DID YOU KNOW ...?

The top five finishers in the last Boston Marathon were all Kenyans.

FORMER CODE LEADER LIVES ON

On Remembrance Day 1996, CODE veteran Bill Teager passed away. It was Bill who first breathed life into CODE, back in the 1960s when it was still known as Overseas Books. A psychologist with a lengthy history at the YMCA in British Columbia, Teager had meant to only lead CODE for a year, while his friend Robie Kidd was in India. But as Teager's wife Muriel recalls, "It ended up being a decade."

It was Teager who emphasized the importance of quality in the books that CODE sends abroad. In the year since Teager passed away, other Canadians have followed his example and left memorial gifts. These gifts, just one example of planned giving, enable CODE supporters to continue their support, even after they have died.

BOB DYCK MOVES TO CODE INC.

CODE is looking for a new president. Bob Dyck, who has held the position since 1977, has moved over to CODE Inc., which he founded. CODE Inc. was built on CODE's expertise in finding and shipping products around the world, and today it is a leader in election-related supplies. At CODE Inc., Dyck hopes to build a profitable legacy that can support CODE itself.

In the 1970s, Dyck, an electrician by trade, had been a CUSO volunteer in the Caribbean, and was in charge of recruiting volunteers before moving over to CODE. When he became president of CODE, he decided to shift CODE's emphasis from collecting books from individuals to collecting books from publishers. Not only did this mean a steady stream of new books, but it also reduced CODE's inventory costs and made it easier for partners in other countries to get the books they want. During the 1980s, Dyck's vision for CODE took it in new directions. In addition to founding CODE Inc., he also set up CODE Europe.

In the new year, a new person will lead CODE as it begins its fifth decade.

ON THE HORIZON FOR NGOs: WHERE YOUR MONEY GOES

Ian Smillie studies non-profit groups like CODE for a living. Right now, he's working for the OECD, studying fundraising in three countries: Canada, the United States and Australia. And where non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are concerned, all three countries are showing similar trends: growing donor support, the emergence of larger "transnational" NGOs, and a demand for redefinition of their "partnerships" with NGOs in the Third World.

First, despite worries about "donor fatigue," Smillie has found that people are as generous as they ever have been. Since 1991, contributions to the groups Smillie has studied have increased by almost 12 percent in Canada and 12 percent each year in the United States.

Although the Canadian number just keeps pace with inflation, it does suggest that NGOs are being rewarded with contributions when they can demonstrate the value and effectiveness of their programs. "You have to be very clear about what you're doing," says Smillie. "And you have to be able to prove that you're doing good work."

Second, selected NGOs are getting bigger. The largest "transnational" NGOs like World Vision, CARE and others have nearly half a billion dollars in yearly income and operate around the world. For smaller NGOs, such as CODE, there is a danger of being lost to the public eye among bigger players.

Smillie says that several of the really big NGOs are involved in child sponsorship, whereby donors give monthly in support of a particular child whom they choose. However, Smillie says that this notion is, quite literally, paternalistic, and that it creates dependency, since "a donor is tied to one village long after its most basic needs may have been met."

Third, local NGOs are also growing in the developing world, and as they gain experience and confidence, they are becoming more and more dissatisfied with the kind of "chequebook friendship" they get from some northern NGOs. "They are saying, 'We don't need someone to run programs or even simply fund programs: we need true partners,'" notes Smillie. CODE, for example, works with local partners to meet locally defined needs, and Smillie says he believes local partnerships will become increasingly important as local NGOs demand value beyond mere cash.

DOING MORE WITH LESS

Everywhere we look, we find "the need to do more with less." CODE is no exception. Although promoting higher literacy levels throughout the world is increasingly important, resources to do it are diminishing. To address this challenge, CODE and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) have launched an evaluation. The results will help CODE to be more effective and to find ways of doing more with less.

Suggestions and insights will be obtained from partners, board members, volunteers and users of CODE's services. Their views will help us define future priorities so that we can continue to expand our award-winning work.

OTTAWA WALKS FOR KIDS AROUND THE WORLD

If you're old enough to think that pop music ended when the Eagles first broke up, you may also have fond memories of Miles for Millions, a series of walks in the 1960s and 1970s that focused Canadian attention on world development issues. Some of that same spirit was rekindled in Ottawa last October, when CODE joined a half dozen other international NGOs for World Walk.

