New York (Reuters) - Bill and Hillary Clinton's only daughter has married her long-time boyfriend in the picturesque New York village of Rhinebeck in what was dubbed America's royal wedding.
Chelsea Clinton -- the only child of the former U.S. president and the U.S. secretary of state -- wed Marc Mezvinsky on Saturday at Astor Courts, an historic 50-acre (20-hectare) estate about 100 miles north of New York City.
"Today, we watched with great pride and overwhelming emotion as Chelsea and Marc wed in a beautiful ceremony at Astor Courts, surrounded by family and their close friends," Bill and Hillary Clinton said in a statement.
"We could not have asked for a more perfect day to celebrate the beginning of their life together, and we are so happy to welcome Marc into our family," the statement said.
Photos showed the bride and groom walking down a broad outdoor aisle between rows of guests. Chelsea wore a strapless white gown with a fitted bodice and full skirt with platinum-colored beading at the waist and a long white veil.
The groom wore a simple black tuxedo going down the aisle and in a photo with the Clinton family, and a white prayer shawl and yarmulke in separate photos with Chelsea under a flowering tree and amid wedding guests.
In the one photo in which she appeared, Hillary Clinton wore a magenta gown. Bill Clinton, who is pictured walking Chelsea down the aisle, wore a simple black tux with a white boutonniere in his lapel.
GUEST LIST LARGELY SECRET
Apart from the parents of the bride, the only other high profile guests seen in Rhinebeck were Bill Clinton's former secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, actors Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen and fashion designer Vera Wang.
Also spotted was real estate scion and movie producer billionaire Steve Bing.
Chelsea Clinton, 30, and Mezvinsky, 32, have known each other since they were teenagers. He is an investment banker, whose parents Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky and Edward Mezvinsky were once Democratic U.S. House of Representatives members.
Chelsea Clinton, who worked at a New York hedge fund and has more recently studied health policy at Columbia University, has kept a low profile since her father left the White House in January 2001, although she campaigned for her mother during her failed run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
Signs and pictures congratulating the newlyweds hang in many shop windows in Rhinebeck, which has been swarmed by media around the world for an event that experts estimate to have cost between $3 million and $5 million.
Airspace above Rhinebeck was closed for 12 hours on Saturday for the wedding and media were kept well away from the entrance to Astor Courts. Security in the area was comparable to that surrounding state visits.
The guest list was reported to be between 400 and 500, but did not include President Barack Obama.
"Hillary and Bill properly want to keep this as a thing for Chelsea and her soon-to-be husband," Obama said on "The View" talk show Thursday. "It would be tough enough to have one president at a wedding. You don't want two presidents."
(Writing by Michelle Nichols, editing by Todd Eastham)
Read More......
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Selasa, 03 Agustus 2010
Obama: combat mission in Iraq to end this month
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama vowed on Monday to make good on his promise to end U.S. combat operations in Iraq by the end of August, despite a dangerous political deadlock in Baghdad and a recent surge in militant violence.
Speaking to the Disabled American Veterans group in Atlanta even as he struggles with waning public support for the war in Afghanistan, Obama sought to underscore his administration's progress winding down the U.S. role in the unpopular Iraq war.
With congressional elections looming in November, it was a reminder to liberal Democrats and many independent voters whose opposition to the Iraq conflict helped sweep him into office that he was determined to bring the war to a "responsible end."
"Shortly after taking office, I announced our new strategy for Iraq and for a transition to full Iraqi responsibility," Obama said. "And I made it clear that by August 31, 2010, America's combat mission in Iraq would end. And that is exactly what we are doing -- as promised and on schedule."
The U.S. military plans to reduce forces in Iraq to 50,000 troops by the end of the month, when they will formally move to a more advisory role supporting Iraq's security forces.
Obama recommitted to "remove all our troops from Iraq by the end of next year."
But he acknowledged that for now there will still be dangers. "The hard truth is we have not seen the end of American sacrifice in Iraq," he said.
Obama's speech came amid tensions and uncertainty in Iraq over the failure by major parties to agree on a new government five months after inconclusive parliamentary elections.
A sharp increase in deadly attacks in July has raised concern that insurgents are trying to exploit the political vacuum in Baghdad to sow sectarian strife.
AFGHANISTAN LOOMS
Obama faces growing opposition at home to the war in Afghanistan, where he has increased U.S. troop levels to confront a Taliban resurgence and he sought to rally public support for his strategy there.
"We face huge challenges in Afghanistan," he said. "But it's important that the American people know that we are making progress and we're focused on goals that are clear and achievable."
Obama also stressed that Pakistan was beginning to take the fight to militants within its borders, pushing back against leaked Afghan war documents that questioned its commitment and fanned doubts about the war. "Major blows have been struck against al Qaeda and its leadership," Obama said.
While Iraq has mostly faded from the headlines and has figured little in midterm congressional campaigns, Obama's speech allowed him to put his stamp on a milestone in the U.S. withdrawal and show he is keeping his word to war-weary Americans.
His message of opposition to the Iraq war helped galvanize his support among Democrats and many moderate independents in his 2008 election run.
Underscoring the continuing security threat, Iraqi government figures released on Saturday showed the number of civilians killed by bomb blasts and other violence in Iraq nearly doubled in July, though violence has fallen sharply from its peak levels of a few years ago.
Political instability remains a concern. More than seven years after the United States ousted Saddam Hussein, negotiations in Iraq have failed to form a new government.
After a March parliamentary election meant to set it on a course toward normalcy after years of war, sanctions and insurgency, Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish political blocs have been unable to decide who should be prime minister, the major hurdle toward the formation of a ruling coalition.
The long delay has raised fears of a renewed insurgency. Sectarian violence exploded after Iraq's 2005 parliamentary election, when politicians took more than five months to negotiate a new government.
(Writing by Matt Spetalnick and Caren Bohan, additional reporting Alister Bull, editing by Patricia Wilson and Bill Trott) Read More......
Speaking to the Disabled American Veterans group in Atlanta even as he struggles with waning public support for the war in Afghanistan, Obama sought to underscore his administration's progress winding down the U.S. role in the unpopular Iraq war.
With congressional elections looming in November, it was a reminder to liberal Democrats and many independent voters whose opposition to the Iraq conflict helped sweep him into office that he was determined to bring the war to a "responsible end."
"Shortly after taking office, I announced our new strategy for Iraq and for a transition to full Iraqi responsibility," Obama said. "And I made it clear that by August 31, 2010, America's combat mission in Iraq would end. And that is exactly what we are doing -- as promised and on schedule."
The U.S. military plans to reduce forces in Iraq to 50,000 troops by the end of the month, when they will formally move to a more advisory role supporting Iraq's security forces.
Obama recommitted to "remove all our troops from Iraq by the end of next year."
But he acknowledged that for now there will still be dangers. "The hard truth is we have not seen the end of American sacrifice in Iraq," he said.
