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Chadian leaps big hurdles to get doctorate
Few women in the Y. grad's country ever go to college
By Amy Choate
Deseret Morning News
AMERICAN FORK - It took Toupta Boguena one year to find her family after she returned to Chad from a refugee camp in the Congo. She was 19 years old, tired of fleeing a civil war that killed lives and dreams, and tired of trying to survive. She had long thought her father was dead before finding him by accident in the center of town. But finding him was just a beginning to beating more impossible odds.
Toupta Boguena separates stalks of cheatgrass at a BYU farm in Spanish Fork as her son, Amir, looks on.
Stuart Johnson, Deseret Morning News
"As a child, I dreamed of going far in school, but that dream was shattered at one point," Boguena said as she described the foundation of her passions to gain a higher education. From an early age she struggled against the social norm that discouraged women from attending school and decided to follow in her father's footsteps. He was her idol, a man who was educated in France, who returned to his own country to plant what he had learned.
Today, as one of the very few women from Chad who have earned advanced college degrees, she stands at the head of her own university classroom, teaching agronomy and biology to other Chadians.
She teaches for the love of her students and at a considerable sacrifice - she still has not received a salary for her year's work so far.
Boguena earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Arizona, supported by a full-ride scholarship made available to only five Chadians by a U.N. committee. Though competition for the scholarship was tough, Boguena applied anyway, pitting her high school diploma against university degrees. Her success has since propelled her to be an example to other females in her country.
"I worked at it," Boguena said. "And through me they will know it can be done. . . . In farm areas in my country, women do most of the field work, but you don't see a woman standing there telling them how it should be done."
According to U.N. statistics from 2000, Chadian women typically receive less than four years of formal education. Higher education is highly discouraged and almost unheard of. But Boguena was driven by a strong desire to help her country despite the odds against her.
Through connections Boguena made with the LDS Church in Arizona, she came in contact with faculty from Brigham Young University and earned a doctoral degree in agriculture from BYU in August 2003. And though her focus was on making a difference in her homeland, her doctoral study focused on finding a solution to a local Utah problem - cheatgrass.
The widespread weed is a well-known pain to local ecologists, acting as potential kindling for a fire any time the dry season approaches. The pesky plant lines a majority of hillsides and mountains with an excess of flammable material, and Boguena's research helped examine the conditions in which cheatgrass naturally deteriorates.
"She did a very, very nice piece of research," said Susan Meyer, a Utah Forest Service ecologist who worked closely with Boguena during her project. "Once she got here, she hit the ground running and really did some nice research."
Boguena recently visited the cheatgrass garden she worked on at BYU as a side venture during a trip to the United States. She came to catch up with old friends and work on her own project, a nonprofit organization she began that targets improving agriculture in Chad on a grass-roots level. The Organization for Community Supported Sustainable Agriculture in Chad focuses on empowering local farmers, who are mostly women, to improve their own communities by working together and using funds raised from community gardens.
"They have a lot of ambition," Boguena said. "They dream of being able to have their own hospital, their own school or their own clinic. They dream of something better."
And though turmoil continues to fester throughout Chad, threatening another civil war, Boguena has no intention of leaving her homeland anytime soon. She intends to do as her father did; infuse her knowledge into the ground around her. She said her work is cut out for her, and she is ready for the challenge.
"If the guns come, I'll run," Boguena said with a laugh. "But there are people who can't go anywhere, and they've been sitting and taking it for all of these years. They are no different from me."
E-mail: achoate@desnews.com
An African Pioneer - From BYU Magazine Fall 2002
- By Nathan K. Chai, '02
TOUPTA Boguena is a pioneer.
Instantly putting her guests at ease with her soft-spoken manner, contagious laugh, and amiable smile, this BYU PhD candidate in integrative biology seems too gentle to have passed through circumstances that most would have considered insurmountable.
Born in the war-ravaged African country of Chad, she still remembers well the four years she spent as a refugee in Congo. "We lived in hiding," she recalls, her voice quieting to hardly more than a whisper. "I knew poverty and starvation firsthand."
