Stories From the Field

(Re)Blog for a Cause

2009-05-08T10:51:00.000-07:00

Help us help our kids with your blog. Blogging add-on service Zemanta is going to donate $3000 to five charities who get reblogged the most before June 6. And we'd like to be one of them.

What can Goods for Good do with $3000? A lot.

Consider some of this:

$39 clothes 80 orphans in Malawi
$250 buys toys for 4 nursery schools at Consol Homes Orphan Care
$1,057 trains 12 nursery school teachers in early childhood development
$2,218 pays for a year’s supply of pens and notepads for ALL children in G4G schools

The education outlook in Malawi is grim. 50% of students drop out of school before the fifth grade, and 28% of those kids leave school simply because they don’t have school supplies.

Help us spread the word about Goods 4 Good. Please reblog this post. (And be sure to include the following link.)

This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

Thanks!

Girl's Fashion Sweeps Malawi - Aaron Lewani

2009-03-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

It has been almost three months since St. Mary Rehabilitation Centre celebrated its annual gala, “YEAR OF RAINBOW”. But for many students at Wisdom Primary School like Sophia Kingstone, the happy mood has yet to subside. Each day she still proudly fashions the dress presented to her at the gala. “I love my dress very much because of its color and style. I handle it with care because it makes me look more beautiful,” said Sophia as her friends listened attentively. She told me she would like to be a Member of Parliament, so that she may best represent the people in her community. As such, she remembers to work very hard at school to ensure that this ambition is achieved. Regarding the Rainbow celebrations, she said the day was unforgettable because the wonderful food and opportunity to dance with her friends; but her dress was her favorite part!

St. Mary’s conducts Rainbow activities each year during the month of November. These activities bring together all the center’s children to celebrate their progress. Children participate in reading poems, acting out dramas, performing traditional dances and even putting on fashion shows. Last year’s attendance was 550 children. This year Sister Rosemary, the teacher who coordinates the distribution and tailoring of all fabrics received by Goods for Good, made a speech. She reiterated that the new dresses will greatly contribute to the children’s education and that it was absolutely impossible to miss the overwhelming joy in the children as they conducted their performances.

In February 2009, I had the opportunity to interview a few more girls who attended the Rainbow Gala. Nine-year-old Maclina Majori told me, “I like education because it helps me to think and question things intelligently so I make good decisions in life. I am so confident that one day I will be strong enough to be independent, as a result of the education I am receiving today.” I asked her if the dress contributed to her confidence to be independent; and she took a moment to think about her reply. “That is a good question,” Maclina commented before answering. “Dress imeneyi imandiwaza kwambiri! . . .My dress is cool, this dress is my source of joy!” All the girls laughed and agreed that Maclina had made a good point. The dresses bring so much joy because they are tailored uniquely for each girl. The final comment from one of Maclina’s friend was, “I know I am the only girl to have this particular dress in my whole village. This is the first time something has been made just for me, it makes me so happy!”

All the girls seemed to boast the same joyful sentiments. The dresses and other clothing will surely have a long lasting impact on all 550 children far beyond November 2009. And, after talking to Sophia, Maclina and their friends, I have come to believe that fashion is truly an international form of expression for girls all around the world.

We Have A Cause - Aaron Lewani

2009-02-24T15:41:00.000-08:00

It is a Saturday morning, February 23rd. We are on our way to Consol Homes, a Goods for Good partner, to participate and monitor distribution of the various materials provided to them from the recent shipment. Masekese Centre, which doubles as a Consol Homes Headquarters, is our most important stop because of the large number of people that attend the distributions.

Upon arrival, our first greeter was Malizani Mose. Malizani is a dedicated volunteer with a big heart who I always look forward to seeing. I made a flattering remark about the new uniforms directed at the group of women she was standing with and they immediately broke into a roar of laughter. The response was a welcome surprise that instantly took me back to being in the village so long ago. It had been a long time since I heard such laughter, because recently life here has been very difficult for everyone. It was clear that these women were laughing from their hearts and were quite proud of the new uniforms.