Billed as "your chance to help kids at home and abroad," the event brought together the resources of CODE, CUSO, MATCH International Centre, the Ottawa-Carleton Regional Police Youth Centre, SOS Children's Villages, USC Canada, VSO Canada and WUSC. According to Boyd McBride, CODE's deputy director, a walk was picked because "it's an inclusive activity that encourages a lot of participation and lots of opportunities for public education."

McBride says that there was also an important sub-theme to the walk. "It gave baby boomers a chance to introduce their own kids to the ideals of caring and sharing that they themselves expressed during Miles for Millions."

SOLIDARITY IN NUMBERS: NGOs GET TOGETHER

WorldWalk is part of a bigger trend. Groups like CODE are beginning to work together when it is clear that doing so will help them to achieve something they could not do alone. Boyd McBride, CODE's deputy director, cited several benefits:

• First, it helps share the risk of new ventures, such as big-ticket lotteries.
• Second, it enables even small groups to pull off the kind of large event that attracts media attention. "Instead of having a dinner dance or a gala that goes unnoticed, you can have an event that stands out in a crowded marketplace," says McBride.
• Third, it allows groups to run workplace campaigns of the sort traditionally only carried out by the United Way. Already, there is talk of a campaign called Canada Shares, which would do for social justice what the United Way does for social welfare.

For all these reasons he said, "You can expect to see CODE involved in more consortium fundraising as we broaden the base of support for international literacy."

INFORMATION, INFORMATION, INFORMATION

Learning is all about access to information. This is a fact in the modern, high-tech world. It is hard to remember that not everyone has the same access that we take for granted. Information on new farming methods, the benefits of breastfeeding, ways to avoid becoming sick, or energy-efficient ways of cooking is not available in some places.

The CODE Board, at its fall meeting, recommended that CODE increase its efforts to provide a range of information to CODE-supported reading rooms. A special project will be undertaken next year to bring information on health, agriculture and education to those who do not have access. This might involve new partners, databases, and types of information. If you have suggestions for us, contact Ann Lalonde at CODE.

PROJECT LOVE WINS A LITERACY AWARD

CODE was one of this year's winners at the Canada Post Corporation's Flight for Freedom Literacy Awards. These awards are presented every year to organizations and individuals to recognize their contributions to improving literacy.

CODE won the Government of Canada Literacy Innovation Award. This award was given to recognize its global education program, Project Love (see below). As the presenters noted, Project Love "allows young Canadians to share in enriching educational opportunities for other children in developing nations around the world."

Yvonne Appiah, the national co-ordinator for Project Love, says that she hopes the prestigious award will encourage more schools to become involved.

Among the other 1997 winners were Frontier College's "Beat the Street" program, the CBC, and a man with cerebral palsy who has used computer and voice synthesizers to write a book.

PROJECT LOVE TO REACH 30,000 TEACHERS

Hundreds of teachers in almost 500 schools participate each year in Project Love. But those numbers may soon swell, thanks to Scholastic Books.

Scholastic Books runs a special book club for children. The November mailing to 30,000 teachers included promotional material about Project Love. "If even one per cent of those teachers respond, Project Love could nearly double in size," says Boyd McBride, a CODE deputy director. "And with a targeted promotion like this, those numbers could be much higher."

According to Nancy Pearson, who manages Scholastic's book clubs, working with CODE means that the company can help "teachers working on global issues and students trying to understand the needs of kids around the world."

"This lets us reach an audience we couldn't afford to reach any other way," says McBride. "Scholastic shares our basic values in encouraging children to read."

WHAT IS PROJECT LOVE?

Project Love is a hands-on global education project for schools and community groups. On Valentine's Day, Canadian students assemble thousands of packages of school supplies that are shipped to students in Africa and the Caribbean. A Project Love kit is a package of basic school supplies containing a pencil, an eraser, a notebook and a ruler. Students raise funds to buy the school supplies, which they pack in reusable plastic bags. Many students like to include a letter and a recycled self-addressed envelope in their kit.

In most developing countries, paper is scarce and expensive. Books and other school supplies are hard to find in remote villages that are far from stores. Many children go to school without basic school supplies such as notebooks and pencils. By sending Project Love kits to children in developing countries, Canadian students show they care. They know that it is important for children everywhere to get an education.

Since the program was introduced in 1988, CODE has shipped 500,000 kits to countries in Africa and the Caribbean, including Ghana, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Malawi, Mali, Belize and Guyana.

USED BOOKS? HOLD A BOOK SALE FOR CODE!

