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http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/24/bbtv-world-green-tec.html
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BBtv World: Green tech and internet at the Songhai Center in Benin (Africa)
Posted by Xeni Jardin, September 24, 2008 10:27 AM | permalink

In this installment of Boing Boing tv's ongoing BBtv WORLD series, I travel to the West African nation of Benin to visit 
the Songhaï Center, a green tech project designed to develop a new generation of "agricultural entrepreneurs," and 
foster economic sustainability.

Benin is nestled between Ghana, Togo, and Nigeria along the continent's midwest coast -- this shore was historically 
known as the "Slave Coast," and Benin was a major center in export of slave labor to the Americas. Today, Benin's people 
are struggling with a cultural shift from a traditional, mostly agrarian society, to a more urban, industrialized 
economy -- and the largely impoverished country depends on foreign aid.

The Songhaï Center was founded in the mid-'80s by Father Godfrey Nzamujo, a Dominican priest and Nigerian native, on a 
few acres of swampland granted by Benin's former president. What began as an experiment in small-scale sustainable 
development to fight poverty has since become a popular institution, and a symbol of Africa's potential for 
self-determination and prosperity.

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Aid creates dependence, but small businesses foster independence, the group's logic goes -- and unlike other 
anti-poverty projects, this one exports more than it imports: specialty food and beverage products produced here (cashew 
butter, cookies, fruit beverages) are sold and shipped to France and elsewhere around the world.

In this episode, we walk through the main Songhaï Center in Porto Novo, a coastal town near the Nigerian border, and we 
witness a variety of projects in action -- "integrated farming, biomass gasification, microenterprise and IT for rural 
communities." Here, agricultural and technical pursuits merge in uniquely African ways.

We see women hulling cashew nuts; mango soda whooshing into bottles in a soda bottling factory; barnyard critters 
(including the furry and tasty bush critters known as "sugar cane rats"); people sifting maize flour and baking fresh 
bread for sale; workers harvesting manioc, papayas, and giant mushrooms; and buzzing activity in the adjacent internet 
"telecentre."

Each of those parts interlock to form a massive, carefully-engineered, green tech puzzle: scrap metal is welded into 
parts that would cost too much to buy from overseas. Insects grown on scraps from the restaurant feed fish cultivated in 
the aquaculture area; water hyacinths at the edge of those pools help filter "black water" in the sewage system; solar 
panels power the internet cafe; coconut husks discarded in food production serve as a base on which to cultivate giant 
mushrooms. One area's waste becomes another component's fuel input, and the resulting products cost less than they would 
through contemporary, Western means.

There are 6 Songhaï Centers throughout Benin, and plans for opening more tech/agriculture hubs in Nigeria, Gabon, Congo, 
Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. They offer voice over internet and wifi at current sites in Benin, and plan to expand 
into rural telephone and ISP services, as the project grows.

-- Xeni Jardin


(Xeni shot the video footage, and the stills in this blog post; special thanks to Leonce Sessou, the center's head of 
technology.)
posted in: BBtv ,  BBtv World ,  Environment ,  Gadgets ,  Green ,  Happy 
Mutants ,  Innovation ,  Video
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Discussion
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#1 posted by mgfarrelly , September 24, 2008 10:43 AM

YES! Oh this is fantastic. Using green technology to help bootstrap African 
nations is such a laudable thing. Great story!
Take a look at this
#2 posted by Joel Johnson Author Profile Page, September 24, 2008 11:35 AM

So good.
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#3 posted by MrsBug , September 24, 2008 12:13 PM

Oh man, that's the little pill of Hope I needed today! Lovely.

You might also be interested in the work of Sustainable Harvest. Sounds 
similar.
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#4 posted by wolfiesma , September 24, 2008 12:40 PM

WOW...that looks amazing. New word for the day: Biodigester.

