Transcript Staff Writer
"I went to Africa in 1990 on a lark," University of Oklahoma alumna Freda Margiloff said Monday morning.
No longer a lark, the retiree's trips to Africa are characterized by a new bird: a chicken.
Margiloff works with the African Sustainable Protein Project to provide chickens for African children in need of protein.
Margiloff, who lives in Connecticut, was one of two speakers at a seminar attended by about 80 OU students and faculty at the Oklahoma Memorial Union Monday morning. She was followed by Norman resident and retired OU professor Paul Kleine, who spoke about his efforts in Tanzania to build chapels and water wells for Africans.
Both retirees are in their 70s but are using their extra time to improve the lives of the Maasai tribespeople in Tanzania. Both have been made honorary Maasai elders in gratitude for their work. But neither had met until Monday morning.
Margiloff has been traveling to Tanzania for over a decade and spends about five months of the year there.
She said when she first visited she discovered the children in the country had difficulty retaining the things they were taught in school. She began to question why, and then realized they subsisted on a diet of mush with a bit of sauce.
"So they never get the protein needed to develop the brain," she said.
Protein is vital to children in their early years of learning for brain and muscle development.
"If a child gets protein in his diet, he will retain his education," Margiloff said.
So she said she found an incubator that had been donated to the country years before. She moved it to Tangeru, but then found out there was no building or electricity for the incubator.
"So then I went back there, I built the buildings (and) put up the chickens which are now laying eggs," Margiloff said.
Now 460 chickens are being raised to provide eggs for an incubator. The poultry facility, which is the pilot for five other schools, is now used for the training of students attending the school.
Kleine spoke about his work in Tanzania for the past three years. He became involved through his experience with Habitat for Humanity.
He led a Habitat team to build a chapel in a rural area south of where Margiloff works. After he and his team built the chapel, Kleine wondered how he could help more.
The primary need in the area is clean water, he said. It's estimated that every 15 seconds a child in Africa dies from inadequate water supply.
So Kleine has raised about $92,000 for 11 wells that provide clean water for about 40 to 50 villages. Each well costs $7,500.
Kleine said it was easy to begin working in Tanzania, but it'll be much harder to leave the country and its people behind.
"I'm in it for life," he said.
At the close of his presentation, Kleine asked the audience to think about how they should respond to the world's pain and poverty. His lesson was simple: anyone can help.
"I'm just an old guy who was asked to go to Tanzania and got caught in the process," he said.
The seminar was organized by David Sabatini, professor for the School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and director of the WaTER Center, a research center at OU dedicated to helping solve drinking water challenges in impoverished areas.
It was hosted by the WaTER Center and the OU chapter of Engineers Without Borders, which is currently working to provide a clean water line in Guatemala.
Kleine said in the future he would like to work with OU students to provide better drinking water in Tanzania.
Julianna Parker
366-3550
jparker@normantranscript.com
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