Amika's African Studies Blog

In Kenya, a science teacher has been crowned the world's best teacher after winning the 2019 Global Teacher Prize. Peter Tabichi, a teacher at Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School in Pwani Village in Nakuru, won a $1 million prize on Sunday. He has been a teacher for about 12 years now. The finalists for this award were selected from over 10,000 nominees and applications from 179 countries around the world. Peter Tabichi was praised for giving away 80 percent of his monthly salary to help poor students in his school. "They learn in poorly-equipped classrooms. Their lives are tough in a region where drought and famine are frequent" he said. Drug abuse, teenage pregnancies, dropping out from school, young marriages and suicide are common in the community but he believes they can beat the odds if only they dream big and work hard. Peter has dedicated his life to the community and trains the residents and students on new farming methods to also address food insecurity in the fam...

I believe it was last week on Friday when cyclone Idai struck in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi (Malawi was the first country to be affected). From recent reports that I've seen, the death toll has risen up to 215 in some places. More than 1.5 million people have been affected and hundreds of people are missing across the three Southern African countries. At least 126 people were killed in Mozambique and Malawi and on Monday, Zimbabwe announced that the information ministry put the number of dead up to 89 for the country. Majority of the damage happened in the central port city of Beira, 90% of it has been destroyed reports say. Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi said that he feared the death toll could rise up to 1,000 in the country. In Zimbabwe, the cyclone had destroyed the eastern and southern parts, which created a humanitarian crisis and more than 83,000 people have been displaced in Malawi by the flash floods. While figuring out what to do for my blog post, this wa...

I first heard of the plane crash that happened in Ethiopia on Twitter over the weekend but I didn't actually take the time to read any articles until now. An article that I found talked about villagers that were near the site of where the plane crashed. The villagers shared the stories of what they were doing and what they heard when the plane had crashed. One person that was interviewed at the village is a father of three named Atlaw remembered what he was doing when he heard the plane crashed. "I was having breakfast before going to church when I saw a plane falling from the sky". "I heard four large explosions. I have never heard anything that loud". That particular village that he lived in lies about 500 meters from the site where the plane crashed. "Body parts were everywhere. Some were even burning. There was a massive fire". "Although we don't yet know the cause of the accident, we had to decide to ground the particular fleet as extra...