Two interesting possibilities in the way of alliances or affiliations for Dale Kietzman University (DKU) are SCORE (originally Service Corps of Retired Executives, although increasingly SCORE members are neither executives nor retired, simply people with skills which they are willing to use as volunteers helping new businesses get off the ground or small businesses improve) and USAID (US Agency for International Development).
SCORE was founded 40+ years ago by the Small Business Administration (SBA), when the SBA found that small businesses going bankrupt after having received SBA loans most often did so because the owners had failed to plan or manage well (after having originally presented persuasive loan applications to the SBA). SCORE now has over 30,000 members doing counseling and mentoring in every state of the U.S.A.
SCORE is forbidden by law from counseling businesses or individuals outside the U.S.A. However, when I gave my series of talks on Entrepreneurship in N’Djamena, Chad, recently, the most frequent question by far was, “How could we get an organization like SCORE set up in our country?” U.S. State Department personnel have not yet responded to my suggestion that helping other countries set up such an organization in their own country might be an inexpensive way for them to promote goodwill with those countries, but recently Steve Records of the SCORE national office replied to my email saying he had already been thinking of looking into SCORE doing that. So there’s a pssibility that Dale Kietzman University could assist in getting such an organization started in Chad, and hopefully later in Cameroun and other countries.
And even more recently Ken Lee of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said that partnering with DKU would not be possible at the present, but would be if DKU grew to the point where it was operating in multiple countries, as it hopes to do.
Two ways to get more involved with tne African environment would be through the Eco Cities Network and through the Sister Cities program.
The Eco Cities Network has an EcoMobility Alliance as one of its premier programs. Douala, Cameroun, would certainly qualify for its fast-growing cities network and ought to belong to its global climate cities network and to its local renewables network.
Douala, Cameroun, already has Sister Cities twinning arrangements with Philadelphia and Newark, and Limbe, Cameroun, with Seattle. The Institut Superieur Dale Kietzman (ISDK) in Douala has ties to N’Djamena, Chad, and Bangui, Central African Republic, neither of which has any Sister Cities twinning arrangements listed for U.S. cities, and my home town of Wichita, Kansas, has no sister cities arrangements listed for any African cities, so perhaps something could be set up.
Both the Eco Cities Network and the Sister Cities program deal with businesses. Lean Six Sigma deals almost exclusively with businesses, especially with ones which want to improve through more efficiency, such as in the use of hydrocarbons and in avoiding waste. Business students at ISDK, as well as International Development students, might be able to use Lean Six Sigma help in their final-year projects.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund both provide massive assistance for underdeveloped countries, and their assistance emphasizes the Millenium Development Objectives, the 7th of which is environmental sustainability, since environmental sustainability is necessary for long-term improvement in eliminating poverty and all the other Millenium Development Objectives.
More specialized organization also deal with environmental sustainability issues. The African Development Board (AFB) is one of many focused on Africa. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an example of a generalized group; the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the Institute for Conservation and Research on Agro-Forestry (ICRAF) are examples of specialized groups.
But that is more than enough on the organizations which deal with environmental concerns
The International Development program at the Institut Superieur Dale Kietzman is very much concerned with sustainable development, which includes not only the financial planning to make sure a project will continue after it is started, but also with whether the project will be sustainable from an environmental standpoint, whether it will be able to avoid further degradation of the environment and perhaps even be able to reverse degradation.
I have been exploring a wide range of internet sources in this regard. The United Nations has several programs, such as the UNDP, its Development Plan, the UNCCD, its Convention to Combat Desertification, and its UNFCCC, its Framework Convention on Climate Change. Within these are its Global Environmental Facility (which includes Cameroun, Chad, and the Central African Republic). Also more specific to Africa are NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa, with its CAACP, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program, and EAP, the Environmental Action Plan; and ECCAS, the Economic Community of Central African States (which includes Cameroun, Chad, and the Central African Republic). ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, is also very valuable, with Nigeria and Mali adjoining the ECCAS, and a well developed UEMOA, the Union Economique et Monetaire Ouest-Africaine.