The purpose of the uniforms is to help make volunteers more accessible to community members and children. A volunteer who has a uniform can easily be identified when working in villages. Malizani joked, “Even in large groups we are conspicuous in our beautiful uniforms.” Another lady added that when a volunteer is provided with a uniform, they feel loved and appreciated by those they are working with. “These uniforms are a motivation to us as volunteers and also inspire other people who doubt the logic of our work, particularly our fellow women,” said Agnes Milizi. She also added: “It encourages new membership to the volunteer force because of how professional we look; even the children are more proud of their caretakers.”

Christina Msudzi, a volunteer from Phandula CBCC, explained to me how she felt about the new uniforms. She said, “I am now enjoying my work more than before because of this uniform. But, the most important thing is still the work we do for and with the children.” Malizani jumped in, “Our work always drives us to move forward every day. I am very hopeful that through our work of encouraging children to go to school, some of our students will even reach University. This makes the students more valuable people in our society and will bring greater change in our communities. We now have a cause to fight for!”

I believe it was evident that the group of women I was chatting with enjoyed the discussion of their work and felt comfortable speaking freely regarding both the uniforms and their work. Indeed, they have a good reason to love and be very proud of their dedication. The closing statements made by the volunteers particularly affected me. Their conviction and unyielding faith that one day they will see some of the children they are helping today changed for the better, truly inspired me.

Not Business as Usual - Aaron Lewani

2009-02-24T15:28:00.000-08:00

It’s time to return to school in Malawi: Monday, January 5, 2009. You can find teacher’s preparing their lessons and children eagerly walking to their classes. Though it might seem like the beginning of a normal school year, I assure you it is not business as usual this year! I am certain because I have seen what Goods for Good has at its Warehouse designated as education materials.

Currently, we have lots of materials for both the teachers and students. As schools opened, we collaborated with our partners to distribute the educational materials to the teachers and students to ensure that they both receive the materials in good time. During the distributions, I managed to chat with the Chiefs, the Teachers and School Committee Members to hear their views on the support the teachers had received. They all had many interesting stories to tell.

Mr. Kachikopa, the Head Teacher at Chankhaza Primary school said, “I am so grateful for the teaching materials we have received today from Goods for Good. This time you have filled all the material needs at our school. Teachers have enough supplies for the whole year including a bag to carry their things. For me, having a bag is a first, I have never owned a teacher’s bag, instead I used an old carton to carry my lessons and materials. I do not have more words because I am just so grateful.” In all the eighteen schools where we did distributions such as the one described above, teachers were shocked with both surprise and happiness.

At each school, immediately after the Teachers Supply Closet box was opened, teachers could not stop talking about the materials and thanking Goods for Good. “Mwabwera boo! Goods for Good, this is good coming. Our ego is high now,” said Mr. Yakasale Chida, a teacher at Gudyu Primary School. At Chimkoka Primary School, the School Committee members expressed their joy when they saw the teachers had received subject specific materials to help them teach even better. “This means that the education standards in our area are now higher. What more could our children need? The teachers are well equipped to do their job and it is clear that this will be a good year for education in our community,” said Village Headman Cassese.

The Head Teacher of Chimkoka Primary School, Mr. Saidi, agreed with the Village Headman by saying that the combination of student and teacher school materials was an excellent recipe and the outcome will definitely be positive. He explained “Goods for Good has hit the nail on the head, which means they are an organization that listens. They are responding to the needs we presented to them last year when they conducted their assessment. We are amazed with the swiftness of response to the needs we presented,” added the Head Teacher.

To prove to you that every teacher was shocked, let me tell you about St. Mathias Primary School. Goods for Good piloted the Teachers Supply Closet there in 2007 and 2008. So since we had been working with them for a long time, I thought that it would be business as usual when we delivered the teachers supply closet. I was very wrong! Immediately after we opened the box Mr. Martin Banda, the Head Teacher, and his deputy started talking to themselves. “Wow! Aaron this is wonderful. Oooh! This is unbelievable.” The mood was the same in all the schools. What an exciting year for the teachers in the public schools that Goods for Good is supporting. We thank you, our supporters, for making a difference in the 2009 School Calendar.

Got Pens? – Aaron Lewani

2009-01-23T14:08:00.000-08:00

Last week Raphael Tembenu and I distributed close to 4,000 writing utensils to over 1,700 students! As we went around to each school we were increasingly excited by the reactions of the students, teachers and community leaders. Something so small as a pen is having a huge impact on the students, teachers and entire community!

