"I WANT TO HELP MY FAMILY". That is how passionate Kelvin Doe is about the well-being his own people. Then again, young people are generally known to harbor deep feelings of unconditional love for their next-of-kin. That, obviously, makes this brilliant star from self-robbed Sierra Leone no exception. He is only fifteen-years of age. Already filling the shoes of an adult breadwinner, he wishes to see his disadvantaged family through a better day. 

Too bad Charles Taylor and his cronies did not envision the future unraveling the way it is. This is undeniably true all over Africa. 

Decades of senseless combat in the West Africa region left behind it a shadow of hopelessness that is almost without remedy. And families were left to fend for themselves, and without any reasonable means to do so. As a result, many children--toddlers and young boys and girls--will never know how nice and empowering it is to be able to read, write, and cipher. And Africa and the world will never know how poorer the human experience is, owing to this fact. Geoffrey Robertson, QC, has a name for it in his punchy book CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.     

And now, enter good spirits like Kelvin Doe. These young people, around this great continent which they call home, are growing up to manufacture something new from their untenable past, with their own hands, from absolutely nothing, and help enrich the life in the African region. Humanity is highly indebted to them.

Older generations like to brag about their status as freedom fighters. They always like to be idolized and  paid a life-time pension amounting to perpetuity. Yet they cannot admit to the indictment that they have, and are in the process of, stealing from the future of the continent. They won't own up to that. Well, they have the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, don't they?

Kelvin is growing up to be a good family man, a considerate neighbor, an excellent inventor, and a rare breed of entrepreneurs.

Known as DJ Focus to his community of Freetown, Sierra Leone, he started his own radio station, using discarded materials he was lucky enough to find lying around his neighborhood. Now He plays music and "narrowcasts" news bulletins for his fortunate community. Because of the erratic power supply in his country, this self-taught engineer skillfully put together a generator to supply electricity around town. How resourceful!

He's gotten an invite from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He addressed undergraduate engineering students at Harvard College with panache, too. It seems no task is too daunting for this amazing autodidact. Doe boasts a $100,000 energy project as well.    

The scourge of unnecessary brain-drain is preventable. Valuable skilled people are leaving places of their origin in droves for better opportunities else where because back home push factors are unbearable. The situation is reminiscent of the great trek of the mid-nineteenth century in South Africa. Only this time the trek goes beyond borders, never to be reversed. Sad think is, no one seems to be touched. Not even business people.

Should this future not be the one more deserving of investment from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and other such organizations? Is this not the future Africans would not like to call their own? Does it not make more sense to sponsor these initiatives so that employment opportunities are encouraged, and living standards are raised? Perhaps Dr. Mo Ibrahim should rethink his investment strategy for the Africa he aspires to. Maybe we all need to reconsider our collective goals and dreams. 

 

Go watch the video on YouTube. It's titled "15-year-old Kelvin Doe wows M.I.T."