By Marieke Hopman - 16 November 2017
Monday 13 November
Started the day going to Grand Café. Wanted to try get in touch with the written press. At Grand Café, they sell CAR newspapers. Bought a few and called the numbers of journalist. The first one I spoke to about the research immediately was very enthusiastic and wanted to come see me right away. Great! However, when he arrived, I quickly understood that, in order for anything about my research to get published, I would have to pay. And so I learned that free press does not exist in CAR – in fact, all articles in all the newspapers are bought. And they cost about 70.000 CFA (€ 120) for two pages, which is an enormous amount of money, especially in CAR. And mind you, newspapers are not handed out for free either! Was very tempted for a moment, to pay anyway because I think sharing the results is so important.. but decided against it.
I also went to see the guy who sells books next to Grand Cafe. Had given him a report 2 days before, to see if he could sell it (to “test” the interest in the issue and the report of locals) – and he had! Sold it for 2000 CFA (about € 3. In comparison: a bread costs 100 CFA. So seems like it does have indeed value to local people!).
Then, my last time teaching future teachers at the university. Again great discussions, my only sorrow being not nearly having enough reports to hand out – which has been an issue all throughout this visit..!!
In the afternoon I went with my research assistant into her neighborhood to collect data, images, testimonies and chicottes for the theater play on CAR (which, by the way, will be tried out on 24-26 November in Rotterdam. You are all invited, tickets are free, but places are limited. Please email me if you’d like to come (
Tuesday 14 November
During the night I got pretty sick. So far, every visit to CAR I have been sick, which is not surprising due to the very poor hygienic circumstances compared to back home. I was very cautious this time because no time for sickness…however, it caught up with me. I was going to soldier through, because it was my last day and there was way too much left to do. Started the day going to CARITAS office but while there, could hardly sit up and also really had to be near a toilet .. so decided to go back and lie down. Postponed my meeting with an employee of the ministry of education so as to hopefully regain a little strength. At the mean time, however, someone in the PK5 neighborhood had thrown a grenade into a school which allegedly killed 3 children. This shook up the community pretty badly, which meant that a) I couldn’t get organized with the radio station Ndeke Luka to organize the radio debate about education in CAR that I wanted to organize with the cardinal, imam and former minister of education, and b) I think this engaged the employee I wanted to speak too because I could not get in touch anymore.
So I basically spent my last day lying in bed, feeling awful and frustrated and depressed and contemplating about the use of it all and whether this whole research project had made any sense at all (more about that in my next post).
Luckily, in the evening my dear friends/colleagues from CARITAS came to pick me up and take me out, even if I didn’t eat much, at least to say goodbye. I was very grateful. Also I could arrange with them to bring the last reports I’d saved, to the ministry of education, and to give the report on a USB to the conseiller technique, who will put it into a digital system he’s setting up which will most likely mean that 1-2 years from now, through the distribution of e-readers to all CAR teachers (this is his amazing project!!), ALL teachers in CAR will be able to read my report.
LOVED spending some time in the
neighborhood, playing around
with some of the kids!
Friday 10 November
Started my day again with teaching/discussing the research with a group of teachers and administrators. I wasn’t quite sure whether to do so many sessions with high school teachers, who are in university, as this is clearly a more privileged group compared to the rest of the country. Also most children in this country will never ever attend high school so was this really the group to spend time and energy on? However, when talking to them it turned out to actually be quite useful. It has been about 10 years (they say) during which students are educated to become teachers (even if very little), but after their studies there are no jobs for them in the public sector. Although there obviously is a great shortage of qualified teachers, the problem is that the state does not want them on a payroll. Therefore after their studies, they disappear either to teach in private education or to do other jobs. So who am I talking to? Where do they come from, and what will they do next? It’s hard to tell. They are at least people who are interested in education, and people who are relatively high educated. They might be future educators, future politicians, future activists. Seeing how lively our discussions were, I do think, and hope, that there is a use for discussing these subjects with them. A great discussion we had was about corruption in schools. A brave student stood up and said that even in their university there is a lot of corruption. What can we do about it? It will never stop if we keep teaching corruption to children, by forcing them to pay for their marks, either with money or by sexual activities.