Obama's speech came amid tensions and uncertainty in Iraq over the failure by major parties to agree on a new government five months after inconclusive parliamentary elections.
A sharp increase in deadly attacks in July has raised concern that insurgents are trying to exploit the political vacuum in Baghdad to sow sectarian strife.
AFGHANISTAN LOOMS
Obama faces growing opposition at home to the war in Afghanistan, where he has increased U.S. troop levels to confront a Taliban resurgence and he sought to rally public support for his strategy there.
"We face huge challenges in Afghanistan," he said. "But it's important that the American people know that we are making progress and we're focused on goals that are clear and achievable."
Obama also stressed that Pakistan was beginning to take the fight to militants within its borders, pushing back against leaked Afghan war documents that questioned its commitment and fanned doubts about the war. "Major blows have been struck against al Qaeda and its leadership," Obama said.
While Iraq has mostly faded from the headlines and has figured little in midterm congressional campaigns, Obama's speech allowed him to put his stamp on a milestone in the U.S. withdrawal and show he is keeping his word to war-weary Americans.
His message of opposition to the Iraq war helped galvanize his support among Democrats and many moderate independents in his 2008 election run.
Underscoring the continuing security threat, Iraqi government figures released on Saturday showed the number of civilians killed by bomb blasts and other violence in Iraq nearly doubled in July, though violence has fallen sharply from its peak levels of a few years ago.
Political instability remains a concern. More than seven years after the United States ousted Saddam Hussein, negotiations in Iraq have failed to form a new government.
After a March parliamentary election meant to set it on a course toward normalcy after years of war, sanctions and insurgency, Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish political blocs have been unable to decide who should be prime minister, the major hurdle toward the formation of a ruling coalition.
The long delay has raised fears of a renewed insurgency. Sectarian violence exploded after Iraq's 2005 parliamentary election, when politicians took more than five months to negotiate a new government.
(Writing by Matt Spetalnick and Caren Bohan, additional reporting Alister Bull, editing by Patricia Wilson and Bill Trott) Read More......
US tycoon Sidney Harman buys Newsweek 'for a dollar'
The struggling US current affairs magazine Newsweek has been rescued by 91-year-old audio equipment tycoon, Sidney Harman, who bought the title last night for a nominal amount reported to be just a single dollar.
Harman, who described Newsweek as "a national treasure", purchased the business from the Washington Post Company, which put it up for sale in May, after failing to stem a steady stream of heavy losses.
The buyout is likely to come as a relief to Newsweek's workforce of more than 300 who were facing the possibility of the 77-year-old periodical closing.
Harman's bid is understood to have been favoured by the Washington Post's publisher because the tycoon pledged to keep on most employees – although Newsweek's editor, Jon Meacham, is to leave.
"Harman has pledged not only to continue to produce a lively, compelling and first-rate news magazine, but also an equally dynamic Newsweek.com. He intends to keep a majority of Newsweek's very talented staff," said Donald Graham, chief executive of the Washington Post Company, which had owned the magazine since 1961.
Harman is the founder of Harman International, a Connecticut-based manufacturer of speakers, stereos and in-car audio systems. The nonagenarian established the business in 1953 and retired in 2008, although he remains chairman emeritus. The company has nearly 10,000 employees and racked up sales of $2.9bn (£1.8bn) last year. The tycoon is married to Jane Harman, a Democratic congresswoman representing southern California.
In a statement, Harman said he would "look forward to this great journalistic, business and technological challenge". The California-based entrepreneur has sufficiently deep pockets to take a long-term view in making Newsweek profitable. The New York Times reported that Harman was paying just $1 and would take on considerable liabilities, although the Washington Post Company declined to reveal the terms of the agreement.
Newsweek has suffered operating losses of $44m since 2007. In common with many other magazines, the title struggled to cope with a deep slump in advertising and waning circulation, as readers migrated to digital publications. Its readership trails that of its rival Time magazine and it has been unable to match the momentum of The Economist.
In a relaunch last year, Newsweek cut back on covering everyday news in favour of in-depth reporting on selected subjects, and more opinionated coverage.
source : http://www.guardian.co.uk Read More......
Harman, who described Newsweek as "a national treasure", purchased the business from the Washington Post Company, which put it up for sale in May, after failing to stem a steady stream of heavy losses.
The buyout is likely to come as a relief to Newsweek's workforce of more than 300 who were facing the possibility of the 77-year-old periodical closing.
Harman's bid is understood to have been favoured by the Washington Post's publisher because the tycoon pledged to keep on most employees – although Newsweek's editor, Jon Meacham, is to leave.
"Harman has pledged not only to continue to produce a lively, compelling and first-rate news magazine, but also an equally dynamic Newsweek.com. He intends to keep a majority of Newsweek's very talented staff," said Donald Graham, chief executive of the Washington Post Company, which had owned the magazine since 1961.
Harman is the founder of Harman International, a Connecticut-based manufacturer of speakers, stereos and in-car audio systems. The nonagenarian established the business in 1953 and retired in 2008, although he remains chairman emeritus. The company has nearly 10,000 employees and racked up sales of $2.9bn (£1.8bn) last year. The tycoon is married to Jane Harman, a Democratic congresswoman representing southern California.
In a statement, Harman said he would "look forward to this great journalistic, business and technological challenge". The California-based entrepreneur has sufficiently deep pockets to take a long-term view in making Newsweek profitable. The New York Times reported that Harman was paying just $1 and would take on considerable liabilities, although the Washington Post Company declined to reveal the terms of the agreement.
Newsweek has suffered operating losses of $44m since 2007. In common with many other magazines, the title struggled to cope with a deep slump in advertising and waning circulation, as readers migrated to digital publications. Its readership trails that of its rival Time magazine and it has been unable to match the momentum of The Economist.
In a relaunch last year, Newsweek cut back on covering everyday news in favour of in-depth reporting on selected subjects, and more opinionated coverage.
source : http://www.guardian.co.uk Read More......
Music fails to chime with Islamic values, says Iran's supreme leader
ran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said today that music is "not compatible" with the values of the Islamic republic, and should not be practised or taught in the country.
In some of the most extreme comments by a senior regime figure since the 1979 revolution, Khamenei said: "Although music is halal, promoting and teaching it is not compatible with the highest values of the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic."
Khamenei's comments came in response to a request for a ruling by a 21-year-old follower of his, who was thinking of starting music lessons, but wanted to know if they were acceptable according to Islam, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. "It's better that our dear youth spend their valuable time in learning science and essential and useful skills and fill their time with sport and healthy recreations instead of music," he said.
Unlike other clerics in Iran, whose religious rulings are practised by their own followers, Khamenei's views are interpreted as administrative orders for the whole country, which must be obeyed by the government. Last month Khamenei issued a controversial fatwa in which he likened his leadership to that of the Prophet Muhammad and obliged all Iranians to obey his orders.
