Return to Transcripts main page
INSIDE AFRICA
Against Foreign Aid; Refugee Footballers
Aired May 2, 2009 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to INSIDE AFRICA. I'm Isha Sesay. On the program this week, a group of young footballers, all of them refugees, most of them Africans, and the coach who brought them together. They're the subjects of a new book by a "New York Times" reporter. And Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo explains why she's down on foreign aid.
But first, whoever said you can't pick your family never met football coach Luma Mufleh. Five years ago, she formed the Fugees, a team of young refugees, mostly from Africa, who found themselves living in Clarkston, Georgia. She now runs four Fugees teams, consisting of 86 boys she considers her extended family. Their story is a subject of a new book aptly titled "Outcasts United: A Refugee Team in American Town."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: At first glance, Clarkston, Georgia looks like many a small town dotting the landscape of the southern United States. But if you actually slow down and look closely, you'll see that there's something quite different about this place. Tucked away just outside Atlanta, this southern town is a refugee resettlement center, and the signs of a diverse population are on display for all to see. It's right here that one woman, herself an outsider, decided to use the game of football to transcend the vision and make a difference.
LUMA MUFLEH, FUGEES: It happened by accident. I was driving in Clarkston to a Middle Eastern grocery store to get food there that reminded me of my country. I'm originally from Jordan. And on my way back, I forgot to take the turn, and so I had to U-turn into one of the apartment complexes. And I saw a group of kids playing soccer outside in the streets, and they were kids from Sudan and Liberia and Afghanistan, and they were playing in the parking lot, barefoot, with a really raggedy ball. And I stood out there watching, and it reminded me of home. It reminded me of the way I used to play soccer. So I came out later in the week, armed with a soccer ball and asked if I could join their game. And they let me, because my ball was a lot nicer than theirs. And it's all uphill and downhill from there.
That's going to be a lot better, OK?
SESAY: That was five years ago. Back then, this American-educated Jordanian woman couldn't have known that a simple kick-around in the parking lot would change her life. Today, the boys are at the center of her world.
Coach Luma, as she's known around town, now runs four Fugee teams, with 86 boys from more than 24 countries. And the football is a vehicle for them to form valuable bonds with each other and develop the crucial skills they need to adapt to their new environments.
MUFLEH: I would stop kids on the street, they were about the right height, and you know, we started off with one team, and then the older siblings would come, and they wanted to be Fugees, and it just grew from there. But kids would ask for help with their homework at night, after practice, and I would go from house to house, you know, come home at 11 o'clock at night. And so we started a tutoring program where they could all be in one room with two or three volunteers helping. It just grows. Like you start working in the community, you realize the need, and you address the need.
SESAY: Speaking to some of the boys, it's obvious how much the coach and the team mean to them.
MUFLEH: Asan, Asan, right there!
SESAY: Idwar from Sudan has been playing with the Fugees for the past four years. Being on the team has been transformative.
IDWAR DIKORI, FUGEES PLAYER: I'm becoming more mature. Because everybody on the team is, you know, we play around a lot, but we grow -- we're all growing.
SESAY: For Josiah, it's as much about being part of an extended family. With his teammates, this youngster from Liberia feels at home.
JOSIAH SAYDEE, FUGEES PLAYER: I mean, getting along with my (inaudible), which is my teammates, is a good thing, because you communicate we're together. It's not like other people that will make fun of you, just the way you talk, but being with my teammate who are like from all over the nations, you could talk better with them, you all understand each other.
SESAY: But being on the team comes with rules, lots of them. To coach Luma, there is no way but her way.
MUFLEH: One of you stop, we're adding 10 more.
SESAY: Something she learned from a demanding volleyball coach who earned her grudging respect.
MUFLEH: We have a dress code. We have a -- the way they behave on and off the field, they have to be respectful, they can't curse, they can't join gangs, they can't get girls pregnant. They have to keep their hair short. It's just kind of a code of conduct that we all agree upon. You know, if they don't agree upon it, they can't be a part of the team.
