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.