Khamenei has rarely expressed his views on music publicly, but he is believed have played a key role in the crackdown on Iran's music scene following the revolution. When Khamenei was president, he banned western-style music, forcing many stars to go into exile.
Houshang Asadi, a former cellmate of Khamenei before the Islamic Revolution said: "He hated the music from the beginning."
"There were times I sang a song by Banan (a popular vocalist) for him and he told me to avoid music and instead pray to God", said Asadi, who shared a cell with Khamenei for four months in Moshtarak prison in Tehran in 1976 and stayed friend with him for several years after the revolution. "The only music he liked was revolutionary and religious anthems," said Asadi.
After the reformist President Khatami took office in 1997, official attitudes towards music and especially pop began to thaw.
After his election in 2005, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cracked down on music. His ministry of culture and Islamic guidance has refused permission for the distribution of thousands of albums. Since last year's disputed elections the authorities have given even fewer permits for public concerts, fearing they could be used by the opposition.
Iran has rarely given permission to concerts, as it fears that the opposition might use it as an opportunity to express itself, said Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Iran's most prolific and popular classical vocalist.
"They are afraid of my concerts because of those moments before the concert is begun, when the whole hall is in silence and darkness when someone suddenly shouts 'death to dictator' and everybody accompanies and they are unable to identify that person," Shajarian said.
source : http://www.guardian.co.uk Read More......
In some of the most extreme comments by a senior regime figure since the 1979 revolution, Khamenei said: "Although music is halal, promoting and teaching it is not compatible with the highest values of the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic."
Khamenei's comments came in response to a request for a ruling by a 21-year-old follower of his, who was thinking of starting music lessons, but wanted to know if they were acceptable according to Islam, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. "It's better that our dear youth spend their valuable time in learning science and essential and useful skills and fill their time with sport and healthy recreations instead of music," he said.
Unlike other clerics in Iran, whose religious rulings are practised by their own followers, Khamenei's views are interpreted as administrative orders for the whole country, which must be obeyed by the government. Last month Khamenei issued a controversial fatwa in which he likened his leadership to that of the Prophet Muhammad and obliged all Iranians to obey his orders.
Khamenei has rarely expressed his views on music publicly, but he is believed have played a key role in the crackdown on Iran's music scene following the revolution. When Khamenei was president, he banned western-style music, forcing many stars to go into exile.
Houshang Asadi, a former cellmate of Khamenei before the Islamic Revolution said: "He hated the music from the beginning."
"There were times I sang a song by Banan (a popular vocalist) for him and he told me to avoid music and instead pray to God", said Asadi, who shared a cell with Khamenei for four months in Moshtarak prison in Tehran in 1976 and stayed friend with him for several years after the revolution. "The only music he liked was revolutionary and religious anthems," said Asadi.
After the reformist President Khatami took office in 1997, official attitudes towards music and especially pop began to thaw.
After his election in 2005, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cracked down on music. His ministry of culture and Islamic guidance has refused permission for the distribution of thousands of albums. Since last year's disputed elections the authorities have given even fewer permits for public concerts, fearing they could be used by the opposition.
Iran has rarely given permission to concerts, as it fears that the opposition might use it as an opportunity to express itself, said Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Iran's most prolific and popular classical vocalist.
"They are afraid of my concerts because of those moments before the concert is begun, when the whole hall is in silence and darkness when someone suddenly shouts 'death to dictator' and everybody accompanies and they are unable to identify that person," Shajarian said.
source : http://www.guardian.co.uk Read More......
The rise of home working
How does your day start? Assuming you still have a job, is your commute 30, 60 or even 90 minutes of hell? Is it an unreliable bus that you take to work, or an overcrowded train? If you drive, do you wish you had cycled? If you cycle, do you wish you had walked? If you walk, do you wish your shoes were dogshit-proof? Do you arrive stressed, exhausted, ripped off, degraded, suicidal, homicidal or all of the above?
And what about the next eight hours? Do you get a headache because of the lighting, or an earache because of the telephones? Is it the decor that makes you feel queasy, or the chit-chat when you're trying to concentrate? Do you go home regretting how little you have achieved or cursing how soon you will have to return? Work stinks, doesn't it? Or, at least, going to the office. The good news is, it doesn't have to. Millions of us are doing jobs that could be carried out just as well at home.
"I can't help feeling that our descendants will look back at us and think, 'What on earth were they thinking of?' " says Shirley Borrett, who works and lives in a motor home.
Borrett is development director for the Telework Association, which promotes working from home, especially if that involves a computer and a telephone, and splits her time between Britain and Spain. Whether you call this teleworking, telecommuting or home working, it's a growing market. Banks, call centres, councils, management consultancies, software companies, law firms, PR agencies: all are increasingly allowing their staff to do it at least part-time. BT, the pioneer in Britain in the 1980s, now has 65,000 flexible workers, of whom 10,000 do not come in to the office.
We're still a long way from the dreams of 20 or 25 years ago, which imagined offices emptying of everyone who didn't operate a franking machine or wield a mop. According to the official Labour Force Survey, in the spring of 2009 there were 691,000 British home workers (working mainly in their own homes, using both a phone and a computer) versus 582,000 three years before. But Borrett and others reckon those figures are underestimated. Even in 2008, a survey for the CBI found 46% of businesses allowing their staff to work from home, up from just 11% in 2004.
Melanie Pinola, who writes about home working for About.com, says the jobs that can be done remotely range from accountancy to telemarketing, via financial analysis, translation, data entry, graphic design, illustration, insurance, media buying, speech-writing, research, sales, travel agency, stockbroking, website design, writing, editing.
"Virtually anything that used to be an office job and uses computers and telecoms can be done remotely for at least part of the week," says Borrett's colleague, Peter Thomson. "Take nurses in a hospital," he says. "They have to be physically present when they're caring for patients, but they also do a lot of paperwork. That could be done anywhere."
So how do you join the home-working masses? If you have a child under 16, or 18 if they are disabled, you have a head start. Employers are legally obliged at least to consider your request to work flexibly, which could include working from home for at least part of the week and/or changing your hours. They must also consider an application if you are caring for a friend or a family member. But even if no one loves you and you have no one to look after, you have a very strong business case – if you can persuade your company to listen.
Not only do home workers reduce the need for expensive premises, they are often vastly more productive. BT claims it gets an average of 20% more work out of its 10,000. "It works amazingly for us," says Caroline Waters, the company's director of people and policy, who herself works from home at least one day a week. "You get great productivity, reduced sick absence, high levels of performance. And we know it works for a lot of other organisations, because we help a lot of them put it in place."
When the AA based some of its call-centre staff at home, says Borrett, their productivity rose by more than a third. Some American studies show a 30-40% increase. Noel Hodson, who was one of the key figures in home working until the early 2000s, suggests that this is at least partly down to the removal of the daily commute: "What we found was that most of the time saved went back into work. These workers valued their new way of working, and to protect it they did more work."