But Boguena has never allowed her circumstances to limit her future. She has forged new trails and crossed long-recognized borders.
Her first steps toward Provo were taken as she watched her father, Noida Boguena, an agronomist, working with poor African farmers. He was so successful that, besides inspiring his daughter's career, the crop he introduced to Chad, the Taro plant, is still called "Boguena" in local dialects.
But agronomy seemed an impossible goal, since there are no four-year universities in Chad and women are discouraged from seeking an education. An opportunity, however, did present itself.
In 1986, a U.N. committee from New York traveled to Chad to interview applicants for five full-ride scholarships to American universities. At that time Boguena spoke three languages and several dialects, but English was not one of them. She applied for the scholarship anyway.
Speaking through a translator, Boguena impressed the committee enough to earn a scholarship to the University of Arizona. Over the next 12 years, she learned English and earned bachelor's and master's degrees in agronomy. But something even more important, according to Boguena, happened in Arizona. On a whim, she decided to visit the local Church of Jesus Christ Spanish branch, where she was introduced to the sister missionaries. A few weeks later, she was baptized.
After joining the church, she established connections with faculty at BYU, and in 1999, after being offered a research position by Susan Meyer, Utah Forest Service ecologist, she came to Provo to pursue a PhD. Under Meyer's direction, Boguena is trying to find a way to use a naturally occurring fungus to control nonnative cheatgrass populations that have spread across the West. If successful, the fungus could allow native species to take hold again. This could in turn reduce the number of wildfires, since cheatgrass, which grows thickly and dries out by June, drastically increases the likelihood and frequency of such fires.
When Boguena graduates this December and returns to Chad, she will be the first woman from her country with a PhD. But she'll have little time to celebrate. Her country is still entangled in political turmoil, and she has no guarantee of a job. Yet Boguena remains optimistic.
"I have something to give my community. It's great to imagine helping the agricultural system."
With her new faith, Boguena also faces challenges of a different sort. "I am the only member in Chad that I know of. I'm really hoping that missionaries can come there one day. Until then, I'm mailing the Book of Mormon and the lessons home constantly. After I return, I see missionary work as one of my main focuses."
Despite the uncertainty of her future, Toupta Boguena is ready. "Nothing is impossible," she states confidently, thinking of her role in her homeland. "As a Christian, I always believe that things can get better."
| This Time One Good Deed Warrants Another A tradition of lunchtime get-togethers turns into an army of helping hands for newborns
REPRINT FROM THE WASATCH COUNTY COURIER 01/25/2000 When Caren Bagley heard about babies being wrapped in newspaper after Hurricane Mitch hit Honduras in late 1998, she knew she had to do something more than grab for a Kleenex to wipe away the tears. "Newspaper," Bagley says today, 14 months later, still misting up at the thought. "They had babies wrapped in newspapers." Bagley talked to her friends and together, the group of 15 Wasatch County women, give or take a few, came up with 67 quilts, most new, some used. They helped local LDS Church efforts in collecting truckloads of used clothing and other goods for the Honduran hurricane victims. And they asked the LDS Church's Humanitarian Center who needs the most help, and the answer always came back "babies". So the group helped the newborn babies. Ultimately, from their efforts here in Wasatch County, thousands of Hondurans were assisted. Bagley and the rest of the group were, needless to say, pleased. But when the effort was over, the thought that crossed everyone's mind was why act only on the heels of tragedy? Why not help make putting forth a special effort a part of everyday life? And thus the old saying, "One good deed deserves another." For years the group of 15 women, give or take a handful or so who were absent at any given time, met for junch every month to talk, visit, catch up, and eat. Now the group has become an organizing committee and their luncheons are planning meetings, where determining quotas, responsibilities, publicity, and participation is the talk of the day. "Our goal is 50 to 100 newborn kits per month," says Bagley, setting a quota that gets an enthusiastic stir from the rest of the committee. "Plus six crib quilts," she continues. Each newborn kit will contain three diapers, four safety pins, one bar of Ivory soap, a receiving blanket, a newborn nightgown or pajamas and one pair of socks all put into a waterproof Ziploc bag. The committee members intend to make the crib quilts themselves.
