When I was preparing to attend TEDGlobal 2007 I was prepared to meet great people with great stories behind them. This is so because everyone I talked to who knew about TED conferences told me it was a very amazing conference and I was very lucky to attend it.This was confirmed at Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe, Malawi just after boarding the plane to Arusha, Tanzania via Nairobi. Sitting next to me was the only other Malawian to attend TEDGlobal 2007, William Kamkwamba. This is the now 19 year old who created a windmill to generate electricity for his family after dropping out of school due to failure to pay school fees when he was 14. He is a quiet and humble young man but very detailed when explaining his projects. His story was first published in Malawi's Daily Times article titled "School drop out with a streak of genius" and later spread on the web through blogs.
What I like about William is that he didn't join the multitude of people just blaming government or policy makers for his lack of education. Neither did he point fingers at statutory corporations for the lack of electricity in his home. He didn't just sit down and blame his parents for all this either!
He looked around and used what he could find - poles, broken pipes, old shoes, copper wires and his father's old bicycle - to build a windmill for his home.
His story inspires me a lot and so does it to a lot of the people who have heard his story including the participants of TEDGlobal 2007.
After news of his story was reported in the media and over the internet, a lot of people have come up to support William. He is now back in school and there are efforts from some members of the TED community to sponsor him his next project: A bigger windmill to pump water from a nearby dam to irrigate crops for his family.
Creative actions speak louder than words, indeed!
5 comments:
Dear Soyapi.
Je suis ingénieur généie civil et je t'écris de yaoundé au cameroun.
Je te remercie pour toute l'assistance que tu as donné et que tu continues à donner au jeune william kamkwamba. Il faut absolument que comme ici au Cameroun, il soit populaire partout et surtout qu'il devienne un ingénieur au moins.
Merci
I am so happy to see a blog put to this use, to encourage people in Africa and the African diaspora to generate funds for projects such as these. Let us encourage supporting William and others like him, as they use their natural genius to solve basic infrastructure issues in Africa.
Angeline Bandon-Bibum, author of Sojourner's Dream
For me it's really important to make the perfect meeting his parents! He just adores them!
William's story is the most interesting of all stories i came across last year and it really proved that the number of times one falls doesn't count but how fast he or she wake ups.
When he dropped out of school due to lack of fees he never gave up reading books as the case with most young people in Malawi and fortunate enough he utilised whatever he studied in the books and now he is reaping what he sowed .
Congratulations to you guys for helping this chap in one way or onother.
I love it when I see young African being so innovative and coming up with something that will benefit a number of people. Africans do have a lot to offer and come up with a lot with what they have. Fantastic!!!
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