International Programs Coordinator – Oudou Sanogo
Oudou Sanogo, born in the West African country of Mali, is currently working with United Planet as an International Programs Coordinator while simultaneously pursuing his Masters in Social Justice and Environmental Sustainability. He is a Fulbright Scholar interested in Education and Sustainable International Development and hopes to continue sharpening his skills to fight against injustice both in his home country and across the globe. His work for United Planet has given him yet another platform to promote his love for education.
Listen to our entire conversation below:
Full Transcript:
Charlie: Welcome back to United Planet Radio. This is our fifth show here and we’re here today with
Oudou Sanogo. He is our international programs coordinator currently at United Planet. He’s going
to sit down and talk with us about his background and his experiences. Welcome, Oudou.
Oudou: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Charlie: Absolutely, let’s just get right to it. Can you give the viewers and listeners some insight on
your background?
Oudou: Yeah, sure. My name is Oudou and I’m from Mali, West Africa, just for people wondering
where Mali is, it’s in West Africa. I was born in Ziena. Ziena is a small town in the southern part of
Mali and then I spend most of my time going to elementary school then I went to secondary school
in Zangasso, which is about ten miles from Ziena, and then Koutiala, and then Bamako so it was a
long way. It is unfortunate that in Mali you have to travel along the road from school to school all
the way to college. So, I did my college in Mali. I did a four year college and I was interested in
teaching so I went to a teacher college in Mali, and when I was about to finish with teacher college, I
got a full price scholarship to come to the United States as part of an exchange program. I first came
here in the US in 2006 and I went to South Carolina for a six month language immersion program
and from there I went to Oneida, New York for my college so I spent two years in Oneida then I went
back to Mali in 2008 to help people in the best that I could. So when I went back to Mali, I went back
to what I love doing, teaching, so I was teaching a private school in Mali called Ecole Privée Youchao
we simply just call it Youchao School. I taught there for about three years and then before coming
back here in 2011, when I came back here I worked three jobs. I took some time off, I’ve always
wanted to go to graduate school so I took some time off to really figure out what I really want to do
in my life. I love teaching but when I was back in Mali teaching, I faced some challenges and I
thought maybe there was something else that I could do to really help communities in Mali and
other parts of Africa so I decided that it would be best to do things to really help people. I need
some more scale, I need some more knowledge that I could use to contribute to community
development in Mali. So after a few years, I was here in the US working. I was teaching as language
teacher for French and I was also doing translation, I worked with multiple organizations and then I
decided to come to Brandeis. I found that the incredible program, sustainable international
development, which I really loved so that was just something that I was looking for. So I got to
Brandeis in 2016 and here I am, I finished my first year residency requirement and then I’m doing my
internship here at United Planet as an international program coordinator. So, happy to be here.
Charlie: So that sustainable international development program, that’s through Brandeis?
Oudou: Yes.
Charlie: Can you explain what that’s program is about and what you’ve been doing with them.
Oudou: Yeah, sure. The sustainable international development program in Brandeis I believe is
really unique. I look around for many international programs and a lot of schools will offer a
national program or a national development program that is not very comprehensive, but the
program at Brandeis I believe is really comprehensive. Basically, it is based on three different
powers, we have economic development, we have social justice, and we have environmental
sustainability and that really drew my attention because these are all things that we need in Mali
and other parts of Africa. Whether you’re talking about economic development, it’s a real challenge
in Mali and other parts of Africa, whether you’re talking about social justice, that’s something that
you see every day and experience every day, whether you’re talking about environmental
sustainability that’s a huge issue not only in Mali but also in other developing countries, companies
shipping their production overseas, and they have very little accountability in some other countries
as well as in Mali, making profit with very little accountability to the communities that are doing the
production.
Charlie: What goes into changing the accountability in making sure? Is that regulations? What goes
into making sure that someone doesn’t go into Mali or in another country for example and just
ransack the place?
Oudou: Well, that’s a million dollar question and that’s very interesting. In order to change and have
companies being accountable for what they do, there have to be changes on many levels starting
with respecting regulations in countries, but the problem is a lot of their countries do have
regulations. We have environmental regulation, but the corporation following the regulation, that’s
a big question. Because some of these corporations are so big, they have a lot of money and they
can, as you know in many developing countries, corruption is pretty much present so they can just
grab money and have the power to influence local authorities as well as the government. But one of
the most important things that need to be done is really getting the local communities involved and
the decisions making. They need to be involved, there needs to be a community prison, getting
community voices heard, which we’d probably have to require local community leaders to take some
form of activism not only speaking for other communities but also letting the community know,
educating the community that this is their home and anything that happens here would impact their
lives, or impact their environment, and will impact their income and they need to stand up, and
speak up, and get involved. The may change and demand change not only for the corporations but
also for the government.
Charlie: So it sounds like that stems from education first, right?
