Why a website on Africa ?
A campaign called Yle Helps (Ylen Hyvä in Finnish) was organised in 2003 to help West African schools. Finns donated over 1 million euros to improve conditions in African schools. I was still teaching at the time (I am now retired) and wanted to explain to my pupils why, for instance, the situation in West Africa is so complex. There was no information available in Finnish about the history of the countries concerned or their present situation.

I then started putting together a website, first in my spare time and now full-time. My goal was to have everything ready in 2008. But a website is never really finished and I update it every time something important happens somewhere in Africa.

My idea from the very beginning was that anybody who is interested in the subject would have free access to the site. KEPA (Service Centre for Development Co-operation), a group of Finnish NGO’s, has helped me keep that dream alive by hosting the site.
 

Making this website possible

There are very few Finnish-language publications about Sub-Saharan Africa, but with the help of Finnish and foreign experts, organisations and institutions it has been possible to create the content you see here. All material is used with permission. I am therefore delighted to take this opportunity to offer my greatest thanks to them once again for helping to make this updated Finnish-language website on Africa possible.

In alphabetical order:

Adopt - A - People Clearinhouse http://www.adoptapeople.com/
 
African Elections Database,
Albert C. Nunley
 		 http://africanelections.tripod.com
Animal Diversity Web,
University of Michigan Museum of Zoology,		 http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html
African Plant Database
Cyrille Chatelain		 http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/bd/cjb/africa/recherche.php
Banknotes.com, Audrius Tomonis www.banknotes.com
 
Behrens, David, photographer www.phase.com/dbehrens
Bethany World Prayer Center http://www.bethany.com/home.php
 
Birds of the World on Postage Stamps,
Chriss Gibbins		 http://www.bird-stamps.org/index.htm
   
Caboverde.com,  Eraldo De Gioannini http://www.caboverde.com/
 
Coleoptera - Käfer der Welt
Udo Schmidt

 http://www.kaefer-der-welt.de/index.htm
Cycad Society of South Africa
Ian Bassingthwaighte

 http://www.cycadsociety.org/index.html
Don's World Coin Gallery
Don Norris
 
 http://worldcoingallery.com/
Famine Foods, Bob Freedman http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/FamineFoods/ff_home.html

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden http://www.fairchildgarden.org/
Flora of Mozambique
Bart Wursten

 http://www.mozambiqueflora.com/index.php  
Flora of Zimbabwe
Bart Wursten

 http://www.zimbabweflora.co.zw/index.php  
Lazette Gifford, photographer
 http://zettezoo.blogspot.com/
Susan Hoffman, Dr. , professor http://zoology.muohio.edu/hoffman/ 
Kay Holekamp. Ph.D., professor http://hyenas.zoology.msu.edu/index.html  
Erkki Hämäläinen, consul of Cape Verde
 		  
The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission http://www.mission.fi/in_english/
FishBase,
A Global Information System on Fishes
 		 www.fishbase.org
Insects on Stamps
Manager M. Naito		 http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~CH2M-NITU/indexe.htm
itm
Institute for Traditional Medicine
 		 www.itmonline.org
Iziko South African Museum
Natural History Division, Simon van Noort PhD,
Curator of Entomology
 		 www.figweb.org
Iziko South African Natural Histoy Museum
Associate Arachonologist Norman Larsen

 http://www.biodiversityexplorer.org
 
Kepa.fi - Service Centre for Development Co-operation http://www.kepa.fi/
 
Madagasikara.it http://www.madagasikara.it/home.htm
 
Namib Stamps, Brian Basson http://www.namibstamps.com/index.html
National Anthems, David Kendal http://david.national-anthems.net/index.html 
 
The Nature Protection Trust of Seychelles http://islandbiodiversity.com/
 
Palm and Cycad Societes of Australia http://www.pacsoa.org.au/index.html
Orville Boyd Jenkins, Ed.D., Ph.D http://www.geocities.com/orvillejenkins/
 
Joshua Project http://www.joshuaproject.net/index.php
 
The Royal Ark, Christopher Buyers http://www.4dw.net/royalark/
 
Southafrica-travel.net http://www.southafrica-travel.net/index.html
Stuttgart Information, Seychelles http://www.stgt.com/seychelles/index.htm
 
Theme Birds on Stamps
Kjell Scharning

 http://www.birdtheme.org/index.html
Translators’ Co-operative of Finland http://www.kaantajaosuuskunta.fi/fi/index.html
 
Top Tropicals.com http://toptropicals.com/index.htm
USC, Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, University of South Carolina
 		 http://pathmicro.med.sc.edu/
Wild Madagascar.org, Rhett Butler http://www.wildmadagascar.org/
 
Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö www.wsoy.fi
 
World Agroforestry Center  www.worldagroforestrycentre.org
 
World History at WHKMLA
Alexander Ganse
 		 http://www.zum.de/whkmla/histatlas/haindex.html
World Scriptures http://www.worldscriptures.org/index2.html
 
World Statesmen, Ben Cahoon http://www.worldstatesmen.org/
   
   

Who writes the website

That’s me, Jorma Sarsama. Let me introduce myself: After doing my military service ( reserve officer), I enrolled in the University of Helsinki at the Department of Political Science in 1961. Later, I became qualified as a teacher of information technology. Right in the beginning of my studies I also began a career in business, which lasted for more than 20 years.

I then got a job as a teacher in the City of Vantaa near Helsinki, which kept me busy for another 20 years. Besides teaching school, I was an adjunct instructor at the Universities of Helsinki and Jyväskylä for five years. I also worked as a visiting teacher in what was then the USSR (now Russia) in Petroskoi, Viipuri and Leningrad (St. Petersburg). I also taught in Lihula, Estonia; Lisbon, Portugal, Pati, Indonesia and Batum/Georgia

I am now retired, write this website full-time and really enjoy it!
Translation : Translators’ Co-operative of Finland

 

  
    Jorma Sarsama, 2005