Hodson should know what he's talking about. He has been working at home for 30 years, ever since he decided he could no longer stand the trip from Oxford to London and back five times a week. "I had two young children whom I barely saw, and I thought, 'This is ridiculous.' So I closed the office." He has had one brief spell of commuting since then, when he was advising Transport for London, and the company forced him to come into its central London offices every day for three months. It was winter; he got the flu. "It was suicidal stuff for me."
When you are mentioning productivity to your sceptical superiors, there are a few more points that you might throw in. Companies that offer flexible working find it easier to attract staff, and easier to hang on to them. At BT, Waters says that at least 97% of women who take maternity leave come back to work afterwards, against a national average of about half that. "In any one year, we're retaining an additional 500-600 women. The downtime, the recruitment, the instruction very conservatively of each person would be around £10,000. Not only are we creating a more inclusive BT, we're saving £5m-£6m on skill losses." Mind you, that's small beer compared with the computer company Cisco's savings from teleworking. A survey in 2009 put these at $277m a year.
And there are bonuses for society. Home working encourages a more diverse labour force, bringing in not just carers but those who have difficulty travelling because they are disabled or live in remote locations. Then there's the reduction in pollution and greenhouse gases. According to Cambridgeshire county council, home working in that county alone could reduce commuter travel by up to 8 million miles a year. Last month transport minister Norman Baker reminded employers that letting staff avoid the workplace just one day in 10 would have a "huge impact" on congestion.
So if home working is so great, why aren't we all doing it already? As usual, it's the boss's fault. Hodson remembers trying to sell home working to a firm of engineers 20-odd years ago. "As I went through the economics, I touched on the thought that the company car wouldn't be necessary any more – and the managing director reached across the desk and took me by the tie in a stranglehold. He didn't even know he was doing it. It was his big shiny Jaguar that was sitting in the car park for seven and three-quarter hours a day."
When it's not their cars they are worried about, it's their empires. If there's no one to laugh at their jokes, how will they know they are funny? If bosses can't see what their staff are doing, how will they know that they are working? "The issues are human, not technological," says Thomson. "For the past 200 years we have been in an environment where people get together in the same place to work and a manager stands there and watches what they do. To then say, 'Right, you can't see what your workers are doing any more but trust them to get on with the job' can be a bit of a culture shock."
"The last barriers are attitudinal," agrees Waters. "But it's a real myth that you have control over what your people do just because they sit in the same location. Most managers who are worried about this kind of thing actually sit in their offices and rarely interact with their people. Presenteeism is a really poor performance indicator. It in no way gives the kind of productivity measure that you need to run a successful business."
Firms that embrace home working have to find some better gauge. Mark Thomas is chief executive of Word Association, a Midlands-based PR consultancy that employs 13 people, all working from home. There used to be an office, but Thomas closed it to go travelling in 1998, and the staff he left behind were so happy working from their spare bedrooms that when he got back to Britain he decided not to reopen it. "We've managed to come up with measures of performance that are more to do with output than with the amount of time that people spend at their desk," he says. You might think of PR as a nebulous business, but it's not impossible to monitor media coverage, or customer satisfaction. "I am able to tell whether people are performing," Thomas insists. "And the reality is that everybody who works for me puts in really good hours and does a really good job."
Wyn Matthews backs him up, and not just because he could sack her. She recently joined Word Association as a copywriter. "Some people say, 'Ooh, you can just mess around the house, can't you?'" she says. "But it works the opposite way. You're not coming away from the office thinking, 'That's it – I won't be doing any more tonight.' If you're needed, you're prepared to be on hand." In an office, she says, "some people have the ability to look really busy when they're not. That nonsense is stripped away by working at home. Your bosses see what you do."
The logical accompaniment to home working is a more relaxed attitude to working hours. "I've had managers say to me, 'But they might go to Tescos on Wednesday afternoon,'" says Shirley Borrett. "To which I reply, 'If you're truly being flexible and recognising that people are doing a job, then what does it matter, so long as you're getting whatever output it is you want?
"It all comes down to trust," she says. "Trust that people are doing what they're supposed to be doing, though not necessarily at the same time as they'd be doing it in the office."
The last thing any manager needs to worry about is idleness, says Pinola, who works at home in the US. "You tend to overwork as a remote worker because you don't want to appear to be slacking off."
Will some employers abuse this? What do you think? The same technology that makes it possible to escape the office – mobile phones, laptops, broadband – makes it that much harder to get away from your boss. First they give you a BlackBerry, then they start emailing you at 1am. But that's true even if you work in an office, nine to five. There is a certain kind of manager who insists on interrupting his underlings' evenings and weekends with "urgent" enquiries that could easily wait. Whether or not we've agreed to it, many of us are already on call 24/7.
This may actually be less disruptive for home workers than it is for the office-based. When researchers from America's Brigham Young University looked at 24,000 IBM employees, they found that those with flexible working arrangements were able to put in 57 hours a week before their personal life started to suffer, against 38 hours for those in traditional posts.
Otherwise, the advice for home workers is the same as it should be for everyone. Work when you're paid to; don't when you're not. You might remind your boss of the Department of Employment's guidelines: "Employers should seek to ensure that timetables are established which determine when employees are expected to be working, and when they should not be contacted."
And don't undermine your position by checking emails when you're supposed to be off duty, or answering work calls. "The great thing about technology is that it has an off button," says Waters. It's a cliche, but that doesn't mean it's not true. The best employers will not just expect you to use that button, but worry if you don't. Christiane Perera is head of people and development at OAC, a 24-strong firm of actuaries with home offices as far apart as Devon, Surrey, Manchester and Wales. "If you know that someone's at their desk during the day and then you keep getting emails from them at midnight, you tend to raise the subject with them," she says. "Do they need to work that late? Is there an issue? Do they need help? You need to be able to read the indicators."
While you're whipping your bosses into shape, don't forget your nearest and dearest. Let them know that when you're working, you're working. "[Home workers] must avoid a tendency to talk with friends or family or do things around the house," is the stern warning from America's Westchester County. "If an employee has a family member at home who cares for children or elders, that person may expect the employee to be more available for caregiving because they are home. Arrangements should be made that will address this potential problem."
"It's a constant re-educating process," says Pinola. "My immediate family knows that when the door to my home office is closed I am really busy. I try to have them imagine that I'm not even there, but my four-year-old doesn't really like that game. One thing that helps is having a separate phone number just for personal calls so that I can filter the non-work calls. Other than that, I just have to remind people when my working hours are. I guess you could hang a 'Do not disturb' sign on your door when you're very busy."
Is there anyone who shouldn't attempt to work from home? Well, yes: anyone who doesn't want to. For some the office is important. It provides clear lines between work from home, a break from the family, colleagues to talk to and a creative environment.