The American government’s USAID program has an important focus on Africa, with specific programs for specific African countries, as well as general help through its bureaus of Policy Planning & Learning and Budget & Resource Management, its Development Innovation Ventures, and its ties to the Center for Faith-Based Community Initiatives.
Finally, there are many other programs which can help Africa deal with environmentally sustainable development. Five European government programs are Germany’s GLZ, France’s CFA & ACTED, Sweden’s SIPU & TerrAfrica (TLF & SIP), the Netherlands EMS, and Belgium’ PMO. Among many private companies emphasizing environmental issues are AECOM (Architecture, Engineering, Consulting, Operations, & Management), MIS (Management Systems International), and RTI (Research Triangle Institute).
I don’t have any snow to shovel today around my house in Wichita, KS,, so I will get back to the blog. But there isn’t much new news to report, since I am up to date about catching up on the old news.
Much of my internet time has been spent searching for organizations which might have mutual benefit by allying or affiliating with Dale Kietzman University (DKU), with our emphasis on offering degree programs or seminars in underdeveloped areas.
One of the most interesting is the World Bank’s Local Economic Development program, which has training paralleling much of what DKU does in its International Development curriculum. Both emphasize the importance of choosing projects carefully and planning extensively, of focusing on small units of government and building community buy-in for any proposed development activities, of tracking progress on each step in the project’s proposed timeline, and of assessing the success of the project’s outcomes.
Some of the other possible allies or affiliates have already responded and started a conversation, but many academic, United Nations organizations, businesses, and a wide range of others have not yet had a chance to do so.
The rest of my brief stay in Pasadena followed much the same pattern, with more discussion involving Dr. Talla, Midge Crossan, and Dr. Kietzman. We focused on planning and prioritizing for the future of Dale Kietzman University in general and the Institut Superieur Dale Kietzman in particular.
Midge Crossan will be heading for Cameroun about the beginning of April to give lectures on Project Management in several cities and to help with International Development and Business students. Before that and after she returns, she will be handling administrative responsibilities in Pasdena.
I will be contacting trustees and potential trustees, continuing to blog about DKU, planning lectures on Entrepreneurship and Leadership in Douala, N’Djamena, and Bangui (Central African Republic) when I go to Africa in mid-April.
All three of us will be concentrating on the financial side of Dale Kietzman University and on the administrative side of its Institut Superieur Dale Kietzman in Douala, Cameroun. The ISDK will also be planning supervisory responsibility for current activities in Chad and the Central African Republic, where independent centers may be set up at some time in the future.
Dr. Kietzman will continue to find new possibilities for DKU, as he explores developments in education, sustainability, environmental issues, missionary options, and the whole field of international development from an evangelical Christian basis.
After two weeks at home, I was off again, this time for only three days, to Pasadena, CA, the headquarters of Dale Kietzman University.
Jeffrey Frields, the DKU registrar, met my late evening flight (from Wichita via Atlanta) at the Los Angeles International Airport and drove me to the campus of William Carey International University (WCIU), where Dr. Talla had reserved me a room in the campus housing building largely used for visitors, of which the university has a great number, since its focus is on international missions.
The next day I had breakfast at the WCIU cafeteria, where I got into conversation with a Chinese student, one of many staying at WCIU for an introduction to life in the USA. He came from Qing Dao, Shan Dong Province, on the China coast, a large industrial city of which I had never heard before. I hope to keep in touch with him by email, as I have started to do with some of my contacts in Cameroun.
I walked the mile or so to the Dale Kietzman University headquarters building, where Dr. Andre Talla met me. Shortly after we started to chat, Midge Crossan came in and joined our conversation. She is a project management expert who has been out to Douala before and has given lectures which have raised funds for DKU. Her husband, who had been ill for some time, had just died, but she was back at her volunteer work for DKU, even more intensively than she had been before. Dr. Talla’s son Eric was also there and joined us for lunch.
After lunch Dr. Talla drove me to Dr. Dale Kietzman’s home, where we spent the afternoon discussing various plans for DKU’s future. Dr. Kietzman is over 90, but still has the keen mind and the lifelong experience with international development which makes him the ideal source of ideas for the university named after him.
