Blue Kitabu Revolutionizing Aid

Boston Tutoring Services is introducing a new series of blogposts about local nonprofit organizations. Our goals are to raise awareness about their work and to share how other people can get involved. If you or someone you know is part of, has worked with, or knows about a local nonprofit, please contact us and share your experiences. All submissions are welcome!

In the fifth part of our nonprofit series, Boston Tutoring Services interviews Elizabeth M. Barreras, Executive Director at Blue Kitabu. If you want to check out our last interview in the series, you can access it here.

Boston Tutoring Services: Tell me a little about your organization.
Elizabeth M. Barreras: Blue Kitabu was started in September of 2007 and was co-founded by me and Alex Rivest.  Our inspiration came from seeing detrimental aid in developing countries — aid that focused on what the volunteer could get out of an experience without determining what was best for a community.  For example, I taught at a school in Ghana where the real teacher slept in the back of the room.  Alex built a chicken coop for a community while the community sat back and watched him.  We see no value in projects like this, except for the volunteer.

BTS: What are the organization’s biggest goals? What is its mission?
EB: We believe that education is a basic human right and that every child in the world deserves the opportunity to attend school so they can brighten their future.  Blue Kitabu believes that by providing schools and communities with viable business models, we can reduce or eliminate aid dependence and promote sustainability.  Blue Kitabu works with communities and community leaders to build educational infrastructure, needed business and markets, materials and teacher training to the most vulnerable populations.  This is all done with the expectation that our students will become citizens of consequence when presented with the right opportunities.

BTS: What is the most gratifying aspect of your work?
EB:  I think the most gratifying part of my work is being able to get both the local communities in Africa and our students in the US to think about development in a different way.  When community leaders have to devise business strategies to sustain their projects, they take ownership of their community instead of looking for a constant funding source from abroad.  When we take students from the US on fellowship trips to these communities, they realize how empowering it is to allow communities to take the lead.  Students transform their paternalistic ideas of aid into constructively working together with communities.

BTS: What are some of the most difficult challenges and setbacks your organization has faced/continues to face?
EB: Staffing and funding are our primary issues.  I started medical school in August of 2013 and I still do the administrative work necessary to maintain the organization.  Alex corresponds with our project to ensure they are maintaining themselves.  Without at least one full time staff member, it is very difficult to expand our organization but we make do with what we have.

BTS: What are some of the organization’s greatest accomplishments?
EB: The first free school to disadvantaged children in Ghana was built and opened by us (Pathfinder International Academy) and continues to be run by local staff and is constantly being expanded.  This was one of our greatest accomplishments, because the project had constant setbacks and instead of being done in 1.5 years, it took us nearly 5 years of persistence, sweat and tears.  It finally opened two years ago.  One of our other hallmark accomplishments was the creation of the Blue Kitabu Research Institute which has taken 40 undergraduate and graduate students from the US to Ghana and Kenya to conduct research in sustainable international development.  Some of their papers are published on our website.

BTS: How can other people get involved?
EB: We are in the process of reinventing the organization to include health-related sustainability measures, so we currently do not have any volunteer or fellowship opportunities available; however we expect that we will in the coming years.  To stay in touch, people should sign up for our newsletter: http://www.bluekitabu.org/newsletter.html.

Pathfinder International Academy in Asebu, Ghana
photo from Blue Kitabu’s website