Our first stop was Nkangamira Primary School. When we arrived, we were greeted by loud cheering from the students. The first thing we did was brief the chiefs, school committee members and teachers on their responsibilities. You might be wondering what I mean by this, we have found that handing the goods over to the community and encouraging them to distribute the goods empowers the entire community to take responsibility of the materials ensuring equality among recipients and proper use of the materials.

Once the distribution began, the chief stated, “This initiative has come at the right time when some parents are struggling to find food for their families and this has filled the dips in those families. The majority of the children will now be coming to school because they have received enough writing material”. The Chairperson of Nkangamira School Committee added “Nazitere bwenzi zikomo (this is excellent)! This is a great opportunity that has come to our community. I am seeing change at the end of this.”

On our next stop, the Chiwoza Primary School, the Chairperson addressed the children in preparation for our distribution of pens and pencils, he stated “Today you will receive gifts from Goods for Good, you will receive pens and pencils,” which was followed by heavy clapping by the students. “Thank you for your applauding but I expect that to be followed by hard work in class to ensure that we get maximum benefits from these pens,” he added. A roar of excitement bellowed from the children, CHEERS, CHEERS, CHEERS!

The last stop was Chimanazo Primary School where I took some time to chat with standard eight students to hear how this program would benefit them and their communities. Patience Matemba, a 12 year-old student, explained that “Education is very important because it helps us to know a lot of things that can help us to move from poverty and make us reliable citizen in our communities. Like myself, I would like to be a nurse as such I need to be educated for me to achieve my ambition. I will use these pens that I have received today to write my work in class and this will make me work extra hard to attain my goals. Also, be assured that the orphans and other children from very poor families have been greatly rescued from the burden of lacking school materials.”

Lastly, I met with Village Headman Chiwoko who was very excited with the program. “I feel so happy with this program because it is promoting education in my village. I like the use of all parties, village chiefs-school committee members and teachers, because this promotes transparency and accountability and encourages us to work together during development initiatives in our communities. If our children are educated then our community will be developed because education and development go together.”

Gala for Good - Natasha Hafez

2008-12-15T14:42:00.000-08:00

Distinguished guests from varying professions and backgrounds united for a common interest on Monday, December 8th in an effort to help raise funding and awareness for the children of Malawi. Supporters gathered at City Winery in New York City, to celebrate the charitable work of Goods for Good at Gala for Good. I heard about the event through my friend Brigitte, the Program Director of the organization. She and her colleagues are so passionate and dedicated – many of their friends seemed to be in attendance. However, it also appeared that the event drew many new faces, people who were learning about the organization for the first time. In my career supporting charities with communications needs, I know how critical each additional supporter of a cause can be. It was exciting to see a mixed crowd of young and old, friends and strangers that no doubt reflected the “coming out” nature of the event.

The Gala brought meaning to the expression “a picture is worth a thousand words,” as photographic images illuminated the backdrop to the eminent venue. The profound imagery captivated a story of the organization’s efforts in shipping and distributing over 100 tons of goods to over 500,000 vulnerable orphans in Africa. Although the world of the Gala and the world in the photos seemed so far apart, the images gave a gentle reminder to all those at the event as to why they had gathered. I noticed many people looking at the photos around the room and on the slideshow, and I overheard many comment on the organization’s impressive work.

I commend Goods for Good that every penny raised at the event would go to help the children directly, and that the organization managed to keep costs minimal by having much of the food, wine and entertainment donated. A selection of fine wines, appetizing finger food and beautifully ornate deserts -- pleasing for all palates -- complimented the fluid coordination of an African drumming performance and Goods for Good film.

Among the over 400 guests were the Ambassador of Malawi to the United Nations and his lovely wife. I learned from the Goods for Good team afterwards that he is so dedicated to the cause, he bought T-shirts for his whole family!

Gala for Good was, without a doubt, an evening to remember. I am so proud of my friends in the organization for putting on such a classy event that also clearly portrayed the needs of orphans in Africa and the organization’s mission to meet those needs. I was gratified to hear the event raised over $70,000 for a great cause.