"[Home working] doesn't suit everybody," Borrett points out. "It's not for people who've got a very young family and nowhere separate to work. It usually doesn't suit people who are in their early 20s and still living with their parents. Young people also want to get a social life out of their work life." When Hodson was running teleworking trials, he found another group to worry about: the over-55s whose children had left home or whose partners had died. Many of them decided they'd be happier back in the office.
Not, of course, that home workers have to feel isolated. There's no law that says you can't call them into the office if you have one, or find some other meeting place. "At first we didn't put as much effort into communication as we should have done," admits Thomas. "Now we have regular monthly production meetings where we get together to work through every single client, every single job. All the staff attend. We also have monthly reviews of staff, various teams getting together around projects or services, management team meetings." In between, there are phone calls, emails, instant messaging. If you're all logged on to MSN, you can swap little messages with your co-workers all day long. If you've got a smartphone, you can even do it when you're at Tesco.
Where could this all end? Just imagine turning up at the office one day and being sent home with a flea in your ear: "What the hell are you doing here? We don't want you sitting around chatting and drinking coffee. You should be at home, working."
source : http://www.guardian.co.uk Read More......
And what about the next eight hours? Do you get a headache because of the lighting, or an earache because of the telephones? Is it the decor that makes you feel queasy, or the chit-chat when you're trying to concentrate? Do you go home regretting how little you have achieved or cursing how soon you will have to return? Work stinks, doesn't it? Or, at least, going to the office. The good news is, it doesn't have to. Millions of us are doing jobs that could be carried out just as well at home.
"I can't help feeling that our descendants will look back at us and think, 'What on earth were they thinking of?' " says Shirley Borrett, who works and lives in a motor home.
Borrett is development director for the Telework Association, which promotes working from home, especially if that involves a computer and a telephone, and splits her time between Britain and Spain. Whether you call this teleworking, telecommuting or home working, it's a growing market. Banks, call centres, councils, management consultancies, software companies, law firms, PR agencies: all are increasingly allowing their staff to do it at least part-time. BT, the pioneer in Britain in the 1980s, now has 65,000 flexible workers, of whom 10,000 do not come in to the office.
We're still a long way from the dreams of 20 or 25 years ago, which imagined offices emptying of everyone who didn't operate a franking machine or wield a mop. According to the official Labour Force Survey, in the spring of 2009 there were 691,000 British home workers (working mainly in their own homes, using both a phone and a computer) versus 582,000 three years before. But Borrett and others reckon those figures are underestimated. Even in 2008, a survey for the CBI found 46% of businesses allowing their staff to work from home, up from just 11% in 2004.
Melanie Pinola, who writes about home working for About.com, says the jobs that can be done remotely range from accountancy to telemarketing, via financial analysis, translation, data entry, graphic design, illustration, insurance, media buying, speech-writing, research, sales, travel agency, stockbroking, website design, writing, editing.
"Virtually anything that used to be an office job and uses computers and telecoms can be done remotely for at least part of the week," says Borrett's colleague, Peter Thomson. "Take nurses in a hospital," he says. "They have to be physically present when they're caring for patients, but they also do a lot of paperwork. That could be done anywhere."
So how do you join the home-working masses? If you have a child under 16, or 18 if they are disabled, you have a head start. Employers are legally obliged at least to consider your request to work flexibly, which could include working from home for at least part of the week and/or changing your hours. They must also consider an application if you are caring for a friend or a family member. But even if no one loves you and you have no one to look after, you have a very strong business case – if you can persuade your company to listen.
Not only do home workers reduce the need for expensive premises, they are often vastly more productive. BT claims it gets an average of 20% more work out of its 10,000. "It works amazingly for us," says Caroline Waters, the company's director of people and policy, who herself works from home at least one day a week. "You get great productivity, reduced sick absence, high levels of performance. And we know it works for a lot of other organisations, because we help a lot of them put it in place."
When the AA based some of its call-centre staff at home, says Borrett, their productivity rose by more than a third. Some American studies show a 30-40% increase. Noel Hodson, who was one of the key figures in home working until the early 2000s, suggests that this is at least partly down to the removal of the daily commute: "What we found was that most of the time saved went back into work. These workers valued their new way of working, and to protect it they did more work."
Hodson should know what he's talking about. He has been working at home for 30 years, ever since he decided he could no longer stand the trip from Oxford to London and back five times a week. "I had two young children whom I barely saw, and I thought, 'This is ridiculous.' So I closed the office." He has had one brief spell of commuting since then, when he was advising Transport for London, and the company forced him to come into its central London offices every day for three months. It was winter; he got the flu. "It was suicidal stuff for me."
When you are mentioning productivity to your sceptical superiors, there are a few more points that you might throw in. Companies that offer flexible working find it easier to attract staff, and easier to hang on to them. At BT, Waters says that at least 97% of women who take maternity leave come back to work afterwards, against a national average of about half that. "In any one year, we're retaining an additional 500-600 women. The downtime, the recruitment, the instruction very conservatively of each person would be around £10,000. Not only are we creating a more inclusive BT, we're saving £5m-£6m on skill losses." Mind you, that's small beer compared with the computer company Cisco's savings from teleworking. A survey in 2009 put these at $277m a year.
And there are bonuses for society. Home working encourages a more diverse labour force, bringing in not just carers but those who have difficulty travelling because they are disabled or live in remote locations. Then there's the reduction in pollution and greenhouse gases. According to Cambridgeshire county council, home working in that county alone could reduce commuter travel by up to 8 million miles a year. Last month transport minister Norman Baker reminded employers that letting staff avoid the workplace just one day in 10 would have a "huge impact" on congestion.
So if home working is so great, why aren't we all doing it already? As usual, it's the boss's fault. Hodson remembers trying to sell home working to a firm of engineers 20-odd years ago. "As I went through the economics, I touched on the thought that the company car wouldn't be necessary any more – and the managing director reached across the desk and took me by the tie in a stranglehold. He didn't even know he was doing it. It was his big shiny Jaguar that was sitting in the car park for seven and three-quarter hours a day."
When it's not their cars they are worried about, it's their empires. If there's no one to laugh at their jokes, how will they know they are funny? If bosses can't see what their staff are doing, how will they know that they are working? "The issues are human, not technological," says Thomson. "For the past 200 years we have been in an environment where people get together in the same place to work and a manager stands there and watches what they do. To then say, 'Right, you can't see what your workers are doing any more but trust them to get on with the job' can be a bit of a culture shock."
"The last barriers are attitudinal," agrees Waters. "But it's a real myth that you have control over what your people do just because they sit in the same location. Most managers who are worried about this kind of thing actually sit in their offices and rarely interact with their people. Presenteeism is a really poor performance indicator. It in no way gives the kind of productivity measure that you need to run a successful business."