Saturday 11 & Sunday 12 November
On Saturday I was invited by the former minister of education, Gisèle Bedan, for lunch. What an amazing woman! So passionate, energetic, courageous.. We had a great discussion about education in CAR, which lasted (without noticing) for hours. She told me about how she fought corruption especially on the level of high school exams, and how in the end she had to resign because of numerous death threats.
My plan for the afternoon was to visit my research assistant Petrouchka and to collect information and artifacts for the theater piece we are preparing in Maastricht, about education in CAR. However, my phone had stopped working. It turned out I needed to show my identification at the Telecell shop, which wasn’t open in the weekend. Bought a new sim card, which then turned out not to fit into the Iphone. Tried to use my old Nokia, but at that moment there was no electricity in the room where I was staying so I couldn’t charge it. It became dark (around 18h) and it started to rain, thunder and lightening. So as I couldn’t contact anyone, I found myself locked in in my room, with no light. Decided to go to bed early and try again the next day.
Sunday morning, Nokia did not work, tried calling people with my Dutch number. Did not work, probably because people do not have enough phone credit to pick up, as it costs them money too. Finally managed to contact a friend who proposed to pick me up so that at least I could get out of the room. I was hoping to get in touch with my assistant later and get to work. Unfortunately I only heard from her in the late afternoon. It turned out that the evening before, a grenade had exploded in the neighborhood next to her house, with two killed and several wounded. It was a sign for people to start fighting, and she said that in her neighborhood shots were fired around every 5-10 minutes. So we could not go there to do our work, also it was already getting dark.
This is also to show that a large part of my work here consists not in sharing research results but in 1) arranging practical difficulties (inc finding electricity, internet, etc) and 2) making sure not to get robbed, raped or killed. Even though I pay a lot of attention and try to be as safe as possible, over the last 1,5 week I have been attacked twice and my money got stolen out of my hotel room. Once people on the market got into the car I was in with a friend, once a guy tried to pull my backpack while I was on a motor. It seems that the atmosphere in Bangui is grim, people do not like white people at all. Dealing with this takes a lot of time and energy, which I wish I could spend on discussing the child’s right to education….!
By Marieke Hopman - 10 November 2017
Tuesday 7 November
When I arrived in the Ledger (fancy) hotel in the morning to use the internet, I had to walk around the red carpet that was laid out because, apparently, the president was there with about every minister, ambassador, consultant and other authority that matters even a little bit. They were gathered for a conference organized by the United States, something on how they battled corruption in Seattle and how this could be used as a model for CAR (which seems doubtful to me seeing the extremely different contexts,and then think about the fact that for this conference the complete governance of the country was stopped for 2 days as everyone of any position was at the event…). Anyway, what a chance! Went there to talk to people and met all kinds of high placed officials who were all very interested in my research. And I mean VERY interested. I did not have enough copies of the research report but people sat down just to read it on the spot, and actually started truly reading it rather than scanning.
Tried getting in touch with the president to discuss the subject or at least give him a copy. Many people were mobilized to help me do so and we got to the chief of staff, but at the end of the day it seemed to come down to the fact that he wasn’t interested.
In the afternoon I visited the national radio Ndeke Luka for the second time, as I was invited by a journalist. When I came in I found out that apparently we were recording an interview right away. i tried to quickly take some notes and prepare a story (if you have 15mins to talk to the CAR people about this subject, what do you say?? – Yes you can imagine I was pretty tense about it). Then when we had our headphones on, technician in place etc, first thing the guy asks me is whether I have a boyfriend and if I’d be willing to marry him. Thank god that after that uncomfortable interval we had a normal, quite good interview (I think). It was my first time in French so that scared me a little – what if I don’t understand the question the journalist asks? – but it was fine. I spoke mostly about how we should change the education system to be more peaceful and to raise children in a spirit of peace rather than corruption and violence.
Wednesday 8 November
Started my day meeting with a group of education inspectors at the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS). I was again quite nervous because it was my first time “teaching” and discussing with local people in such a setting. These are people who work in education all through the country, their job is mostly to write reports about the state of education for government. This gathering was GREAT. I spoke about the importance of their work, the importance of sharing true information in their reports, of whom to share this information with, and of how to help the teachers and children in the schools they visit. I recommended talking to children to get true information and spoke about the importance of ethics and anonymity. Afterwards during the discussion so many people contributed, sharing thoughts and issues and frustrations. It was clear (what a relief) that my research was of great use to them, especially the discussion we were having. One thing that really struck me was, when I spoke about adapting the education system to CAR reality/context to make it more relevant (including teaching in Sango) a guy stood up and more or less shouted into the room “She is right! Look at us! We are not proud of our country! Imagine, we need a WHITE GIRL to ask us why we are not teaching our children in our own language?!”
