Interview with Mr. Ajania, Founder of Pencils for Africa
An Interview with Pencils for Africa Founder, Mr. Karim Ajania
by
Gloria Robinson, Editor-in-Chief
It all started in our Art Studio class at the beginning of this year. I came in as a new student entering the 7th grade class at St. Hilary School. During the middle of September, I had my first Art Studio class.
My teacher, Ms. Weitzman, taught my class about the African culture through a book called, African Alphabets, The Story of Writing in Africa, by Saki Mafundikawa. Our class created prints using the different graphic alphabets from this book.
Along with this book we also started to learn about a program called Pencils for Africa that was presented to our school through Mr. Karim Ajania. The simple version is that we, the students, are collecting used pencils from all the classrooms and sending them to Africa. Each pencil will help a student enter into the school. We are only collecting used pencils, this is important because a used pencil helps with the teaching of recycling, and reusing, instead of consuming and replacing for new items. This project has also meant so much more then just collecting pencils for the students. It has an important lesson in inclusion and global outreach. I was honored to have an interview with Mr. Ajania and learned and discussed a wider meaning of this program and hopes for the future that Mr. Ajania has by presenting this program to our school.
Below is a yearbook photo of Mr. Ajania when he was in middle school in Kenya:
Mr. Ajania was born in Kenya and though he went to school where they were able to afford pencils, as he traveled around Africa, he found that parents in rural areas could not afford them. As we continued to talk about the reasons for collecting used pencils instead of new ones Mr. Ajania said, “ What I was looking for is to build a sense of a global community. It is not about sending money, it is about creating the potential for the pencil… the real value of the pencil is what the students would do with it, such as drawing or writing poetry.” I started to understand that the global understanding was that we, here in America had the same potential with the used pencil as the students in Africa would have with the same pencil. As Ms. Weitzman said, “It makes the playing field the same.”
He has hopes of connecting all kinds of schools including and especially those schools that do not have a classroom that use a tree, like the baobab tree for a classroom.
In asking Mr. Ajania about the rewards and challenges about starting this program he said he felt strongly about, “Raising awareness of how people live in other parts of the world. As well as bringing about a message about recycling and reusing instead of buying new and consuming more.” In discussing the future for Pencils for Africa, Mr. Ajania discussed the quality of the program and that he has hopes of connecting all kinds of schools including and especially those schools that do not have a classroom that use a tree, like the baobab tree for a classroom. His hope is to reach children in conflict areas. Mr. Ajania said, “To me it is about how can we try harder to hear the voices of people who don’t really have a voice.” For me, as a student at St. Hilary the program is about learning a new culture and learning how people in Africa see the world. It is also about exposing yourself to a culture you do not know much about. As well as giving us, the students at St. Hilary School the opportunity to learn a new culture and reach out to other students through sending pencils that we have used. It is exciting to think that the pencil I wrote my notes and sketched with will touch a student so far away in Africa in hopes that the same pencil will open endless creative possibilities for them as well.
(The above interview will be published in Fast Forward Magazine)
