On Wednesday "Nightly News" aired a report from special correspondent Chelsea Clinton featuring naturalist Daphne Sheldrick (above), who has been working for decades to preserve Kenya's wildlife. The final piece in Clinton's two-part series (below) aired Thursday, and it explains how baby elephants orphaned by poachers are being rescued and raised.

Below, find out how to help Sheldrick's charity, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, and why ivory remains such a precious commodity. 

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Daphne Sheldrick writes:

With the illegal ivory priced as it is today, driven by the demand in the Far East (particularly China), saving the African elephant is now the responsibility of the international community through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). It is beyond the capability of the elephant range states to control the poaching driven by this demand. 

The sale of all ivory, be it legal or illegal, must be banned totally with those countries that destroy their ivory stockpiles compensated, and those that don't, punished. 

The elephant is an iconic species sharing with us humans many of the same emotions -- the same sense of family and the same sense of death. To kill such an animal for a trinket made from its tooth is an abomination that should be punished severely, particularly in this, the 21st century, when humankind should have at least understood that all species benefit the Earth as a whole and that the Earth does not exist solely for us humans, but is home to many other species who have evolved along with it, and are necessary to its well-being. 

People must persuade political representatives who will be making such decisions at CITES to vote to save the elephants rather than being influenced by trade.

From the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust:

Established 35 years ago by Dame Daphne Sheldrick in memory of her late husband David Sheldrick, the founder warden of Kenya’s giant Tsavo National Park, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (DSWT) is dedicated to the protection and conservation of wildlife and habitats in Kenya.  The charity is best known for its pioneering work with orphaned elephants. Daphne Sheldrick has been living alongside elephants for 50 years and she was the first person to successfully hand-rear a milk-dependent newborn elephant. 

Today the charity has successfully returned 91 elephant orphans to the wild, with another 53 currently reliant on their care. There are 22 baby elephants ages 2 years and under at the DSWT Nursery in Nairobi and another 31 adolescents, graduates of the Nursery, at their two reintegration centres in Tsavo East National Park.

Increasingly the animals the DSWT is called to rescue are ivory orphans; their mothers murdered before their eyes for their tusks; while climate change, drought, a burgeoning human population and livestock place further pressure on land and elephant populations. Already in 2012, the DSWT has been called to 17 baby elephant rescues.

Elephants are under threat. These intelligent, gentle and social animals known as Africa’s Gardeners -- for the role they play in clearing new paths in the bush and dispersing seeds -- are being killed for their ivory at the worst levels since the 1980s. 2011 was the worst year for ivory seizures since the international ivory ban went into effect in 1989. During 2011, authorities seized more than 23 tons of ivory, which represented about 2,500 individual elephants killed. Given that customs search approximately 5 percent of shipments, it is accepted that significantly more ivory will have been successfully smuggled out of Africa. 

Today there are around 450,000 elephants in Africa, down from 1.3 million in 1979. It is estimated by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature)  that up to 38,000 elephants are killed annually for their tusks. Left unchecked this could see the population of African Elephants wiped out in under 20 years.

Demand for ivory is rising, fueled by an increasingly affluent middle class in China and the Far East where ivory is seen as a symbol of wealth, status and power. Through the elephant orphans project, mobile veterinary units, eight mobile anti-poaching teams, and aerial surveillance and community outreach; the DSWT is working on the front lines, in the field, to protect elephants, treat and rescue victims of the ivory trade and educate local people as to the importance of protecting their wildlife heritage. 

You can learn more about the Trust’s lifesaving conservation projects at http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org

Foster an elephant

 The elephants rescued by the DSWT are reliant upon them for up to 10 years, before they choose to return to the wild. Each elephant requires a stockade, the care of specialist keepers who stay with the orphans 24 hours a day, milk formula every three hours and additional nutrients and medicines where necessary.  You can foster a baby elephant and become part of the elephant’s extended human family, with your donation of $50 a year, contributing much-needed funds to the DSWT Orphans Project. Foster parents receive a personalized certificate, monthly email update of their elephant, photographs and more.  Visit: http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/foster

Make a tax-deductible donation

 U.S. supporters of the DSWT’s charitable mission can choose to make a tax-deductible contribution to U.S. Friends of The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, a 501(c)(3) organization. Please contact infous@sheldrickwildlifetrust.org or visit https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/html/help_USA.html

NAIROBI, Kenya – In an Olympic summer, the first thing people probably associate with Kenya are its distance runners.  When I was recently in Kenya, only days before the London 2012 opening ceremonies, expectations for the Kenyan track team were running high – almost as high, incongruously, as expectations for the next big technology in Kenya.