SESAY: The Fugees play clubs from all over the state, and she says they're pretty good. But it's what happens off the pitch that caught the attention of Warren St. John, a "New York Times" journalist who decided to write a book about this.
WARREN ST. JOHN, "NEW YORK TIMES" JOURNALIST: The story of the Fugees is a story of hope, and to me it says and tells us what can happen when people from different backgrounds are willing to connect with each other and come together. And then also, this little town, Clarkston, where the Fugees are located, is the kind of laboratory for I think the next 25, 50 years in this country. Because immigration has changed it so radically, so quickly. You can sort of look at this town and get a glimpse of what's coming towards us.
SESAY: It hasn't been easy. Some in the town have been less than welcoming. And for a while, the team wasn't even allowed to practice in this park. "Baseball only," insisted the mayor. But for the coach, the experiment has been deeply enriching.
MUFLEH: I don't think I can put into words what I get -- like I come out here every day, and I'm with the kids, and some people are like, why do you do this, why aren't you a lawyer, why aren't you, you know, on Wall Street or doing something else with your college degree. And I'm like, this is what I love doing. I love being out here on the field with the boys, and working with their families and having home-cooked meals any night of the week. You know, there are some things that are a lot more important than a paycheck.
SESAY: Here, in America's South, the Jordanian immigrant has created a family of refugee children from around the world, and using (inaudible) game, she's proven a universal truth -- that our differences really are only skip-deep.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: Coach Luma also runs a nonprofit organization under the Fugees family umbrella, using football as a draw. Its goal is to help child survivors of war learn the social and academic skills they'll need to succeed in their new country. You can visit the Web site at www.fugeesfamily.org.
The Fugees by no means have it easy, but they're doing well compared to many African refugees. In Egypt, Sudanese refugees are often target of violence, and they have little access to jobs or education.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SESAY: Welcome back to INSIDE AFRICA. In the last segment, we told you about a group of refugees who've been resettled in Clarkston, Georgia. They face many challenges, including discrimination and even some bullying, but at least they have access to education and employment. In Egypt, many African refugees, particularly Sudanese, are subjected to violence and face a dim future. Jim Clancy shows us their struggle.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: 27-year old Albino Yei has a degree in art and shares his skills by teaching other African immigrants as a volunteer. Like tens of thousands of others, Albino fled his homeland of Sudan to escape war.
ALBINO YEI, SUDANESE REFUGEE: I'm looking for a place only just I can be safe here, can be safe in it, and also to be respected, and to have a right as a human being, being treated good as a human being.
CLANCY: But the scene he sketches of life as a refugee in Egypt isn't a pretty picture. Albino has found neither safety nor respect. He says the abuse is psychological and physical, including people throwing rocks at him. Experts warn African refugees face racism, even violence as they try to settle in Egypt, as in many countries.
RAY JUREIDINI, FORCED MIGRATION AND REFUGEE EXPERT: There are, of course, racist Egyptians, just like there is racism in all countries. Many reports of verbal abuse, sometimes physical abuse, even detention, arbitrary arrest, and so on. These are common, pretty much everyday features of their lives here in Cairo.
CLANCY: A bilateral agreement between Egypt and Sudan allows refugees to live here, but relatively few are able to win official U.N. asylum status.
ABEER ETEFA, UNHCR: They have difficulties in access to education, access to public health, access to employment, and integration in Egypt for many refugees is not an option, as well as the absence of durable solutions. Return home at the moment is not possible. Resettlement to the West is not also an option for many of them, because it's an opportunity for the most vulnerable, and local integration is not an option.
CLANCY: Over the past several years, Egyptian police have been ordered to dismantle tent cities created by the Sudanese refugees as a protest to get their asylum status. As for Egypt, officials insist, the Sudanese get better treatment here than they would elsewhere in Africa.
