Africa in Tokyo
Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 11:54AM Qi made great connections happen! John Roberts, founder of Heal the World went to Tokyo and met again with Patrick Newell, founder of Tokyo International School. John shared his observations and thoughts from his Tokyo trip.
By John Roberts
Post Qi 2011 I had the pleasure of spending a few days with Patrick Newell in Tokyo. It was just before I started the bike to Africa campaign. I managed to sneak a training ride in from Tokyo's Narita Airport to Tokyo Bay. It was quite an interesting experience that included me being pulled over by the police for riding on the freeway. I can only imagine the crazy American jokes around the police station later that day.
At Heal the World, we have spent a lot of time thinking about scale. My inspiration for this trip (other than really oishi Izakaya) was to try and see how the Tokyo International School (Tokyo IS)'s quality standard could be brought to low-cost private schooling in Sub-Saharan West Africa. It was a bit like trying to figure out how to serve good Sushi in the desert-i.e. hard. Patrick is the founder of Tokyo IS, and quality is the name of the game there.
As I toured Tokyo IS, I realized there are two great hurdles to our hope:
1) Resource scarcity: You get what you pay for in education as in everything else. I remember two young students showing me how they were working side by side on a project together via Google Docs on their Macbooks. That won't be happening soon at one of our Peace Schools. But there is a possible middle road. It is a matter of finding the right permutations of donors, investors and collaborators. Part of my team's job is to negotiate these terms, recruit and structure these partnerships. What we are trying to build is a model that will allow us to solve the problem. In the countries we work in, only half of the kids go to primary school – pretty serious numbers. In our opinion the only way forward is to bring low cost private schooling (standing on the shoulders of James Tooley for that one).
Kids in Peace School, one of Heal the World projects
2) Supportive affluent parents: Steve Jobs said “a lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” Parents who can afford Tokyo IS know that a lot of their success is a byproduct of their education, and thus they value it. In the largely illiterate communities we work in, education has a value, but many of our parents don’t realize the magnitude of what could be possible if only we open the doors in their children’s minds – so we need to convince them. But we have found they are willing to listen. Amazingly enough, and quite inspiring indeed, we find our communities support their kids more just by our mere presence. As the old sayings goes, if you are coming halfway around the world to do this, I am going to do more too.
John in Africa
"Patrick really affirmed some learning that we have been having as an organization over the past year. We must get our offerings to the highest quality possible – within the budget – before we scale. A lesson we welcome but is hard to work on. Thanks, brother."
On the lighter side, a noteworthy part of my time in Tokyo was fond childhood memories of the words of the great world traveller and intercultural extraordinaire Big Bird (ref: Big Bird In Japan) "there sure are an unusual amount of people from Ohio” (Ohayo gozaimasu)!
Thanks for making great connections happen, Qi!