From Kibera, the largest slum in Kenya, to Karen, the Nairobi equivalent of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, conversations often turned to cell phone banking, the Kenyan government’s embrace of “open data,” and whether or not a Silicon Savannah could ever be a reality.  

In an effort to understand what that future might look like, I sought out Dr. Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary in Kenya’s Ministry of Information and Communications.  

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Impressive stats
According to the World Bank, Kenya’s recent headline technology statistics are impressive.  In the 18 months from June 2010 to December 2011, cell phone usage rose by 25 percent and Internet usage rose by 60 percent.

Today, in 2012, Kenyan mobile phone usage exceeds 70 percent – there are now more mobile subscribers than adults in Kenya; and Internet usage exceeds 35 percent, according to the Communication Commission of Kenya.  There are now more Internet users in Kenya than in South Africa – even though South Africa has 25 percent more people and its GDP is ten times that of Kenya’s, according to the World Bank.  

More interesting than the headline statistics is what that technology explosion has enabled.  In 2011, Kenyan cell phone users accounted for more than 50 percent of all the money transferred via cell phones globally – or more than $11billion, according to Ndemo.

Today, M-PESA, the dominant money-transfer service in Kenya run by Safaricom, counts more than 17,000 agents throughout Kenya enabling banking to reach rural areas not served by one of Kenya’s approximately 800 bank branches, according to The Economist.

M-PESA is easy to use. Customers register at an M-PESA agent and deposit cash that is credited to a mobile-money account / cell phone number known as an “e-float.” Then, that e-float can be transferred to another M-PESA user by SMS. Fewer than 10 percent of Kenyans had a bank account four years ago, according to Ndemo.  Today, because of M-PESA, Ndemo says close to 60 percent of Kenyans effectively have a bank account, even if their “bank” is their cell phone company and they never walk into a traditional bank branch. Indeed, today, Kenyans use ‘e-float’ via cell phones for everything from buying groceries to paying rent.

I asked Ndemo whether credit was the next frontier for M-PESA and cell phone banking broadly– whether or not Kenyans would soon be able to apply for and receive small loans via SMS. 

“Yes,” Ndemo said with a smile. He added that he and the Ministry of Information were already working with the Ministry of Finance on a framework to enable M-PESA and other mobile platforms to assess the credit worthiness of their subscribers and then to make loans to them, hopefully by the end of 2012.  

Kenyans use cell phones for everything from buying groceries to paying rent

An increase in more widely available loans would enable more people in more places throughout Kenya, including rural areas, to start their own small businesses.  If SMS-lending becomes a reality, Kenya will again be in the vanguard of mobile technology.  While M-PESA was the world’s first large-scale SMS money transfer system; today, there are more than 60 such platforms across the world, according to The Economist. 

Ndemo believes microcredit via SMS has the potential to “completely change the livelihood of many [Kenyans] and create wealth where it was never to be found.”

Silicon Savannah
We also discussed another dream of Ndemo’s: building a Silicon Valley in the Savannah. His dream is to build a technology hub for all of Kenya and East Africa, a vision dubbed Konza Technology City.  

Perhaps surprisingly, Ndemo does not want Kenya to compete with India for outsourcing jobs – quite the contrary: “India went outside, we looked inside.” He explained that Kenya decided to take a different tack. “Kenya would outsource to itself and create efficiencies,” for the government and eventually the private sector. 

Ndemo said there were already more than enough young, well-educated Kenyans to work for General Electric or Accenture. But what he believes is missing in Kenya is a place for those companies to work – a place with enough clean water, offices and housing up to United States’ standards and a density of technology companies to make it worth individual companies moving to the 5,000-acre planned site.