Soap Donation Changes Nursery School Environment - Aaron Lewani

2008-11-07T13:28:00.000-08:00

In partnership with Water Journey and Pfizer, Goods for Good recently donated 400 bottles of anti-biotic hand sanitizer and soap to Consol Homes Orphan Care. This contribution was the result of several discussions in which the directors of Consol Homes expressed their urgent desire to improve hygiene in the over 120 community based childcare centers (CBCCs) they support. This is particularly important at the centers that prepare and serve meals to the children in attendance.

In order to observe the impact the soap was having and observe the caregivers in action, I traveled to Consol Homes to visit a full day of nursery classes at Kakoma CBCC. Upon arrival, I witnessed the class in session outside under a mango tree with children sitting on the bare ground. It was instantly clear to me that children’s health in this environment needed to be made a priority. Despite the circumstances, children continued reciting letters from the alphabet and eagerly vying for the teacher’s attention in order to show off their skills.

In preparation for mealtime, the children sang a song about health: “Kusamba manja ndikofunika kwambiri,” meaning “washing hands before eating is very important.” Next, each child washed their hands using a drop of anti-biotic soap provided by the teachers. Smiles were abundant, and it was clear the children enjoyed the new routine. The teachers had plenty of positive things to say as well: “Now our work is very easy. Since we started using the new soap, all the children rush to have their hands washed and rub the soap on their hands,” said Janet Oswadi, one of the teachers. “If by chance you forget to give the soap to one of the children, they refuse to move out of the line until they have received their drop,” she added.

With clean hands, the children were taken back to their “classroom.” Patiently seated in the shade of the mango tree, they waited for teachers to hand out the food the children had brought from home. Children were encouraged to share with classmates whose parents were unable to provide them with lunches. I was astonished to see that the children did not think twice about giving some of what little they had to their fellow classmates. After the food had been distributed, one of the children offered a prayer and then they all began eating. Everything from mangos to traditional African cakes were enjoyed in the safety of a germ-free environment.

It was clear to me that the anti-biotic soap is making a real difference. Teachers told me that since they started using the anti-biotic soap, children have stopped complaining of stomach aches, and class attendance has increased by 25%. Encouraged parents are now sending their children to the nursery schools because they know it is a disease free environment. Said Mrs. Chapomba, the Assistant Director for Consol Homes, “Please inform our friends in the US that the soap is helping us a lot. Cases of children becoming ill in the CBCCs have completely disappeared.” I am proud to report the success of the project and the better health of the children involved.

The Ministry of Education Praises Goods for Good's Efforts - Aaron Lewani

2008-10-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

One bright Saturday morning in August, I joined Mr. Kalanda, the Director of Primary Basic Education from the government’s Ministry of Education, in visiting public primary schools in Malawi. Mr. Kalanda had asked to tour Goods for Good’s projects at schools in Malawi after working with us for some time on our project at Tiyambe Nawo. Brian Mlenga from Africare, our program partner, also accompanied us. After a fascinating drive in which we discussed everything from marriage to the US elections, we finally arrived at Msamba Adzukulu Primary School in Dowa district where the Head teacher, the School Committee Members, and Group Village Headmen warmly welcomed us.

At Msamba Adzukulu, Mr. Kalanda first had a meeting with the School Teachers, Local Leaders and School Committee Members. During the meeting, the Head Teacher, Mr. Phiri, made a summary presentation of what Goods for Good and Africare are doing at the school. He spoke glowingly about how Africare is supporting the school with sanitary facilities while Goods for Good is supporting them with pens and paper to the students. He highlighted the Teacher Supplies Closet program, which provided flipcharts, markers, lesson planning pads and pens to the teachers. “This support has tremendously improved our work, which has resulted in increased school attendance and enrollment. We are now enjoying our work more, since we have the materials to use when working,” said Mr. Phiri.

The Group Village Headman also gave a short speech, in which he said: “Goods for Good has done a commendable job. As parents, we stopped worrying for pens. Children are much more interested in school than before because they have necessary writing materials. This has boosted their morale in school.” He emphasized that the problems, unfortunately, are still many, and he asked the Ministry of Education if it could support them with iron sheets to roof an empty and unusable school block.