I'm going to look at all the video right now... but, are those quail eggs? They look so petite, and so edible! I like 
aid groups that provide chickens for eggs and goats for milk. That sort of thing. These folks are miles of head of 
anyone I know on the solar thing. Great job.
Take a look at this
#5 posted by Xeni Jardin Author Profile Page, September 24, 2008 12:53 PM

@wolfiesma yes they're quail eggs -- quail make a cameo appearance in the 
episode, too.
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#6 posted by tbell1 , September 24, 2008 1:02 PM

Fantastic! Thanks for posting this. I lived in Benin in the early 90's while in the Peace Corps. I would love to go back 
and visit one of these centers.
Take a look at this
#7 posted by Anonymous , September 24, 2008 1:20 PM

Lovely BB post. I do have a question though regarding the t-mobile commercial...anyone know the group who is playing the 
song in it? Sounds like a country-type song. I can't seem to find out anywhere what it's from.
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#8 posted by marksurman , September 24, 2008 1:31 PM

Great piece, Xeni. The Songhai people are amazing. I am glad you got to share 
they're story. Fun.
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#9 posted by ansel , September 24, 2008 1:42 PM

Awesome project, great video. Thank you BB. We need more of these centers, 
everywhere, including in US cities.
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#10 posted by christineprefontaine , September 24, 2008 3:47 PM

Father Nzamujo, Leonce, and the Songhai crew are inspirational. But those aren't simply "insects" that feed the fish -- 
they're maggots. It's a maggot farm. Seeing how they produce food from garbage was one of the highlights of visiting 
Songahi.
Take a look at this
#11 posted by wolfiesma , September 24, 2008 5:48 PM

We get some pretty gnarly grubby maggoty looking things in our compost. I figure they can chow down on a lot of kitchen 
scraps and eventually they just sort of get mixed back in with the soil.

Feeding them to fish is so smart. Fish farms have a reputation for being polluting, but on a small scale it seems like a 
good way to raise food.

Xeni- first you interview David Byrne and then you go to Africa to report on 
this? You are too cool for school.
Take a look at this
#12 posted by Xeni Jardin Author Profile Page, September 24, 2008 8:31 PM

@christineprefontaine, you are right! That's cool, you've visited too! The critters growing on that trash, which by the 
way smelled truly horrible, were maggots. I don't know why I didn't use that word, it's more precise. Forgive me. The 
stuff they were feeding on included carcass waste, like, meat scraps and stuff, and was super rank in the hot Beninese 
sun... but I went to the center's little restaurant and noshed on some fish grown on those mealygrubs. The fish was 
delish. The whole place was very cool.
Take a look at this
#13 posted by Baldhead , September 25, 2008 9:14 AM

That was awesome. And it seems the right way to do it. Take people with almost no infrastructure to be attached to and 
give them a new, better one than is used almost anywhere.
Take a look at this
#14 posted by Leoncesessou , September 26, 2008 3:07 AM

Xeni,
Thanks for posting this. I just want to add some ideas. As you said, the Songhai model is based on the interelationship 
between environmental resources, agriculture, technology industry and services. It also explicity incoporates a human 
capacity develpment component, an integrated package of technical, managerial, value based leadership and 
entrepreneurial skill development. The model therefore creates opportunities for rural communities to participate in the 
sustainable use and management of their local resources while promoting local economic development. In this business, we 
call it "business unusual", Songhai acts as a mother enterprise surounded by small agri-entreprises created by the young 
graduates. This experience is recognized globally as one of Africa based initiatives which achieved notable success in 
addressing rural growth and poverty. It has been highlighted last year during the UN South-South Cooperation Conference 
as one of the best practices that have to be promoted for South-South cooperation. Hence the UN system in partnership 
with some African governments is scaling up the model ensuring that its services benefit the Africa region (this is the 
vision of its founder Fr Godfrey Nzamujo). 12 countries and 5 UN agencies are already involved in this project that will 
progessively be extended to the others.
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