Even though Konza City has not broken ground – Ndemo hopes to begin building this year. Kenya’s technology sector is growing by 20 percent a year, outstripping the rest of the nation’s industries.  Already, more than 3,000 people – predominately Kenyans – work in Nairobi’s iHub technological center, according to The Financial Times.  Ndemo said the government is partnering with multinationals like Nokia and Samsung to do research in Kenya on next generation mobile platforms.

Using technology to create greater transparency
Ndemo offered two big examples of how greater technology efficiency could help transform Kenya.  The first example was tax collection – currently, Kenya collects less than 30 percent of potential tax revenue. If Kenya could get to 50 percent of tax revenue, “We may not need aid from any other country, including the United States,” he said.  

The second was around government procurement. Ndemo freely acknowledged corruption is still a big problem in Kenya – and often manifests itself in government procurement. 

He gave an example of a pen that might cost $2 in a store in Nairobi, but that the government would pay $20. (It reminded me of the 2011 audit that found $16 muffins at a U.S. Justice Department conference).  Ndemo believes an electronic platform on which contractors have to submit open bids will minimize corruption by making it more difficult for government employees to game the system and easier for the public to hold the government accountable.

One of the major catalysts for the technology sector is the Kenyan government’s demand to support its own transparency initiatives. Ndemo and the Kenya government have already embraced transparency in a way few governments have –in Africa or anywhere in the world.  KENYA Open Data  is the government’s online open government portal. 

Initiated only a year ago, in July 2011, the Kenyan government has now put hundreds of different data sets online – including everything from health and education statistics by county.  The government has also created and now supports dozens of applications to help users navigate the data.  One application allows users to track budget expenditure by individual members of parliament at the county levels.  Users can view the data in different, user-friendly formats including charts and graphs, as well as in English or Swahili.  The government also solicits, on an on-going basis, requests for data and applications that Kenyan citizens or the media want to access or utilize to make raw data more useful. 

I confess I felt a twinge of jealousy – the United States’ Data.gov site has hundreds of thousands of data sets compared to Kenya’s hundreds – but there is not the same technological collaboration between government and citizens. The U.S. government doesn’t ask people to create apps that it may then put online for all to use.

Ndemo believes this type of online citizen engagement and widespread Internet use is “critical” to ensure that Kenya’s next general election in 2013 does not spark a repeat of the 2007-2008 election violence. In the aftermath of the widely-disputed 2007 elections, hundreds of Kenyans were killed and thousands displaced because of violent clashes between different tribes and political parties. 

But Ndemo is confident 2013 would be different because of Kenya’s new constitution and hate speech regulations Kenya adopted in the interim. Ultimately he believes, “Kenyans themselves do not want to go there.”   Only time will tell whether his optimism is well-founded.

Looking to leapfrog ahead
Looking beyond 2013, Ndemo sees Kenya taking its place among the world’s emerging economies, and he believes technology is key to helping Kenya leapfrog its way there in the next decade. 

When I asked him what challenges technology and open data do not solve, he said good governance. He believes ultimately people running for office and holding office “have to have integrity.”

When I talked to different people in Kenya about Ndemo, not everyone had heard of him, but those who had viewed him as someone who had just that – integrity. 

When I asked Ndemo about his future, he said he’s likely “done with government” after the next election and that he couldn’t see himself ever running for office. 

Instead, he says, in 2013 he’ll return to his life as an academic and advocate. He said he has “many opportunities to play a big role in [Kenya], but not as a politician.” 

That may be the right answer for Ndemo but it may be a pity for Kenya. It is often impatient visionaries who do the leapfrogging Ndemo sees in his country’s potential future.

Chelsea Clinton is an NBC News Special Correspondent. She was recently on assignment in Kenya. See another recent story from her: 'Building Tomorrow' - one school at a time

 

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KAMPALA, Uganda – The Building Tomorrow Academy of Gita, about an hour outside of Uganda’s capital city of Kampala, is an amazing example of what can be accomplished when local communities and international organizations work together toward innovative solutions to educational challenges.  

 
While in Uganda last week, I met the dynamic tag team of George Srour, the American founder and “chief dreamer,” and Joseph Kalisa, the Ugandan country director, behind the school in Gita, as well as seven other Building Tomorrow “academies” in Uganda.
 