After the community members presented, Mr. Kalanda had an opportunity to speak. He said, “Today, I am very impressed with what I have heard and seen for myself. As government, the funding that we receive from our national budget is too small to reach over 5,000 primary schools in the country. When we encounter organizations like Goods for Good and Africare, we really appreciate their work very much.” He went on to say that donating two pens per term to each student in 13 schools makes a big difference and saves the communities a lot of money. He also commended the Teacher Supply Closet program, noting it is very helpful since the teachers need many resources to plan and teach the children. He commended the community for taking part in the development of their own village, and advised them to pursue Members of Parliament for constituent funds for the iron sheets.

On his part, he pledged to send more teachers to the school. He said that immediately after that meeting he would convene meetings with the District Education Managers to discuss problems that the primary schools are facing in the districts. He noted that the problems at Msamba Adzukulu Primary School would be used as an example during those meetings. “Our ministry has a lot of work to do which we cannot accomplish on our own. The help we receive from partners like Goods for Good matters most,” he said in conclusion.

SAVE THE DATE

2008-10-23T09:59:00.000-07:00

VOLUNTEER IN MALAWI

2008-10-17T06:01:00.000-07:00

HI FROM THE GOODS4GOOD TEAM!

You can now VOLUNTEER IN MALAWI with Goods4Good! We've launched a volunteer program to send students, teachers, social workers, lawyers, managers and other people with relevant experience and skills to Malawi to help in a variety of programs at our partner organizations.

In December, we'd like to send 4-6 volunteers for 2-3 weeks to work with teachers on classroom skills in under-resourced schools and orphan care centers. This is a great opportunity for college students on break, teachers on vacation, and anyone looking to do something valuable in a short amount of time and travel abroad while doing it!

Read below for more information and PLEASE send this to anyone you think might be interested - We'd like to finalize participants in the next month, so don't delay!

Please contact us at info@goods4good.org if you have questions.

Thank You!

Brigitte, Ilana and the rest of the Goods for Good team....

Teacher Methods Training

Spend two to three weeks volunteering in Malawi, running a teacher training course for nursery school and primary school teachers. The program will consist of leading workshops for teachers as well as modeling new techniques in the classroom. The overall goal of this program is to teach teachers more effective but culturally appropriate teaching techniques such as classroom management, participatory learning, etc. Volunteers will have the unique opportunity to compile and execute a curriculum of critical teaching techniques. Housing will be available at St. Mary's Rehabilitation Center, an orphanage run by Spanish nuns with first world amenities, which is where the nursery school is located. The elementary school is a five minute walk from the center. In addition, volunteers will spend five days living and volunteering at Tiyambe Nawo, a community based organization in Nkangamira, where volunteers will provide the same teacher training to the nursery school staff there. Additionally, G4G will arrange a tour of our programs and a weekend retreat.

G4G will not be offering funding for volunteers, although housing will be free of charge and basic food will be provided by St. Mary's and Tiyambe Nawo. The largest cost associated with this trip is airfare, which will be around $2,500. Volunteers should budget an additional $500 for incidental expenses associated with travel and staying in Malawi.

Degree in or experience with teaching preferred.

Not Your Regular Party - Yehuda Gruenberg

2008-09-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the pleasure of volunteering at the G4G warehouse in New Jersey. It was a fantastic day -- hot outside but nice and cool in the basement where we were working. We started out unpacking boxes upon boxes of surplus pharmaceutical pens in order to count, sort, and package them for shipment to Malawi. What struck me almost immediately was the amount of waste we barely even begin to contemplate in our everyday lives -- if we were not sending these school supplies to children in Malawi, they would probably end up in the garbage. That is what is so simple and yet so wonderful about the work of Goods for Good; taking unused goods and putting them to good use.

As I helped the G4G team go through tens of thousands of pens, I started thinking about the pictures I have seen from Goods for Goods' numerous trips to Africa. I could not help but wonder what these pens, or more aptly what their owners, would someday create. Ten thousand pens, ten thousand children -- the creative and intellectual possibilities are endless -- it just felt good knowing that my hands participated in that creativity, somewhere, in some small way. I kept picturing the smiling faces of the children as they receive their school supplies, the bright optimism that adults experience when they see their children well-equipped and ready to learn. I only wish I could be there on the other end of the line to help unpack these boxes I just packed, and see the faces firsthand.