CODE began sending small collections of used books to schools and villages throughout the developing world in 1959. Now, we send half a million new books each year. We can do this because publishers donate new books to CODE.

We keep a database to track the titles and number of copies so that we can meet the needs identified by our partners overseas. We send them lists of the books we have in inventory so they can choose what they want. For example, our partner in Kenya talks to school staff and identifies the types of books they need. The partners choose from the list we provide and tell us what else they could use. We ship what they order and search for the titles that will meet their needs.

We believe that it is important to send only books that are really needed. Unfortunately, collecting, sorting, cataloguing, sorting and shipping used books costs more than shipping brand new books. It costs us less to send new books than it does to send used ones. We know that all books are valuable. However, with financial constrains, we cannot afford the extra cost for used books.

Nevertheless, young readers, schools and libraries overseas still need your support!

If you have books that you want to donate to promote literacy, get your friends and neighbours together and hold a book sale. Send these funds to CODE and we will put them into the book program. For every $1.25 that we receive from generous people such as you, we ship a brand new book overseas. This is a great investment in developing world-wide literacy.

If you decide to hold a book sale, we can help. We will provide information about CODE's book program that you can give to your friends and neighbours. In that way they will learn about CODE as well.

If you want further information, please call or write and let's see how, together, we can support literacy in the developing world.

QUOTE

"To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark."

-- Victor Hugo Les Misérables

LITERATURE IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD

by Paul Paquet

When we think of the great names of world literature, we tend to think of Europeans and North Americans. These have tended to be the most literate parts of the world, so naturally they have so far produced most of the famous writers. But as literacy spreads, more and more of the giants of literature are coming from the East and South. In fact, since 1985, only six Nobel laureates in literature have come from the West.

And moreover, some of the world's most ancient literature actually comes from India. Sanskrit literature has given us such religious works as the Upanishads and such mixtures of legend and history as the Mahabharata. In the 20th century, writers from the developing world are still making a mark on the world's literature. India's Rabindranath Tagore, for example, was the first writer from the developing world to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Africa, for example, has a deep oral tradition, rich in folktales, myths, proverbs and riddles. This tradition not only displays the African imagination, but also communicates religious, social, and educational messages. The very richness of the oral tradition is having a decisive impact on the written literature that has begun to appear this century.

So far, Africans have written creatively in about 50 of the roughly one thousand languages on the continent. Important African literary languages include Sesotho, Xhosa, Zulu, and Northern Sotho in southern Africa; Bemba, Nyanja and Shona in Central Africa; Luganda and Swahili in East Africa; and Asante-Twi, Akuampem-Twi, Ewe and Yoruba in West Africa.

Most African literature tends to come from the south, or from those places that had once been colonized by the British. This may be because the British usually let the Africans keep many of their institutions and traditions, so children were likely to learn Western ideas in local languages. By contrast, schools in French and Portuguese colonies didn't allow local languages, so there is very little literature in those countries today.

Much of the earlier written literature was published by missionaries, so much of it consisted of translated church hymns and biblical stories. Eventually, however, African writers started asking how their cultures fit into Western institutions. The first great African writers included Thomas Mofolo, who wrote Chaka in 1925, and D. O. Fagunwa, who wrote The Forest of a Thousand Daemons in 1938.

In the 1930s, French African students in Paris helped start a literary and philosophical movement called Negritude. This movement was influenced by Marxism and surrealism, as well as by the Harlem Renaissance in the United States. It mixed anti-colonial politics with romantic, even surrealistic, descriptions of Africa's past. By the 1950s, writers were also using satire to make their political points.

By this time, English African writers were looking at the effect that Europe was having on African society. For example, in Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe looked at one community struggling to maintain its identity, while Amos Tutuola touched on similar ideas in The Palm-Wine Drunkard.

After independence, many writers turned to the new problems of their new countries. Often, it was better to say things with satire. In East Africa, for example, Okot p'Bitek used humour to talk about volatile serious social and political ideas. Many African writers have coped with serious censorship laws. In South Africa, the Publications and Entertainments Act of 1963 limited publishing by nonwhites and in ten years. Even poetry by blacks was banned.

Nevertheless, African literature has persevered, and is finally gaining the kind of Western attention that Latin American literature has. In 1986, for example, the Nobel Foundation finally recognized the literary achievements of black Africans, when it awarded Wole Soyinka the Nobel Prize for Literature. This was the first time any black African had won an international honour in literature. However, many writers from other developing countries have followed in the footsteps of Rabindranath Tagore and won Nobel Prizes. These include Pablo Neruda, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Naguib Mafouz and Derek Walcott.