MONA OMAR, EGYPTIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY: We offer them safe haven. In some of the other countries, you have African people who are so mistreated, and they are maybe -- they go to the extremes of sometimes burning them to death, and this is never happening here in Egypt. I mean, for us, these are really our brothers, believe me, we love them so much.
CLANCY: The global economic meltdown only makes matters worse. Hard- pressed Egyptians see the refugees as competitors for scarce jobs. To make ends meet, many African refugees share cramped apartments in Cairo slums.
PASQUALE THOMAS: You can find in one house people from Eritrea, Ethiopia or Sudan, or mostly people from different communities that they came from, so they stay together. This is how they -- they're able to make life.
CLANCY: Thousands of Sudanese risk their lives trying to cross the desert and get into Israel, which says it has been turning away Sudanese refugees. Despite the danger of death in the desert, Albino says some of his friends have made it into Israel, and that he will soon try. He has no hope in Sudan, and he's losing all hope now in Egypt.
Jim Clancy, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: Not a lot of optimism about the future in that community. Well, as a Zambian economist says, foreign aid has only made the poor poorer and increased the risk of conflicts on the continent. I'll ask Dambisa Moyo why she thinks aid should end, and what she sees as the alternative.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SESAY: You're watching INSIDE AFRICA. Welcome back. Let's take a quick look at some African stories making news. Some U.S. lawmakers are breaking the law to draw attention to the grinding plight of Darfur refugees. Congressman John Lewis and four other members of Congress were arrested in Washington for civil disobedience. They crossed a police line during a protest in front of the Sudanese embassy and refused to leave the area.
For the first time since Kenya's grand coalition government was formed, Prime Minister Rayla Odinga is raising the prospect of early elections. He says new elections may be necessary if coalition members can't settle a contentious dispute over a key parliamentary post.
U.N. agencies and aid groups are appealing for funds to fight malnutrition and disease in southern Madagascar. A recurring drought has devastated recent harvest, and UNICEF says as many as a quarter of million children are at risk. UNICEF has also appealed for funds to fight hunger in Madagascar's capital, which has been rocked by political unrest.
Over the past 60 years or so, developed countries have poured about $1 trillion in aid into Africa. Yet poverty and hunger are still rampant. In a recent book, "Dead Aid," Dambisa Moyo suggests that it's time to shut off the spigot, or at least set a deadline. I asked the Harvard-educated economist to explain what that would accomplish.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAMBISA MOYO, ECONOMIST: My approach in this book is really to focus on the economic problems with -- of aid, and my fundamental premise is that we will not get solid institutions or political institutions that we would like to see across the African continent until we see strong economic growth, and the emergence of a solid middle class. So, to my critics, I actually say that we -- essentially in an aid-depended world, we're less likely to get the types of improvements in economics and the reduction in poverty that will actually be the prerequisites to see the ushering in of solid political systems and democratic institutions.
SESAY: What do you see as the alternative?
MOYO: The alternative, I mean, just looking across the emerging world, places like South Africa and Botswana very clearly show that the alternatives are based on free market solutions, obviously in an albeit a more regulated way. There is no evidence that aid creates jobs for Africans, and ultimately when you have a population as Africa does, of over 60 percent of the population under the age of 24, this is what we should be focusing on, on job creation.
SESAY: So, what is it that you want to see? You want to see the aid basically, you know, stop?
MOYO: The fundamental thing that we should all be aspiring to -- and I think we do, fundamentally -- is a time when Africa does not need to be dependent on aid, and I really am aspiring for a time when we can have a serious discussion about exit strategies. Now, in the book, I prescribe five years -- that maybe too aggressive for some places -- but ultimately, the important message to take away from the book is that we need to have that discussion.
SESAY: What is your thought on China, and China's increasing investment on the continent in different African countries, and how that comes without any conditionality?
MOYO: Well, I mean I think that what the Chinese have been able to do across Africa, is commendable. Their approach to Africa is very much focused on business and less so on charity and the notion that we should be doling out handouts.