Firms that embrace home working have to find some better gauge. Mark Thomas is chief executive of Word Association, a Midlands-based PR consultancy that employs 13 people, all working from home. There used to be an office, but Thomas closed it to go travelling in 1998, and the staff he left behind were so happy working from their spare bedrooms that when he got back to Britain he decided not to reopen it. "We've managed to come up with measures of performance that are more to do with output than with the amount of time that people spend at their desk," he says. You might think of PR as a nebulous business, but it's not impossible to monitor media coverage, or customer satisfaction. "I am able to tell whether people are performing," Thomas insists. "And the reality is that everybody who works for me puts in really good hours and does a really good job."
Wyn Matthews backs him up, and not just because he could sack her. She recently joined Word Association as a copywriter. "Some people say, 'Ooh, you can just mess around the house, can't you?'" she says. "But it works the opposite way. You're not coming away from the office thinking, 'That's it – I won't be doing any more tonight.' If you're needed, you're prepared to be on hand." In an office, she says, "some people have the ability to look really busy when they're not. That nonsense is stripped away by working at home. Your bosses see what you do."
The logical accompaniment to home working is a more relaxed attitude to working hours. "I've had managers say to me, 'But they might go to Tescos on Wednesday afternoon,'" says Shirley Borrett. "To which I reply, 'If you're truly being flexible and recognising that people are doing a job, then what does it matter, so long as you're getting whatever output it is you want?
"It all comes down to trust," she says. "Trust that people are doing what they're supposed to be doing, though not necessarily at the same time as they'd be doing it in the office."
The last thing any manager needs to worry about is idleness, says Pinola, who works at home in the US. "You tend to overwork as a remote worker because you don't want to appear to be slacking off."
Will some employers abuse this? What do you think? The same technology that makes it possible to escape the office – mobile phones, laptops, broadband – makes it that much harder to get away from your boss. First they give you a BlackBerry, then they start emailing you at 1am. But that's true even if you work in an office, nine to five. There is a certain kind of manager who insists on interrupting his underlings' evenings and weekends with "urgent" enquiries that could easily wait. Whether or not we've agreed to it, many of us are already on call 24/7.
This may actually be less disruptive for home workers than it is for the office-based. When researchers from America's Brigham Young University looked at 24,000 IBM employees, they found that those with flexible working arrangements were able to put in 57 hours a week before their personal life started to suffer, against 38 hours for those in traditional posts.
Otherwise, the advice for home workers is the same as it should be for everyone. Work when you're paid to; don't when you're not. You might remind your boss of the Department of Employment's guidelines: "Employers should seek to ensure that timetables are established which determine when employees are expected to be working, and when they should not be contacted."
And don't undermine your position by checking emails when you're supposed to be off duty, or answering work calls. "The great thing about technology is that it has an off button," says Waters. It's a cliche, but that doesn't mean it's not true. The best employers will not just expect you to use that button, but worry if you don't. Christiane Perera is head of people and development at OAC, a 24-strong firm of actuaries with home offices as far apart as Devon, Surrey, Manchester and Wales. "If you know that someone's at their desk during the day and then you keep getting emails from them at midnight, you tend to raise the subject with them," she says. "Do they need to work that late? Is there an issue? Do they need help? You need to be able to read the indicators."
While you're whipping your bosses into shape, don't forget your nearest and dearest. Let them know that when you're working, you're working. "[Home workers] must avoid a tendency to talk with friends or family or do things around the house," is the stern warning from America's Westchester County. "If an employee has a family member at home who cares for children or elders, that person may expect the employee to be more available for caregiving because they are home. Arrangements should be made that will address this potential problem."
"It's a constant re-educating process," says Pinola. "My immediate family knows that when the door to my home office is closed I am really busy. I try to have them imagine that I'm not even there, but my four-year-old doesn't really like that game. One thing that helps is having a separate phone number just for personal calls so that I can filter the non-work calls. Other than that, I just have to remind people when my working hours are. I guess you could hang a 'Do not disturb' sign on your door when you're very busy."
Is there anyone who shouldn't attempt to work from home? Well, yes: anyone who doesn't want to. For some the office is important. It provides clear lines between work from home, a break from the family, colleagues to talk to and a creative environment.
"[Home working] doesn't suit everybody," Borrett points out. "It's not for people who've got a very young family and nowhere separate to work. It usually doesn't suit people who are in their early 20s and still living with their parents. Young people also want to get a social life out of their work life." When Hodson was running teleworking trials, he found another group to worry about: the over-55s whose children had left home or whose partners had died. Many of them decided they'd be happier back in the office.
Not, of course, that home workers have to feel isolated. There's no law that says you can't call them into the office if you have one, or find some other meeting place. "At first we didn't put as much effort into communication as we should have done," admits Thomas. "Now we have regular monthly production meetings where we get together to work through every single client, every single job. All the staff attend. We also have monthly reviews of staff, various teams getting together around projects or services, management team meetings." In between, there are phone calls, emails, instant messaging. If you're all logged on to MSN, you can swap little messages with your co-workers all day long. If you've got a smartphone, you can even do it when you're at Tesco.
Where could this all end? Just imagine turning up at the office one day and being sent home with a flea in your ear: "What the hell are you doing here? We don't want you sitting around chatting and drinking coffee. You should be at home, working."
source : http://www.guardian.co.uk Read More......
Sudan's 'Lost Boys' get a fresh start
from The Guardian World News
When Eggers met Achak Deng seven years ago neither of them could have predicted that they would end up building a school together
The sound of the generator clicking on at 9pm in Marial Bai secondary school, south Sudan, is a noise that students know well. In a region with no electricity or running water and battered by more than two decades of civil war, the three hours of generated power allow a little more time to prepare for the next morning's physics exam. The young men and women pick up their notebooks to study through the night. They are here tonight thanks to the generator, but mostly thanks to two particular friends, who value action over debate.
Sudanese refugee Valentino Achak Deng had been in the US for a year when, in 2002, he told Mary Williams, daughter of Jane Fonda and founder of the Lost Boys Foundation, that he wanted to tell the real story of south Sudan's "Lost Boys" in a book. When she recommended the American writer Dave Eggers to assist, her logic seemed clear: Eggers had gained literary recognition through publishing a memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, that chronicled life after the death of both of his parents within a five-week period, and Valentino had not seen his parents since he was nine years old. "She said he will understand you better than any other writer," says Achak Deng.
But when Eggers and Achak Deng first met in Atlanta seven years ago, neither realised they were about to embark on a lasting friendship that would span continents, cultures and wars, and would even lead to the building of a school.
"I went to Atlanta to meet with Val and Mary, not really expecting to undertake a four-year project," recalls Eggers, who is based in San Francisco. "But Val and I got along so well, and his story seemed so urgent, that I felt I would at least try to do it justice."