Oudou: Yes, it has to do with education but the reality is, in Mali, I will say I don’t know the number
now, but there is a large number of our population who cannot read or write so illiteracy is a huge
issue in Mali and other parts of Africa and it’s mostly among the older people but even some of the
young people who do not have access to education and just dropping out because their system just
failed them. So if we wait to educate the communities, to get them access to education before we
can get involved in the activism to the main change, that’s going to take years. One of my favourite
authors is Freire Paulo. So, Freire Paulo did a great job in Brazil. There is a system and there are
ways to get uneducated people involved and demand changes. They don’t have to be literate, they
don’t have to go to school, just because they can’t read and write doesn’t mean that they don’t
know a lot of things, a lot of these folks have a lot of knowledge and which is actually one of things
we do at Brandeis. So we’re actually trying to harness local community knowledge, but I do have a
little knowledge whether it’s just local knowledge of the environment or it can even be some
technique that we’ve been using for years. They do have some survival skills which are important so
we can’t just ship away from those so those are important. They’ve been there for many years as
some of those survival skills have allowed them to pretty much live a good life and if you want to
compare, just go back home many decades ago and compare their lives to today. It’s interesting
that some people will tell you that those were better days than today because they had some
survival skills, some knowledge that we need to harness and incorporate with technologies, and
incorporate with educated people, just work as a team to demand accountability for local authority,
for the government, and for the corporate companies.
Charlie: Can you mention who that writer was again?
Oudou: It was Freire Paolo. He was mostly an educator, but he did a great job. So he is well known
for his — his famous book is the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which is really my favourite. I read it in
college and again at Brandeis University. One of my favourite professors, Professor Simon, also
teaches a seminar for Freire Paulo. So, what Paulo really was doing is harnessing the skills and
knowledge of the less fortunate and economically, socially, education-wise, kind of finding a better
way getting to work in our development because the way he put the oppressions works is there is an
oppressor and there is the oppressed. I really love this book because when I was reading it, I really
felt like it was reading my own life. In Mali, you see oppression everywhere and one of my favourite
quotes is that, just to explain briefly, the thinking and the behaviour of the oppressed is pretty much
like a prescription from the oppressor so whatever the oppressed is doing as a behaviour is pretty
much prescribed somewhere from the top, from the oppressor, which is very interesting to me so in
order to alleviate poverty and get things going, this is something we need to work on. So we need to
find ways to build a critical thinking in the oppressed people telling them that this is not your
destiny, this is not just how your life should be, there is a way out, you need to find a way out, this is
what’s happening and this is what you need to do and they find their own way so just need to create
the awareness and help them think critically for themselves and they find their own solutions you
don’t impose, you don’t prescribe the solution to them, they’re the one leaving the problem so they
do have some solutions. When they wake up, if you push work and you are able to just get the
critical thinking stimulated, they will be able to come up with their own solutions, and once they
figure that out, then you can work as a team to find their own developmental need and also define
their own development. Clean water isn’t poor, but isn’t bringing clean water to the community
what they call development? Maybe not so they probably have something else that is a priority for
them that they will define as developmental need. So once they wake up, they will define their own
developmental need and all they need is an uplifting so you just help them through the way they
want to go.
Charlie: Interesting. I’m going to backtrack just a little bit and give people some insight. Paulo Freire
was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy which, for
those of you who don’t know, is a philosophy of education and social movement that has developed
in applied concepts from critical theory and related traditions to the field of education and the study
of culture. Yeah, that’s very amazing. Now let’s talk. Before we started the show, we were speaking
about an article you had read which, correct me if I’m wrong, was surrounded by mining in Mali.
Oudou: Yeah, that’s correct. Mali does a lot of mining. For the record, I believe — it could’ve
changed — last year Mali was the third largest gold-mining company in Africa after South Africa and
Ghana. Most of the mining companies are pretty much in the southern part of Mali. I was reading
an interesting article that really — wish there was a way I can get involved. So what’s happening is
that there are two companies, Randgold and Ashanti Gold. So those companies operate in most of
the mining activities in Mali and they were talking about a village, Dombia. Dombia is a village in
southern Mali. So, the company knew how to deal with the government and just came and before
you know it, the villagers know there was a constructing going on there to start digging for gold and
the funny thing is it looked like they didn’t do any community appraisal so the local people were
uninvolved and the only thing that works in Mali are smaller village levels, there is a village chief,
there is a mayor and the village chief is pretty much the smartest person for the village traditionally,
most of the time you are more highly respected than the mayor so the mayor is just like a new
system. When they talked to the village chief, he wasn’t even aware neither were many people and
many community leaders weren’t informed about this activity, this deal that they cut with the
government and they were just trying their best, raising their voices to see how they can get this
thing to stop and one other thing that struck me the most was that they were talking about how
close the mining construction was to one of their schools and I believe they said it was fifty meters
—that’s how close the mining construction was to the school. I was thinking how in the world can
any organization or any government, any community leader would allow a construction activity to
happen fifty meters from a school. Education should be priority everywhere and not only just the
education, the noises that the construction is going to make, I wonder how the students are going to
be able to concentrate in their classes, and on top of that it’s in a village and one of the concerns
among the villagers and I think they have a really legitimate concern here, is the potential
environmental impact, health impact that this mining activity can have on the community. The
chemical that they’re going to be injecting — the chemical from the gold mining activity — can leach
into the local wells. As you may now, mostly I will say probably 90 to 95% of the drinking water —
the clean water from the village level — come from the wells so these people are using the well
water for pretty much everything they need, for cooking, for drinking, for their daily needs, and the
chemical leaching into the water could have a major health impact on not only the community at
large but also particularly the children. There has been some major studies that do confirm that
some chemicals, particular lead, could have a major impact on the brain of little kids and that can
also impact the educational leader. It may be impacted by some of these chemicals that they’re
releasing into their water and these kids are just not going to make it to school. It’s just unfortunate.