Thursday 9 November
Started my day teaching and discussing education in CAR with primary school teachers, and their teachers, at the Centre Pedagogique (CPR). Again a very different target group, as they are the people actually standing in the classroom. And again it was GREAT. We had some really good and open discussions about the use of violence in the classroom, and discussed possible alternatives to keep order (such as alternative punishments and positive enforcement). The teachers were very attentive, writing down all practical things we discussed and asking many questions. Another thing we discussed was practical things they could do to make their math a nd language lessons more interesting and relevant. For example instead of “50-25″ why not say “I go to the market with 50 CFA and I want to buy an orange of 25 CFA. How much do I have left after?”.
After teaching we quikly left for radio Guira, the CAR radio station managed and paid for by the UN mission (MINUSCA). Here we did a 45min interview, of me together with my two research assistants Bonheur and Petrouchka. This was great also because in this way, we were able to do the interview in both French and Sango. What was difficult however was the journalist asking me whether or not to use the chicotte (whip) in the classroom. She clearly thought it was not violent at all. I don’t want to be the white girl who says: don’t use the chicotte, because then people will not take me seriously. But I don’t want to say “use the chicotte” either…so what to do? I ended up saying that the people in CAR in my opinion, need to consider the relation between violence in the classrooms and their wish to have peace in the country, and I referred to the chicotte historically being an instrument used by the colonizers on black slaves…
At the end of the day I met with someone from the World Bank working on education in CAR. Had a little time to tell her about my research findings and give her the report, hoping it will make a difference. Also shared my critique of their latest plan for “creating peace in CAR”, which focuses too much on quick results through quantitative and practical means, rather than a more profound change. How would you create peace in a country that has not known peace for at least 25 years..?
By Marieke Hopman - 7 November 2017
Dear all,
Here’s a quick overview of what has happened the first days of my mission to share the research results and try to do something positive for the child’s right to education in the Central African Republic.
Saturday and Sunday 4 & 5 November
Arrived in the morning and was greeted by my research assistant Petrouchka. After we left the suitcases full of research reports in the hotel room, we first went shopping for clothes (for which I’d had no space in the overfull suitcases). Other things to do were to set up internet and phone connection, and get in touch with different people I know in Bangui. When in the evening I returned to the hotel, I found the apple I left on the table eaten and even my container with vitamin pills attacked. It turned out the room was full of rats. I decided to accept this fact for at least one night (even though the floor was filled with rat excrement and urine,). However, at 4 AM I woke up because one of the rats had entered my bed and started eating my hand. So I decided to move out. The next day I discovered that in my hurry and shock of leaving the room, I’d left behind the money I’d taken (because there used to be no ATMs in CAR), which I’d hidden in the room. I went back and….it was stolen.
Monday 6 november
Finally a work day – time to get going! Got up extra early to start working early. But of course things are not as quick in CAR as one would wish – so my moto taxi driver turned out to run out of gas so we had to walk to the gas station and wait in line… Finally got to start at 7AM. Content of the day:
- Visit conseiller mr. Villecroix (employee of the ministry of Education). He helped me set up many other meetings, really helpful!
- Visited two schools for becoming-teachers and education inspectors.Met with directors and set up presentations / discussions for their students.
- Visit the Imam to give him the report and establish contact and make plans for cooperation on the sharing of the results.
- Visit the national radio station Ndeke Luka to see if we can make radio emission about the research. They were very interested and we made some great plans!
- Spoke to another journalist for international media
- While moving from meeting to meeting, got completely soaked by the rain :( (on the moto we couldn’t find the house of the Imam so this kid jumped on to show us the way)
By Marieke Hopman - 5 September 2017
Dear all,
Some good news: yesterday, during Maastricht University’s opening of the Academic Year, I won the Action Research Competition!!! This means I get € 3.000, which enables me to go back to the Central African Republic to share the research results. My wish is to start a national dialogue on what we can do to improve education in the CAR, together with the CAR minister of education.
You can see the video of the winning pitch below!