Achak Deng was one of an estimated group of 27,000 young southern Sudanese boys who were forced to leave their homes, families and villages during the 22-year Sudanese civil war, which killed more than 2 million Sudanese and displaced 4 million more. Chased out of their villages by government-armed Arab militias from north Sudan, the unaccompanied children – largely boys – walked for months across their country. They were named "Lost Boys" by aid workers, who likened their appearance to the orphans in JM Barrie's Peter Pan.
"The connotation in the US implied that we were lost and that we didn't know anything, that we had no nation, no families, that we were unruly," says Achak Deng today, looking out over his school in the dusty terrain of Marial Bai, south Sudan. "But I never considered myself lost, not a single day, even when I would see a fellow countryman dead, I knew that I was doing something that would be tangible in the future, if I was to survive."
Twenty-three years after the nine-year-old Achak Deng played under the bottom of his tree and saw the Northern army advance, he appears anything but lost. In fact, while Eggers immortalised his story in his 2006 best-selling novel, What Is The What, which Barack Obama advised every one of his White House aides to read, the real beneficiaries of the transatlantic friendship are the 260 Sudanese students now enrolled in their region's first functioning secondary school, built thanks to Eggers and Achak Deng.
Things have changed since 2003, when there were estimated to be only 500 remaining inhabitants in Marial Bai, and when Eggers accompanied Achak Deng on his first trip back home in 17 years. As the first "Lost Boy" to return to South Sudan, Achak Deng boarded three planes with Eggers and travelled into Marial Bai on a noisy cargo flight, packed to the rafters with bicycles, medicines and grain.
When they landed, Achak Deng was able to hug his own aged parents on the airstrip. "It made me realise I had been lucky, because although I had to go from one refugee camp to another or from one country to another, I had escaped, and many people hadn't. It helped me visualise things like this school, projects that I could build, how I could use my experience, and life and friendships in America in a way that could help transform this community." For Achak Deng, that trip was also a defining moment between him and Eggers. "He flew into Sudan at a time when westerners were not allowed to come here, so already I had seen him put himself at risk. Whatever it would take, I knew it was a point of trust then, not just a book."
While Eggers and Achak Deng always knew they would use the money from What Is The What to help rebuild Achak Deng's hometown, it was not until the pair returned to Marial Bai in 2007 that the need for a secondary school became clear. While 48% of children are now officially enrolled at primary school, only 3% attend any secondary education in south Sudan. In Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, where Marial Bai resides, only 0.3% of 14- to 17-year-olds attended secondary school last year.
"We went back to his town, after the book came out, and told the elders that there would be money coming to a new foundation, and that Val planned to build a school," explains Eggers. "Then we listened for a week or so in countless meetings. What we learned was that they needed a secondary school above all. Thus we learned a lot by listening first – something I always recommend, but which some NGOs don't necessarily do." During that trip, Achak Deng was ceded some land outside of Marial Bai's main marketplace for his school. "There was a ceremony to bless the land and the whole community came out," says Eggers.
According to the most recent census, 51% of south Sudan's population are under 17 years of age, yet there are only 10 government-run secondary schools nationwide. While Marial Bai secondary school is built out of locally made bricks, other construction materials, such as timber, iron and cement, had to be purchased in Uganda and brought over by lorries, bikes and boats. The aim was to hire local teachers, but in some states as few as 2% of teachers have had any training, making it difficult to recruit staff for the school.
Yet, for a man who spent 13 years in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, such problems were merely obstacles to be overcome. And a year ago, after 10 months' construction, the school opened its doors. Despite being 150 miles from the nearest paved road, the Marial Bai secondary school had 85 students, 12 of whom were girls, who had made it through the screening exam. They started their classes before the school was even fitted with windows and doors.
"I believe a person who spent a minute in the class is better than someone who never did," says Achak Deng. "I also believe everything is possible, and it's just the determination and faith people put in it. I know we didn't have bulldozers, or big carriers, or even professional teachers at the time, but we could not wait and wait and wait until someone else came in and decided there was a school here. No, we needed to build it ourselves."
A year on, one of the biggest challenges Achak Deng faces is encouraging families to allow their girls to attend. According to a 2006 survey, only 2.5% of women aged between 15 and 24 in south Sudan are literate, compared to 56.4% of women in the north. Girls in south Sudan are still more likely to die in childbirth than they are to finish primary school.
Yet armed with knowledge of the community, Achak Deng took to the road to make sure that more than the current 22 girls can attend his school. After visiting families all over his state, he built two female dormitories so that at least 100 women can stay at the school and be free from the responsibilities they have at home. Female students like 17-year-old Aquiliana Adhel Majok, whose mother sent her to be educated in Kenya during the war. Aquiliana is happy to be one of the first girls to board at the school.
"This is the best school in south Sudan and we are all very, very proud to be here," says Aquiliana, who returned to Marial Bai last year from Kenya. "In Sudan, so many girls used to go to primary school, but then they give up, get married, and stay at home. Whenever other girls see us female students in uniform at the market, they wish they could go to secondary school as well, so they could learn."
For Eggers, the school in Sudan is "a life-changing thing". Reflecting on its first year, he says: "Before it was built, there were few options for those who graduated from primary schools. And there were almost no opportunities at all for young girls. But now students are coming from hundreds of miles around to attend the school, and this is an essential development to the rebuilding of south Sudan."
Citing his friend's "single-mindedness" as crucial to the school's success, he adds: "We see things in a very similar way, and that is why we've been close partners for so long. I think it comes down to the fact that both of us are more bricks-and-mortar people than theory people. We didn't spend years designing the school in the US, with theories and abstract ideas. We agreed that the better idea would be to focus on what the people of Marial Bai needed, and then get started right away."
Now, with three Kenyan teachers and five Sudanese teachers, who have returned home after a decade of displacement, Marial Bai secondary school is attracting praise from across the country. Just five months before the planned referendum on south Sudan's independence from the north, the government of south Sudan has already expressed an interest in Achak Deng taking on a more national role.
While Marial Bai is still in desperate need of funding, Eggers is certain that it will succeed. He has promised to help Achak Deng "whenever or wherever he needs me". But, he adds: "I don't think he needs me very often. I think with his knowledge and his ability to get things done, there's no limit to the impact he can have in south Sudan." Read More......
When Eggers met Achak Deng seven years ago neither of them could have predicted that they would end up building a school together
The sound of the generator clicking on at 9pm in Marial Bai secondary school, south Sudan, is a noise that students know well. In a region with no electricity or running water and battered by more than two decades of civil war, the three hours of generated power allow a little more time to prepare for the next morning's physics exam. The young men and women pick up their notebooks to study through the night. They are here tonight thanks to the generator, but mostly thanks to two particular friends, who value action over debate.
Sudanese refugee Valentino Achak Deng had been in the US for a year when, in 2002, he told Mary Williams, daughter of Jane Fonda and founder of the Lost Boys Foundation, that he wanted to tell the real story of south Sudan's "Lost Boys" in a book. When she recommended the American writer Dave Eggers to assist, her logic seemed clear: Eggers had gained literary recognition through publishing a memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, that chronicled life after the death of both of his parents within a five-week period, and Valentino had not seen his parents since he was nine years old. "She said he will understand you better than any other writer," says Achak Deng.
