Millennium Villages Blog

Editors visit the Sauri fish farm

In June, a group of 12 senior editors and producers from U.S. media houses visited the Sauri Millennium Village in Western Kenya to witness firsthand development programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on agriculture and food security.

For all of them, it was a first visit to Kenya, and for some the first trip to Africa. Standing in green, crop-heavy fields, the group listened to farmers explain how improved seeds and fertilizer had changed their lives in a matter of a couple of years.

Sauri farmer, Edward Adika, talks to the group

Unfazed by the cameras and the microphones pointing at him, Edward Adika took the group on a tour of his plot, showing them his new cash crops (banana and beans) and his thriving maize. "Before the project started, I harvested 4 to 5 bags of maize. Now I can produce 12 bags on half of my plot, while the rest is planted with banana trees and beans," he said.

The group also visited a fish farm and the cereal bank, as well as one of the 31 schools in order to witness the school feeding program and a demonstration of energy saving stoves. In their interaction with the community, they were mostly curious to learn how standards of living had improved, namely the increase in income based on farming results.

Editors interview Mary Asiko, chairwoman of the cereal bank

During the introduction to the Millennium Villages Project (MVP), the editors had the opportunity to ask questions and explore several aspects of development and implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the region. They showed interest in scaling-up initiatives, budget details, and challenges faced by the project.

Their visit took place at a time when debate on aid to Africa is growing and catching more and more of the media’s attention worldwide.

"We’ve heard a lot about people who think that foreign aid is a waste of money. We’ve heard a lot about people who think that there are lots of ways to employ it. One of the things that we need to be able to communicate to the public is that there’s different types of aid, there’s different types of ways of promoting development and that there needs to be an intelligent discussion of all of those things," said Dante Ramos, deputy editorial page editor at the Boston Globe.

Dante added, "As pressed for time as we often are … the challenge for us is to be able to present the full complexity of the issue in the way that it deserves."

The group learns about the school feeding program

The trip was organized by the International Reporting Project (IRP), which is based in Washington at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. The IRP aims to educate U.S. journalists about global issues and to increase and improve the coverage of international topics in the U.S. media.

Other than Sauri, the group visited the Kibera slum and the National Museum in Nairobi, and NGO projects in Laikipia, and met with several Kenyan officials in fields such as politics, business, media, health, education, agriculture, and culture. They also had the opportunity to visit Sarah Obama, U.S. President Barack Obama’s grandmother, at her homestead in Kogelo, a stone’s throw away from Sauri.

The editors and producers who visited Sauri are:
1. Andrea Lynn Crossan, news producer, “The World,” BBC/PRI/WGBH, Boston, MA
2. Kitty Eisele, supervisory senior editor, “Morning Edition,” National Public Radio, Washington DC
3. Stephanie Hanson, news editor, CFR.org, Council on Foreign Relations, New York
4. Richard Just, managing editor, The New Republic, Washington DC
5. Margaret McElligott, senior producer, Washingtonpost.com, Washington DC
6. Miriam Pepper, vice president, editorial page, Kansas City Star, Kansas City, MO
7. Dante Ramos, deputy editorial page editor, The Boston Globe, Boston, MA
8. Monica Richardson, beat department leader, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta, GA
9. Linda Roth, executive producer, CNN, Washington DC
10. Debra Adams Simmons, managing editor, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH
11. Jim Simon, assistant managing editor, Seattle Times, Seattle, WA
12. Greg Winter, assistant foreign editor, The New York Times, New York

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