My fellow volunteers were outstanding. People from all walks of life, helping not because it is 'a mitzvah', not because it is the 'christian thing to do', but because it is the right thing to do. From the G4G staff (Mel, Jeremy, and Brigitte), to Jeremy's friends Jay and Leslie, to the high schoolers who gave up a summer sunday to be there, to Joe's family, we worked hard but we all seemed happy knowing that the fruits of our labor were truly appreciated by people we would likely never have the chance to meet.

I feel very fortunate knowing that there are organizations like G4G in this world,who see something that needs fixing and who do it because it needs to get done. I hope that I can be involved in many packing parties yet to come and I encourage anyone who comes across this blog to get up, get active and get involved. Change starts with one person, one sunday afternoon, one selfless act. Thanks to G4G for giving me the opportunity to be part of it.

Volunteering In Malawi, Totally Different than Canada - Michael Fresco

2008-09-04T09:37:00.000-07:00

I’d never really been out of the country before this year. Ok, I’ve been to Canada and Mexico on family trips, but I’d never left North America, never been some place really different. That changed as January 2008 saw me to Italy for school, and when I came home in May I received an e-mail from my cousin Melissa. It was a forwarded message but the introduction was personalized, and it read: “I heard you might be looking to get out of the country again…”

So that’s how my trip to Malawi began. On July 30th I and my two fellow travelers, Talia and Ilana, set out for ‘The Warm Heart of Africa’, and after 36 hours and three flight transfers we arrived, a bit delirious but happy nonetheless.

Our first taste of Malawi came with the drive from the Airport to St. Mary’s. The landscape of Malawi is beautiful, and in that travel-weary state it reminded me of Italy – big, rolling foothills, wide open valleys, spectacular views – only the colors were different. Everything was a dried out brown instead of lush green (I later learned that during the rainy season, this is not the case).

And if the landscape was beautiful, the roadside scenery was striking. Downtrodden storefronts with no windows, small clusters of straw-roofed shacks with no doors, children walking the street barefoot and shirtless. The poverty was evident and everywhere, and I think all three of us were nervously waiting to see where the car would stop.

When we arrived at St. Mary’s (which, if you don’t know, is an orphanage and rehabilitation center where Melissa and Jeremy lived and through which Goods for Good often sponsors distributions) I was surprised and delighted. It’s a beautiful campus, green with nice buildings, windows and all. It reminded me of summer camp, really; there was a directors’ house, boys and girls’ bunks, a rec hall, mess hall, staff quarters and a soccer field. We were made to feel even more at home by Sister Rosemary, who picked us up from the airport and was at once kind and accommodating. All the Sisters were. We ate dinner at their house that night. It was delicious.

Above I described the poverty that faced us everywhere outside the walls of St. Mary’s.I should elaborate by saying that the people of this country, their personalities and outlook, are in no way indicative of their surroundings. As time passed and we met several Malawians, at school, around Chezi (the town we were living in) and in travel. We were all amazed at how friendly, earnest and eager to talk they were. Nowhere did we meet a Malawian who seemed bitter or resentful, despite the conditions all around them.

This attitude was most obviously embodied by the children we got to know at St. Mary’s, as well as those who came to school at St. Matthias from surrounding villages. Here were kids who had in some cases lost everything (their parents), and were still generally cheery and fun loving.
And smart! Once we started teaching we were surprised again – this time by how well behaved and eager to learn the kids were. They gave us their full attention, didn’t talk in class, and were just wholly better than any American middle school class I’d ever seen.

Not only were they attentive, but most of them had a surprisingly firm grasp on the subjects covered in class. Malawi’s primary school system, its classes and exams, are all done in English, a second language (at best) to each student. I taught science, and was worried about all the specific terminology it would involve, but the students successfully navigated tough concepts like electricity, air pressure and properties of sound waves. Surprising.

Still, the issue of English-language classes in areas like science, math and social studies puzzles me. In a country where children are struggling to stay focused and even to attend school, the language issue presents another significant challenge to those trying to better their station in life. And while the better students typically speak functional English, a lot of the slower kids don’t. For all I know they might not be slower at all, because as I moved to individual help it became clear that for some children not knowing the answer wasn’t the problem; they didn’t understand the question. This was and is a challenge I have to applaud these kids for rising to.