By Marieke Hopman - 1 August 2017
Dear all,
I am coming to the end of my case study on the child’s right to education in the Central African Republic, and slowly starting on the last case study in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Of course part of my efforts are directed to trying to make as much of a difference for CAR children as possible based on my research results.
To this purpose, I have written a research report on the case study which includes advise for different actors involved such as NGOs, politicians but also teachers. Together with the CAR minister of education I wrote a plan on how we could use the research data to really make a change in the CAR – a plan that involved organizing a national dialogue on the national radio and in different villages, translating the research report into Sango and printing and distributing the report. However, by now I have approached quite a few different actors (NGOs, political actors) with this plan and so far it seems that no one is willing to finance and/or execute it.
By Marieke Hopman - 28 December 2016
Dear all,
Since two days I am again back in the Netherlands, and even on the plane I started working on processing the results. There is so much information, so many impressions, and I am hoping to have a report and a PhD chapter finished in two months..!
Today I wanted to make the last video journal but I cannot really get myself to watch the images just now. It is my second time coming back from CAR and it is not necessarily easier. I guess when you are in the middle of it, you kind of absorb and postpone all emotional reactions. Then when coming back, it kind of hits you in the face. Which is normal and good, but, I just need a minute :). So the video is coming up soon, but not just now. In the meantime I just wrote a poem – it’s not a very good one, but I think it explains very well what it’s like coming back, and what reality in CAR is like. For now, it is all I can do not to get back on the next plane to Bangui…
By Marieke Hopman - 27 October 2016
Goedemorgen! Vanmorgen mocht ik live op radio 1 praten over de eerste resultaten van mijn onderzoek. Waarom wordt het recht van kinderen op onderwijs geschonden in de CAR? Zij hebben geen toegang tot onderwijs bv omdat er in de straat wordt geschoten. Als ze dan wel naar school kunnen gaan is de kwaliteit van het onderwijs zo slecht dat ze als nog weinig leren, en tot slot leren ze met name overleven in een extreem gewelddadige omgeving - zelfs in de klas.
Je kunt hier meer informatie over het interview terugvinden.
By Marieke Hopman - 6 October 2016
Yesterday I participated in a “science slam” during the Night University Festival at Tilburg University. Four researchers had to present their research in 10min, in a way that would move the audience. It was my first time to talk about the first preliminary results of the CAR field research, and also the first time to experiment with alternative ways of presenting research (in this case, I chose a slightly theatrical form reading entries from my field research notebook, connecting to the festival’s theme “face your fears”). And then the audience got to vote and…I won!! :D
For the coming period I will experiment more with alternative ways of presenting research, ways that appeal to a broader audience, but (hopefully) still find a sufficient level of depth in communication of research results.
By Marieke Hopman - 4 October 2016
By Marieke Hopman - 27 August 2016
Max (8): “It is important to study. Sometimes in the morning, my grandmother tells me I have to work in the field. When I tell her I want to go to school, she hits me with a “switch”. Of the scars on my legs, some are from those branches, some are from when I play and I fall. Often I get up early when it is still dark, before everyone else wakes up. I brush my teeth and go to school.”
Children in the Central African Republic often attend school irregularly, or don’t go at all. Most of the population does not know how to read a simple sentence. One of my most important research questions is why for these children their right to education is being violated.
Until now, I find that most children like to learn, and prefer to go to school. However there are many factors that influence their situation. Max’s story is typical. I was very impressed by this boy; such autonomy and willpower! This, also, seems typical for children in the CAR.
By Marieke Hopman - 23 August 2016
On tuesday 15th August we were supposed to leave for Bambari at 16.00. Unfortunately there were some problems at the bank (they had no cash), and it got later and later …
In the end we left after 18.00 and had to drive to Sibut in the dark, which felt a bit unsafe. Driving in the dark, knowing there might be armed groups around ready to attack and loot the car, you start looking at the road differently. You find yourself watching the hands of people on the side of the road; are they carrying guns? Do they wear amulets (which they believe protects them from bullets)? Fortunately, other than that we killed a pig that was crossing the road, nothing happened.
The next day departure for Bambari at 5.30. The road was again very beautiful, and very bumpy. We stopped along the way so that I could do some interviews. One village chief explained to me that the children in his village could not go to school, because the school was in the neighboring village and the chiefs don’t get along. So the children are not allowed access.