Building Tomorrow’s mission in Uganda is to do more than just build one-room cookie-cutter school houses. So far they have built eight “academies” – each with seven classrooms and space for up to 325 elementary school students.
 
And the best part is that schools like the one in Gita are built with robust local involvement: the school's surrounding communities help build them and the government promises to pay teacher salaries and ongoing operational costs after construction is complete.
 
The result is a real public- civil society partnership that is showing real results – and clearly making a difference.    

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School project turns into dream
Srour started BT in 2005, the same year he graduated from the College of William & Mary in Virginia.   
 
The inspiration for BT grew out of a visit to Uganda and then a holiday fundraising campaign Srour spearheaded during his senior year at William and Mary called “Christmas in Kampala.” The campaign raised more than $45,000 for the construction of a new school in the capital city. 
 
As Srour told me, he realized in his final months of college that raising money was necessary, but not sufficient to fundamentally change education in Uganda, a country with about 50 percent of the population under 15, according to the CIA World Factbook. He realized they needed to do more.  
 
It is a place in which Srour has no family ties, but a clear calling. 
 
When I asked Kalisa, a Ugandan, if he could imagine doing anything else? He said, “Only when we’re done.” Srour had the same answer.

 

 
Gita school
The school in Gita opened in 2010, the result of BT’s first – though not last – multidisciplinary collaboration with an American university partner. 
 
In the 2007-2008 school year, undergraduate architecture and engineering students at the University of Virginia’s Architecture Studio reCOVER and its Engineering in Context Capstone Design Program designed Gita’s seven classrooms, its library, its latrines, its office space and its outdoor play and learning space (including a sports field and garden). 
 
Other students from the University of Virginia raised money to help the architecture and engineering students’ plans become a reality, including a stationary bike ride ‘across Uganda,’ in which students rode more than 7,500 miles to help raise the necessary $60,000 to build and supply a BT Academy. 
 
Srour and Kalisa clearly still couldn’t believe  –  even years later  – so many people rode so many miles so far away to help kids in Gita, in rural Uganda.
 
Although the design and funding came from the University of Virginia, the local community around Gita built the school.  Through more than 20,000 hours of donated labor, prospective parents and grandparents made the BT Academy in Gita a reality. It was the best-looking, most inviting school we saw on our drive down the dirt road, and yes, still one made of mud and bricks and stone and with outdoor, though hygienic and private, latrines. 
 
The kids were curious, the teachers engaged, the parents proud – and all treated their school space with dignity and respect.
 
Sustainable model
Ultimately, BT academies, including Gita, are public government schools.  Once the building is complete, BT in Uganda, through an agreement with the Ugandan government and with Kalisa’s supervision, selects high quality teachers who will make the most of the open, welcoming environment BT academies offer. 

The Ugandan government then pays for the ongoing operating costs of the schools and the teachers’ and supervisors’ salaries.  This arrangement – versus many other efforts in the U.S. to raise money to build a school somewhere far away with no plans for what happens after the doors open – has a clear plan for sustainable impact: it creates clarity around what is the local community’s responsibility, what is the Ugandan government’s responsibility and what is BT’s responsibility. 
 
That longer-term focus and clarity make BT distinctive – and more likely to have better results for its students, their parents – and their university partners back in the U.S.
 
BT now has eight schools up and running in Uganda, with another six close to completion. More than 25 college and university campuses in the U.S. have contributed funds, designs and time to help more than 1,800 Ugandan kids get a better education – and future. 
 
Next up: teacher academy

One new area of focus for Srour and Kalisa is building teacher capacity – they are clearly concerned there are soon not going to be enough high caliber teachers for the schools they are building already and dreaming about. 
 
Srour and Kalisa’s answer? Build a teacher training academy. 
 
Chelsea Clinton is an NBC News Special Correspondent. She was recently traveling with her father, former President Bill Clinton, to visit Clinton Foundation, Clinton Health Access Initiative and Clinton Global Initiative projects in a number of sub-Saharan African countries, including Uganda. In 2011, Building Tomorrow made a commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative to have built at least 60 schools in Uganda over the next 5 years.

 

 

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