talents!

The way Sepp Blatter has been able to practise a treacherous "laissez faire," circumventing good business practise but also decency for that matter, points to a system with an infrastructure that has been shattered to its very core. A system held hostage by itself with a despot holding the reins truly believing that the destination is more important than the means to get there. Apparently there is no stopping the buck. The votes for May 29th. have yet again been arranged by its ever present "CEO," Sepp Blatter who will be ready to enter his fifth term as the FIFA President when the votes are counted - and that in itself should be worrying enough!

Sad but true!
When the legal infrastructure in an international organisation can be taken advantage off to such an extent that the unthinkable management style becomes a de facto standard for business as usual, one would think that it was imperative to secure the loopholes so to further a clean, fair and transparent handling in the sport of football between nations. 

This is when it stops being a laughing matter and much more a serious question of how to deal with the blatant trafficking of influences exercised by the members of the FIFA organisation. Unfortunately there has been no resolve or interest in finding a solution during the dictatorship of the present and future President of FIFA.

Who has the power? The organisation or the man? 

Taking the vague human spirit for what it is, the question might not so much be whether one leader should be substituted by another but more a question of which leader has the ability to change the legal infrastructure, conditions for voting and exercise a better control of the large amounts of money so to eradicate the hidden agendas when "spending" in the name of football and Golden Projects. Transparency is key in order to get success in any organisation, FIFA is not an exception in theory but in practise it is!

FIFAs future seems predetermined by its present chaos
As an organisation FIFA is tainted by its past and present leadership. Its legacy is only as strong as the sport it represents, but as an institution and international sports organisation it has completely failed. There are no guidelines for improvement, nepotism is ripe and bad decisions are rewarded just to mention a few of the surprises, we have seen along the Blatter reign.

Chuck Blazer and Sepp Blatter

The arrests of six FIFA officials in Zurich has only been possible because of the FBI, its team of investigators, the collaboration of the Suisse police and former FIFA executive committee member, Chuck Blazer, who decided to squeal in order to avoid prison. Since then Sepp Blatter has not travelled to the US out of fear of a possible FBI indictment.

Mobsters who reign in the name of football

The very same is now about to get elected as FIFA President for a fifth time as he was not included in the FBI round-up this time. When the six arrested officials start explaining their actions it could have serious consequences for Sepp Blatter or perhaps not. He has been in the business to long to know that you never get your own hands dirty - that you leave for somebody else.


Any saviours on the slate at all, anybody?


Against all odds! Figo and Van de Praag stands no chance



As the other serious contenders for the job, Luis Figo and de Praag have decided to pull out in protest over the electoral process, the Presidential election is now centered on two contestants.
The second option has presented FIFA with a series of solutions - at least according to Prince Ali Bin Al-Husseins own football manifest - but it does sound promising! 

Judge for yourself! 


His actions also speaks for themselves leaving us a picture of a man who gives more importance to the game than its organisation. According to his manifesto he has seen and felt the sickness and is willing to do what it takes to change the system. His winning chances are minute as fairness is not a de facto standard in the halls of football politics. 
He is backed by the two previous contenders and one should think that he with such a strong backing would stand a chance but having secured votes with "donations," Sepp Blatter will be a difficult adversary on the electoral slate.

Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein shows resolve for a clean-up!

If common sense prevails on May, 29th. FIFA might be taking a turn for the better thus making this election its biggest chance to employ the parachute and break off the free fall down the pit of favours and nepotism. One must be aware that in order to restore faith in FIFA a serious clean up must be performed and this is probably going to piss off some pretty important people in the organisation itself. So one thing is getting a new helmsman, quite another is to steer the huge ship around the pitfalls represented by years of playing Monopoly with something you don´t own. 

If, on the other hand, common sense should not prevail, the future of FIFA will be bleak. As the deterioration of its own image will continue, resulting in a huge gamble with sponsors, fans and its ability to influence global fairness through football.


What is wrong with sports?

All great organisations have issues!

The IOC is also a victim of what seems to be the decay of too much money and too many participants with a hidden agenda. IOC has the same problem as FIFA, just on a much larger scale but they seem to handle the corruption much better than FIFA being more secretive when conducting their illegal business when the spoils are up for grabs. 

FIFA is also under much more surveillance from the media being involved in far more events than the IOC which automatically puts it on the frontlines of public scrutiny - with regards to IOC we are basically only reminded every four years!
But why does these great organisations that supposedly try to make the best of the sport that people love fail so miserably in their intents?

Doctors orders: Change of attitude
A culprit must be found. The finger points towards the man rather than the organisation for obvious reasons, but if the man as a political animal was constrained to act within a closed circuit of rules, seasoned with transparency, it would be less tempting to manipulate the system to satisfy his false sense of ownership. If a consensus is manipulated and paid for it is not a consensus! 

A change in the internal structure together with the handling of funds altogether is the only means of survival for FIFA and right now the only one who seems willing and capable to do something about it is Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein if he gets elected on May 29th.