One of the other things that I find really interesting and funny is that the article is pointing out that
the President of the Malian Human Rights Association is actually from that village and I’m wondering
how connected are those people to their villages? Just because you made it the capital, you have a
great job that doesn’t mean that you should turn your back on your people. He should be the
greatest resource that this village ever had. As a human rights president, he should be advocating
for the village not just for political reasons in the capital so this is an important thing that people
need to know. Pretty much most of the leaders that you see in the capital, Bamako, they are either
first-generation coming from their village or maybe a second-generation from their village and they
should connect to their villages who are the most left behind politically, economically, and socially so
they should get connected to their villages and really help them address some of these issues that
they can’t on their own. Because if you don’t have any connections, if there isn’t an official in
Bamako making this decision, there’s no way your voice can be heard so this mining company has a
very good deal with the government promising some money, that’s probably it. But they are fighting
that’s a good thing so I hope they can ultimately be able to do something about it.
Charlie: Yeah, absolutely. So you’re currently in Boston. You’re currently trying to obtain your
Master’s. What is next?
Oudou: Well, what is next is also a very good question. I’ve come a long way. From Mali, from
Ziena, Koutiala, Bamako, and the US so the more I learn, the more I study, the more concerned I
become about not only the local issues in Mali but about the global issues. Doing a Master’s in the
sustainable international development of Brandeis had taught me many things, many challenges
that remain not only for developing countries but even in developed countries that we need to face.
Now I feel like having this opportunity, having this advantage, getting the access to the knowledge,
and the skills, I feel like I owe it not only to the people in Mali but also to the world. Now I consider
myself a global citizen who needs to be involved in social justice, economic justice, environmental
justice, wherever that may be although my first priority would be Mali, West Africa, but I will do
everything that I can so that many people can benefit from the skill and the knowledge that I have
whether that be in Mali, whether that be somewhere in a village in Mali, whether that be
somewhere in Africa, the US, anywhere but, ultimately, my goal is to be able to really get involved in
community development in Mali. Whether be in there physically helping people which I hope to be
soon, but also I can be anywhere in the world and still be involved in community development. With
technology nowadays, you don’t have to be right in the spot, physically there has to be two in a
fight, there are people connected around the world fighting social injustice, economic injustice, and
environmental injustice everywhere so you could advocate for people from wherever you live.
Charlie: Awesome, that is some great stuff we got today. Thank you so much, Oudou. If you’ve got
anything else to say, feel free this is your time.
Oudou: Thank you having me, it was a great talk and I just want to say thank you, everybody and
continue to fight, I’ll ask people to get more involved in causes that advance social justice, economic
development, and mostly environmental sustainability and mostly in African countries like Mali.
Mali is facing a lot of scary challenges and also economic development challenges so if you add all of
those up, it’s a big challenge and I will recommend people to really look at this part of the world.
Africa is not one country, there are over fifty different countries in Africa. Mali and many developing
countries are facing real development challenges and I will encourage particularly the diasporas. A
lot of people coming from Africa or from Mali, I will ask them to not to turn their back, look back and
find a way to give back to your community whether it’s financial, anything that they can benefit from
you, is what I will tell. I believe that if a diaspora can find a way to connect to their people and help
in certain way, I think that will be a great thing not just for diasporas, but my first call will be to the
diasporas, the African Malian diasporas, and any groups of citizens who are concerned about social
injustice, economic injustice around the world. Just give your best that you can to get involved.
Thank you.
Charlie: Again, that goes for most things in our current state. Constantly look back to not only where
you’re from, but where you’re friends and families and the people you’ve met along the way are
from as well. Thank you so much, Oudou. It was a pleasure to have you here in the office and we
will see you guys next week.
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