Their hopes are for donations of items, new or very lightly used, and time, and money to purchase items for the kits. So far, the project is starting off well - they have 15 kits already, only two weeks into January, without yet making a public announcement of their intents. "Albertson's has donated soap," says Marilyn Larsen, another member of the mostly Midway-based committee. "But we're not approaching any businesses," says Bagley. The committee is hoping for success using the soft-sell. They're hoping that people, and businesses, will come to them. Bagley and Larsen both agree that businesses and locals are already pressured into giving too often. They want to see participation in their program as voluntary. Another committee member, Valene Jensen, agrees fully with the soft-sell. Her own six-year-old granddaughter, Sammie, heard her grandma tell the story of the babies wrapped in newspaper, and Sammie left the room. A few minutes later, she returns with $37.20, her life savings, and dumps it on the floor, offering it to Jensen. "What does a six-year-old need with this much money?" Jensen says, in Sammie's voice. "Hearts and Hands for Humanity," says Bagley, repeating to the group the name they have chosen for their organization. A bank account has been set up for donations at Zions Bank's Heber branch at Smiths. Newborn kits are currently being stored at Bagley's house. The committee will take their collected kits each month to the LDS Church's Humanitarian Center. They hope their goal of 50 to 100 kits per month will someday seem minuscule compared to the help they can offer. To assist with the efforts of Hearts and Hands for Humanity, cash donations are being taken at the Smith's branch of Zion's Bank in Heber, and doantions of items for newborn kits can be dropped off at the Wasatch County Courier office at 525 S. Main Street in Heber. Individual committee member, including Bagley, Jensen, Larsen, Diane Davey, Ruth Olson, Holly Zenger, Phyllis Kohler, Brit Wilde, Merilyn Urry, Carolyn Hogwwod, Eddis Witt, Marci Widen, and Carolyn Meadors are also prepared to take donations. For more information or to join the Hearts and Hands for Humanity committee, contact Caren Bagley at 654-5362. |
| Winter clothing shipped to Afghan refugees Church's major initial response
SALT LAKE CITY A major shipment of relief supplies is on its way to help alleviate the increasing needs of Afghanistan refugees in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan. The initial response of the Church's Humanitarian Services is comprised of 19 semitrailer loads -- 380,000 pounds of blankets, newborn kits, hygiene kits, plastic sheeting and water pouches -- needed non-food items for refugees camps. The shipment includes approximately 40,000 wool blankets and heavy winter clothing. The shipment will be carried on an ocean freighter to Karachi, Pakistan, and then trucked to camps. "This is a major response, one of our largest this year," said Garry R. Flake, director of Humanitarian Services. "A part of our shipment is a diversion of seven containers of heavy winter clothing that were going to an Eastern European destination. Out interest in moving immediately is to get things there at the onset of winter."
Those seven containers have been on route for about a week to 10 days, he said. The original shipments to Eastern Europe will be replaced at a later time. "It is the Church reaching out, people-to-people around the world regardless of religion or nationality, because there is a need," he said. "The generosity of the members and friends of the Church is what makes this possible." The Church is working with four agencies to ensure that the supplies reach the refugees. These agencies are Counterpart International, Mercy Corps International, Nour International Aid, and Project Concern. The Church has worked with all four previously in emergency responses, and is comfortable that they are effective in what they are doing, said Brother Flake. He said the supplies will go to refugees outside Afghanistan because the only relief agency allowed inside the country is the Afghan Red Crescent Society, and it is very limited in what it is allowed to do. "This is as much as any international society is able to do at this time," he said. "When people give their surplus clothing and in-kind items to Deseret Industries, that allows us to do this." |