Now, that's not to say that it's perfect, and we obviously need to focus on policy making and ensuring that African policy makers are acting in the best interests of Africans, and holding to task the Chinese so that Africans do benefit from the wave of -- of foreign direct investment that we've seen, particularly coming from the Chinese.
I think the key conditionality is basically having a clear and credible agenda that at some point in the perceivable future, aid will cease to exist. I think that's conditionality enough. I think that, you know, we could even have the debate that perhaps aid should increase over an interim period, but I think that African governments need to -- and not just African governments, but African society as a whole, and a global community needs to approach the African problem through the lens of a timeline, which is finite, which actually -- upon which Africa will be off of the aid drug.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: Some Tanzanian-educated entrepreneurs are taking a common sense approach to the country's unemployment problem. They're giving young people the practical skills they need to land existing jobs or create new ones for themselves.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SESAY: Welcome back to INSIDE AFRICA. After decades of socialism, Tanzania has been steadily introducing free market reform since the mid- 1980s and has seen impressive economic growth. Unfortunately, though, unemployment remains high, but the government and some educators are trying to help the unemployed help themselves by providing useful job skills.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: When Ramadhan Mikapa was 18 years old, he could never have imagined his life would turn out like this. He makes a comfortable living as a partner at Q&A, a garage in Dar es Salaam, and he's trying to spread the wealth. He employs 11 mechanics and supports an apprentice program that teaches the trade to unemployed young men. But Mikapa says life hasn't always been so rosy.
RAMADHAN MIKAPA, MECHANIC (through translator): I completed my primary school education in 1994 hoping I would go on to secondary school. However, in 1995, I found out that I was not selected to join secondary school, leaving me without any opportunities.
SESAY: That changed in 1996 when he joined VETA, the Vocational Education and Training Authority, run by the Tanzanian government. There he learned the skills to become a certified mechanic. The VETA system is one way Tanzania is tackling its high unemployment rate, as high as 49 percent among young people in parts of the country, according to authorities.
VETA has campuses across the country, training more than 100,000 students annually, in up to 90 different trades. The list runs the gamut from carpentry to tailoring, welding, electronics, and auto mechanics. The courses are relatively inexpensive. On average, a full two-year VETA course costs $200. A college diploma from one of Tanzania's colleges or universities typically comes with a $6,000 price tag.
LEAH LUKINDO, VETA DIRECTOR: Our tuition fee is highly subsidized. Because if you look at the income of most parents cannot be -- cannot afford to pay the full amount.
SESAY: VETA analysts closely monitor the labor market, and tailor the curriculum to focus on available jobs. And that's a big change from the way VETA operated when the first vocational training center was founded 40 years ago.
ENOCH KIBENDELA, LABOR MARKET PLANNING AND DEV. (through translator): In the old VETA system, we would train our students without properly considering the marketplace. We would set a curriculum without being sure what they would find in the marketplace after graduation. We have shifted from that to what is now known as demand driven training.
SESAY: Only about 30 percent of VETA's graduates find full-time jobs. The majority, like Mikapa, go on to become small business owners, and many of them develop apprentice programs.
MIKAPA: These kids weren't through their parents couldn't (inaudible) secondary school. So they decide to bring them here to my garage, so I can teach them.
SESAY: And the students are grateful for the opportunity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have been working at this shop since March 2003. I am continuing to do well. Very well.
SESAY: VETA officials believe that sustainable development comes from creating a skilled workforce.
KIBENDELA: Everything you see was made through skilled labor. Many of our peers in developed nations, such as Germany, invested heavily in skilled labor. Even South Korea, who we were at par with in 1961, has progressed and left us behind, after investing heavily in their human capital.
SESAY: VETA officials have to increase capacity to provide more students with vocational training. It will take many more skilled workers like Mikapa to keep the engine of the Tanzanian economy humming.
(END VIDEOTAPE0
SESAY: It certainly seems like a practical approach, and there we must leave it. Be sure to tune in next week for a brand new INSIDE AFRICA. Thank you for watching.
END
