"The Barefoot Education for Afrika Trust (BEAT) was established in 2009 for the purpose of promoting ‘barefoot’ education—referring to community and family education. Formal education in Africa has failed to transform people’s lives directly. In rural communities, families invest in ‘educating’ their children so that they can leave the community and go elsewhere and find a job—working for government and so on, as a way of escaping their own community and family who are bound to be trapped in poverty for the fore-seeable future. The idea is to build the capacity of rural and poor people to learn for themselves—as a way of life. Development in the end is about people- equipping people to fulfill their own potential and their on dreams. As BEAT we have been interested in the challenge that the agricultural extension system in most African countries is not effective and has struggled with issues of science and technological change, as well as in assisting fa
By Harrison Manyumwa