Dr. Talla took me to WCIU in time for supper at the cafeteria there, where I again chatted briefly with my young Chinese friend before heading for an early bedtime.
My last week in Douala I had evening classes Monday through Friday for the Biblical Foundations of Leadership course. One of the pastors in the class lived in the Ndogmbong district, not far from my hotel, and he gave me a ride home every evening. Sunday he gave me a ride to his nearby church, a Baptist church with some charismatic features, lots of singing, and a strong evangelical sermon by a woman preacher. The service lasted almost four hours, somewhat longer than the service I had attended in N’Djamena, Chad.
Days during the last week were mostly spent getting as much set as possible with the three staff members, Achille, Jean Bello, and Pauline. Some upgrading of the campus had already been set before I left, with more to come later. We arranged that we would communicate weekly when I was back in the USA.
My trip back to the USA was as problem-free and pleasant as the trip to Cameroun had been. I was able to get an earlier flight from Chicago’s O’Hare airport to Wichita’s Mid-Continent airport than had been ticketed, called from the airport, was picked up my son Jay, and was back home with him and my wife Joanne.
Madame Talla left for the USA shortly after I returned to Douala from Chad. Most of my time the last two and a half weeks for me in Douala went on further preparing and refining the Biblical Foundations of Leadership course and on identifying and beginning to correct the administrative problems I could identify in preparation for an accreditation visit later in the year.
I also started walking from the hotel to the Institut Superieur Dale Kietzman (ISDK) and back most days other than Sundays, when the ISDK was closed. The two-mile walk started and ended on ridges with a fairly deep valley with a bridge over a creek at the bottom. The road was paved all the way, with sidewalks on both sides of various widths and states of repair. I enjoyed the exercise of walking and the more leisurely view of houses, shops, and people then from the window of a taxi.
Almost all the length of the walk I would usually see children walking to school, since my schedule both ways seemed to match the children’s going to school or coming home. The children varied from pre-school age to high-school. They all wore uniforms, with distinctive colors for each school. A few would stop to buy lunch or a snack on the way to school or a snack on the way back from the vendors, but most did not. They all wore backpacks, and I imagine some had lunch in the backpacks on the way to school.
Not far from the ISDK were the large municipal hospital and a boulangerie (bakery), which was more like a convenience store (no gas pumps) then a simple bakery, although one paid for bread and other baked goods at one register, everything else at another. I often bought my lunch on the way to DKU and my supper on the way back, excellent bread and yogurt, with bananas or ripe plantains at separate vendors’ stands. The area had a lot of activity, especially on a paved playing field adjoining the hospital. Calisthenics classes seemed to be going on almost any time of day, sometimes interspersed with pick-up soccer games when the calisthenics classes were not taking up most of the playing field.
I am just back from my second trip to the Pasadena, CA, headquarters of Dale Kietzman University, which explains my bread in blogging posts. But more about Pasadena later, when I finish with my first trip to Douala, Cameroun, and N’Djamena, Chad.
On my return to Douala from N’Djamena, I found Philemon Yong and three of his colleagues, who had arrived from the USA while I was in Chad. They were giving several courses during a two-week stay, a Bible course required of all students, and advanced courses for Theology students.
Philemon Yong is Cameroon-born, all his degrees through the doctorate in the USA, seven years of teaching in Cameroon, now based in St. Anthony, Minnesota. He is coordinating Theology education in Douala, Cameroun (two different spellings, depending on whether you are in the former British Cameroon or the former French Cameroun), from the USA, recruiting faculty members to come with him and helping identify prospective faculty members from Cameroun or other African countries who might be here for traditionally taught courses, with the teacher on hand for the full semester.
Because of his contacts in Cameroon, Dr. Yong was able to bring in some 60 students for the two weeks he was here, along with some 20 others already enrolled who participated in one or more of the Theology courses. Having a majority of the students fluent in English was a welcome change, as Douala’s location in predominantly Francophone Cameroun means that many of the students are very weak in English, even though Cameroon-Cameroun is supposed to be totally bilingual. Incidentally, the students from Cameroon were much more fluent in French than the students from Cameroun in English.
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