7. THE WIND RIDER

For someone whose grandparents are among the nation’s elite, having attended the best schools in the country and having more money than their competitors for the campaign, it is not that difficult to become president of the United States. And if the whole world is in agreement then …

But the feat of a young African from Malawi who dreamed of submitting the force of the wind to his service is much more surprising. He had had to drop out of school because his parents could no longer pay for it, and he built windmills that generate electricity with wooden slats and pieces from demolitions, without prior technical knowledge or access to the internet.

His mills first attracted the attention of local journalists, then the international press. He was invited to tell his story in America, and then he wrote a book to inspire young the Africans for whom he became an example.

Look below for the publication that tells his story.

On his website you will find him being interviewed in America and elsewhere, photos, his projects and the possibility of depositing money into an account to help him carry them out. An antediluvian mill, and yet it turns …

A Flintstone type windmill, but it works!

The story of this boy should be an inspiration for the young people of Timbuktu.

He has the exact opposite mentality that has developed in the city, in the wake of the “help” provided by the hundreds of NGOs that crowd Timbuktu, which do nothing but multiply the problems of the people.

Here, there are two prospectives for making a living: either working for a NGO or forming an association in order to ask for money from the NGOs.

I clearly saw in Timbuktu that there are 3 types of people in the world: those who think that they should be helped, those who think they should help themselves and those who think they should help others.

Forty years of NGO activity in Timbuktu has created a culture of assistance and too many people belong to the first category. Through the example of this young boy, I would like to show the teenagers of Timbuktu that it is always possible to help oneself get out of problems and blocked situations.

A friend of mine used to say, “There are 2 kind of people in the world, those who make problems and those who resolve them.”

Forty years of NGO activity haven’t resolved any of the problems; they are here to stay. This is why they must preserve the problems, or even increase them and maintain the people in their dependency. Why not resolve our problems by ourselves as this boy did?

Do we have a mind to reflect? Africa is the richest continent on earth. Its people are the poorest ones. Where is the problem? Does Africa needs inventors, financiers and NGOs or does it only need to help itself?

I shall try to speak to the students in the schools of Timbuktu, it should not be too difficult.