We arrived in Bambari in the late afternoon. Bambari is the second most important city in the country, especially because of its diamond mines. The city is currently divided into two halves, one anti-balaka and one UPC (ex-Seleka) side. MINUSCA, the UN troops, guard the bridge in between. This is why we went for drinks in the bar next to the bridge, even if the music was too loud to be able to talk :-).
Wednesday morning I started by going to the IDP (“Internally Displaced Persons”, meaning people who fled their homes yet stayed in the country) site. There are several IDP sites in and around Bambari, however most of them do not have any schools, and children have not had education for years. I chose to visit a site where they do have an operational school. In addition to interviews, I got to follow a class (see video below). Strikingly, although this education is completely free and even school supplies are paid for by NGOs, in this class almost 20% of the students was absent.
In the afternoon, I did an interview with the Imam of the central Mosque, on the Muslim/UPC side of the city. He explained that at first, due to the fighting it was too unsafe for children to walk to the public school on the other side of the city. Therefore the armed group UPC decided to build its own school. These days, allegedly, they manage a public school, open to both Christian and Muslim children, paid for by the General Ali Darass.
What’s more, we walked over to the school and now that it’s the holidays, they are using the school for adult education. In a country with an extremely high percentage of illiteracy, stumbling across this adult education felt almost like a miracle. The Imam himself told us that he had never been to school and was now taking his first lessons (in yet another location than the one we saw). Word has it that even the General himself is taking lessons, learning how to read and write!
And this coming from an armed group that is normally know for committing human rights violations…Seeing the adults studying, and learning about their investment of money in quality, public education – something the CAR government (at least, the previous governments) does not always seem ready to do – totally blew my mind and especially confused my ideas about right and wrong.
By Marieke Hopman - 20 August 2016
In a CAR village I spoke to Kafe (12). Kafe has attended a few years of education but then had to stop, both because of insecurity issues – the walk to school is about 2km, and when armed forces are running around this is particularly unsafe – and because his mother wanted him to work in the field with her. He explained that he wants to go back to school, because “I don’t even know how to write my own name, I only know the first two letters”. Together we figured out the other letters and this resulted in him writing his name! (We also wrote his last name, but I left it out for anonymity reasons).
The story is not exceptional and shows the difficulty of children’s rights to education in the CAR; there is a big problem of access, and even if you do get to a school, the quality of education is often very poor. Kafe himself is going back to school next week, after his aunt offered to pay his school fees (about $4.5).
Ex-Seleka rebels man a checkpoint
on the eastern fringe of Bambari,
on Sept. 24. (Ty McCormick | Foreign Policy)
Dear all,
As you probably know the plan for my research is to field research in the Central African Republic, to research the right to education there. You have all seen the image of the classrooms taken over by the military and understand the difficulties of the inability to educate a new generation growing up with conflict and violence.
Last week I met with UNICEF employees Esther and Florine. Esther has been working for UNICEF CAR as an emergency officer for two periods, Florine is setting up a cooperation between UNICEF NL and UNICEF CAR, starting an educational program for released child soldiers, which will include research.
The good news is that they are happy to work together. They gave me tons of very useful practical information, including ways to move around (never go alone, prepare for running into roadblocks, it takes about 5 days to get to another city, walking on the street in Bangui is generally OK), and a lot of information on the current situation of education in CAR. In addition they offered help for my research with contacts in the field. I on the other hand have promised to make videos of their education project on the ground and share all data and information. This is a win-win as for me the most use of my research will come if the data are actually being used to inform advocacy and policy.
The bad news is that due to recent outbursts of violence related to upcoming elections, the situation in the country is currently too dangerous to do research. Going soon would mean that I have to put a lot of time and energy into security - time and energy that I cannot spend on researching the field. Therefore I have decided to postpone the field research a little.
Hoping I get to go soon, I will stay in touch with UNICEF and especially these two great women. We all have the mission to spread education and improve the chances of the next generation in CAR and therefore I am so happy to work with them!
** UPDATE
I was asked about now that I am postponing the CAR field research, what I will be doing during the coming period. Good question - I will be focussing on field research in the Netherlands (on the right to education), and further developing the theoretical part of the research. So in fact some work I was planning to do later will be done now.
IMAGE: Refugee children in CAR
SOURCE: UNICEF CAR