As literacy spreads throughout Africa and Latin America, we can not only expect to see many of the economic, social and politic benefits, but we can also expect to see more of the artistic benefits. Even now, tomorrow's Shakespeare might be reading her first book in Moyale in Kenya, or he might be struggling with the alphabet in Mozambique. Literacy is the first step toward unlocking this silent talent.

And best of all, as more of the world's literary giants come from the South, more children will be able to look up to role models who have turned literacy into international acclaim.

WORKING TOGETHER THROUGH THE MAIL

by Boyd McBride

CODE is also working with other charities to find new donors in the mail. Every year, CODE asks for permission to mail its appeals to donors who already support other charities, whether they be domestic or international. The response is always gratifying; donors to other groups immediately see the value of CODE's approach to literacy promotion.

Access to these lists of donors is only possible if CODE is prepared to permit other charities to mail to some of our donors. The exchange benefits the programs of both charities.

For CODE's donors it can mean more mail, and more opportunities to think about the focus of their charitable giving. For many, this is welcome. For some, it is not. If you are in the latter group, and would prefer that CODE not include you in this cooperative endeavour, please let us know. Our first commitment is to meeting the needs of our loyal donors.

WHAT SUPPORTERS ARE SAYING

"We in Canada are fortunate in so many ways and I am pleased to support CODE's work in sharing the gift of literacy and education with other countries." -- e-mail sent by a member of CODE's Leaders in Literacy donor group

"Books have made such a huge impact on my life. Helping people become literate is, I think, a way to liberate them from poverty and oppression, a way to help them become empowered and to realize their inner riches and potential. Besides, reading can be so much fun. I pray for the continued and growing success of the efforts of CODE." -- a letter from a loyal donor in Prince Edward Island.

CODE INC. HELPS DEMOCRACY IN MOZAMBIQUE

Using local materials, CODE Incorporated cut the cost of a voter registration project it is supplying in Mozambique. As CODE Incorporated CEO Robert Dyck explains, "This is the first time that all the materials have been assembled in the recipient country, using local labour and material shipped from all over the world."

It was this entrepreneurial approach that helped CODE Incorporated win the project against seven other bidders around the world. To register to vote, Mozambicans have their pictures taken, and these pictures are added to voters cards made of special paper, which are then laminated. All of these materials now come from CODE Incorporated.

Using local suppliers meets CODE Incorporated's (and CODE's) commitment to work more closely with local partners. CODE Incorporated has a network of contacts around the world that can give it help and advice on everything from printing and publishing to procurement and shipping. In Nicaragua, CODE Incorporated provided more than 300 metric tonnes of paper products and 5,000 rolls of glued paper tape so that the printing for one project could be done locally. Not only does CODE Incorporated try to buy locally, but all the materials it buys for its shipments must be environmentally safe and recyclable.

CODE Incorporated grew out of CODE's experience in finding and sending books around the world. The money it makes by doing this is then used to help support CODE. Today, CODE Incorporated is especially well-known for its work in supplying election materials. Further down the road, Dyck says that CODE Incorporated will work with local election commissions to "help them become sustainable without having to rely on donor support." This developmental aspect to CODE Incorporated has become part of its business plan.

CODE Incorporated's work is also, of course, indirectly related to CODE's work in promoting literacy, since evidence indicates that high literacy rates and strong democracies tend to go together. In Mozambique, only 40 percent of those 15 and up can read. This is only the second election since a ceasefire ended a 15-year civil war in 1990. The United Nations supervised Mozambique's first democratic multiparty elections, which were held in October 1994.

MOZAMBIQUE FACT BOX

Capital: Maputo

Location: in southern Africa, bordering the Mozambique Channel, between South Africa and Tanzania

Area: 801,590 sq km, a little smaller than British Columbia

Population: 17,877,927, of whom 46 percent are 14 years old or younger

Literacy: 40.1% of those 15 and over, 57.7% of men and 23.3% of women

Life expectancy at birth: 44.34 years

Ethnic divisions: indigenous tribal groups 99.66% (Shangaan, Chokwe, Manyika, Sena, Makua, and others), Europeans 0.06%, Euro-Africans 0.2%, Indians 0.08%

Religions: indigenous beliefs 50%, Christian 30%, Muslim 20%

Languages: Portuguese (official), indigenous dialects