But when Eggers and Achak Deng first met in Atlanta seven years ago, neither realised they were about to embark on a lasting friendship that would span continents, cultures and wars, and would even lead to the building of a school.
"I went to Atlanta to meet with Val and Mary, not really expecting to undertake a four-year project," recalls Eggers, who is based in San Francisco. "But Val and I got along so well, and his story seemed so urgent, that I felt I would at least try to do it justice."
Achak Deng was one of an estimated group of 27,000 young southern Sudanese boys who were forced to leave their homes, families and villages during the 22-year Sudanese civil war, which killed more than 2 million Sudanese and displaced 4 million more. Chased out of their villages by government-armed Arab militias from north Sudan, the unaccompanied children – largely boys – walked for months across their country. They were named "Lost Boys" by aid workers, who likened their appearance to the orphans in JM Barrie's Peter Pan.
"The connotation in the US implied that we were lost and that we didn't know anything, that we had no nation, no families, that we were unruly," says Achak Deng today, looking out over his school in the dusty terrain of Marial Bai, south Sudan. "But I never considered myself lost, not a single day, even when I would see a fellow countryman dead, I knew that I was doing something that would be tangible in the future, if I was to survive."
Twenty-three years after the nine-year-old Achak Deng played under the bottom of his tree and saw the Northern army advance, he appears anything but lost. In fact, while Eggers immortalised his story in his 2006 best-selling novel, What Is The What, which Barack Obama advised every one of his White House aides to read, the real beneficiaries of the transatlantic friendship are the 260 Sudanese students now enrolled in their region's first functioning secondary school, built thanks to Eggers and Achak Deng.
Things have changed since 2003, when there were estimated to be only 500 remaining inhabitants in Marial Bai, and when Eggers accompanied Achak Deng on his first trip back home in 17 years. As the first "Lost Boy" to return to South Sudan, Achak Deng boarded three planes with Eggers and travelled into Marial Bai on a noisy cargo flight, packed to the rafters with bicycles, medicines and grain.
When they landed, Achak Deng was able to hug his own aged parents on the airstrip. "It made me realise I had been lucky, because although I had to go from one refugee camp to another or from one country to another, I had escaped, and many people hadn't. It helped me visualise things like this school, projects that I could build, how I could use my experience, and life and friendships in America in a way that could help transform this community." For Achak Deng, that trip was also a defining moment between him and Eggers. "He flew into Sudan at a time when westerners were not allowed to come here, so already I had seen him put himself at risk. Whatever it would take, I knew it was a point of trust then, not just a book."
While Eggers and Achak Deng always knew they would use the money from What Is The What to help rebuild Achak Deng's hometown, it was not until the pair returned to Marial Bai in 2007 that the need for a secondary school became clear. While 48% of children are now officially enrolled at primary school, only 3% attend any secondary education in south Sudan. In Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, where Marial Bai resides, only 0.3% of 14- to 17-year-olds attended secondary school last year.
"We went back to his town, after the book came out, and told the elders that there would be money coming to a new foundation, and that Val planned to build a school," explains Eggers. "Then we listened for a week or so in countless meetings. What we learned was that they needed a secondary school above all. Thus we learned a lot by listening first – something I always recommend, but which some NGOs don't necessarily do." During that trip, Achak Deng was ceded some land outside of Marial Bai's main marketplace for his school. "There was a ceremony to bless the land and the whole community came out," says Eggers.
According to the most recent census, 51% of south Sudan's population are under 17 years of age, yet there are only 10 government-run secondary schools nationwide. While Marial Bai secondary school is built out of locally made bricks, other construction materials, such as timber, iron and cement, had to be purchased in Uganda and brought over by lorries, bikes and boats. The aim was to hire local teachers, but in some states as few as 2% of teachers have had any training, making it difficult to recruit staff for the school.
Yet, for a man who spent 13 years in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, such problems were merely obstacles to be overcome. And a year ago, after 10 months' construction, the school opened its doors. Despite being 150 miles from the nearest paved road, the Marial Bai secondary school had 85 students, 12 of whom were girls, who had made it through the screening exam. They started their classes before the school was even fitted with windows and doors.
"I believe a person who spent a minute in the class is better than someone who never did," says Achak Deng. "I also believe everything is possible, and it's just the determination and faith people put in it. I know we didn't have bulldozers, or big carriers, or even professional teachers at the time, but we could not wait and wait and wait until someone else came in and decided there was a school here. No, we needed to build it ourselves."
A year on, one of the biggest challenges Achak Deng faces is encouraging families to allow their girls to attend. According to a 2006 survey, only 2.5% of women aged between 15 and 24 in south Sudan are literate, compared to 56.4% of women in the north. Girls in south Sudan are still more likely to die in childbirth than they are to finish primary school.
Yet armed with knowledge of the community, Achak Deng took to the road to make sure that more than the current 22 girls can attend his school. After visiting families all over his state, he built two female dormitories so that at least 100 women can stay at the school and be free from the responsibilities they have at home. Female students like 17-year-old Aquiliana Adhel Majok, whose mother sent her to be educated in Kenya during the war. Aquiliana is happy to be one of the first girls to board at the school.
"This is the best school in south Sudan and we are all very, very proud to be here," says Aquiliana, who returned to Marial Bai last year from Kenya. "In Sudan, so many girls used to go to primary school, but then they give up, get married, and stay at home. Whenever other girls see us female students in uniform at the market, they wish they could go to secondary school as well, so they could learn."
For Eggers, the school in Sudan is "a life-changing thing". Reflecting on its first year, he says: "Before it was built, there were few options for those who graduated from primary schools. And there were almost no opportunities at all for young girls. But now students are coming from hundreds of miles around to attend the school, and this is an essential development to the rebuilding of south Sudan."
Citing his friend's "single-mindedness" as crucial to the school's success, he adds: "We see things in a very similar way, and that is why we've been close partners for so long. I think it comes down to the fact that both of us are more bricks-and-mortar people than theory people. We didn't spend years designing the school in the US, with theories and abstract ideas. We agreed that the better idea would be to focus on what the people of Marial Bai needed, and then get started right away."
Now, with three Kenyan teachers and five Sudanese teachers, who have returned home after a decade of displacement, Marial Bai secondary school is attracting praise from across the country. Just five months before the planned referendum on south Sudan's independence from the north, the government of south Sudan has already expressed an interest in Achak Deng taking on a more national role.
While Marial Bai is still in desperate need of funding, Eggers is certain that it will succeed. He has promised to help Achak Deng "whenever or wherever he needs me". But, he adds: "I don't think he needs me very often. I think with his knowledge and his ability to get things done, there's no limit to the impact he can have in south Sudan." Read More......
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