Congratulations are also due to the staff of St. Matthias primary school. Mr. Banda, the headmaster, was very welcoming to us and is clearly respected by his students and coworkers. The other teachers we came to know are good people, and all share an admirable commitment to their work. They do a great job and St. Matthias is consistently one of the top schools in the country. Still, the lack of simple learning tools is immediately apparent, and I found myself distributing notebook paper and pens from my backpack on a daily basis, so much that I ran out. The kids couldn’t even take notes. This illuminated for me the importance and necessity of the type of work being done by Goods for Good and other organizations.

On that topic: there was one Sunday when Aaron, a Malawian employee of Goods for Good, took us on a drive through the country to visit some of the other projects the organization is involved with. We went first to the organizational center of Consol Homes, a Malawi-based aid organization. The structure, partially sponsored by Goods for Good, houses certification in carpentry and tailoring for older students as well as after school care for younger ones. We also visited a small village home to the founders of Tiyambe Nawo (another Malawian NGO), Mr. and Mrs. Benis. They invited us to lunch in their home (nsima, nsima, nsima) and later we visited the newly constructed community center/nursery schoolhouse, a project funded by Goods for Good. Mr. Benis pointed out to us the community’s former schoolhouse; it was a small shack caught in the middle of collapse, one you or I would probably take for an old tool shed. When we saw the Goods for Good label on the brand new building – and I believe I can speak for my partners here – we felt a great deal of pride to be representatives of such a cause.

Now that I’m back, people often ask what will I miss most about Malawi. Here is the answer: having a position of modest importance in the lives of the children of St. Mary’s and St. Matthias. They all became good friends, and I like to think they enjoyed having us around.

I owe a huge thank you to Goods for Good who gave me the opportunity to go to Africa. Thanks also to the staff of St. Mary’s – Sisters Victoria, Parfalia, Sheba, Shinee and Rosemary, and John Mwanza, as well as the staff of St. Matthias, Mr. Banda, Mr. Nkhota, the other Mr. Banda and all the rest of the teachers there. Lastly, thank you to Talia Kraemer and Ilana Kahn for being great friends, teachers, and roommates. And chefs.

104 Big Smiles!

2008-09-04T09:27:00.000-07:00

One day this past July, I visited Tiyambe Nawo Community Based Organization, where they were distributing clothing, provided by Goods for Good to children from their three child care centers: Tiyambe Nawo; Nsangu; and Mphanda. When we arrived at the center, the children welcomed us joyfully, and Tiyambe Nawo volunteers went ahead with the clothing distribution.

As the children began receiving their clothing, every one of them was coming out of the distribution room with big smiles. Looking at them, no one could miss the joy and excitement that these children had. I managed to meet few of them to hear why they felt such glee.

Major Maunda was the first child I chatted with. He said he would like to be a medical doctor after completing his education and likes playing football in his free time. Major explained, “I am very happy with these beautiful clothes I have just received. I will be putting them on when going to school, to wedding ceremonies, and to church. Without this I would have been wearing my old clothing, which is in a bad state.” Major, who stays with his mother, lost his father a couple of years ago. He was so thankful to those who gave the clothing and sent his greetings to them.

As the distributions continued, I met a young girl who was in a very jovial mood; her name is “Zione,” which means “watch that” in Chichewa. Zione likes playing netball and her favorite food dish is rice with meat. When I asked Zione about her new clothing she exlaimed “I am so excited to receive the clothing because I have found something to wear. My mom faces difficulties in buying me clothing so this is my greatest opportunity. Now I have clothing to wear at home and at school.” Twelve-year old Zione said she would work hard to reach her dream of becoming a nurse.

Lastly, I met Mr. Moses Chinzimu, a man in his late thirties. He told me: “I have received clothing for Mphatso, Suzen, and Hadwick: these are my young brother’s children. They could not come here because they went away to see a relative at a distant place. My brother died a year ago and left these three children, who are staying with their grandmother. The clothing will make the children look beautiful and dignified. I am so grateful to the people who are concerned with the needs of these children and provide support to them. It is very difficult for their guardians to get money to buy them food, let alone clothing.”

Indeed, the clothing brought much joy to the 104 children who received the clothing on this particular day!

A Simple, but Transformative Moment

2008-09-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

Daniel Nsonthi is a 14 year old boy whose mom died when he was five years old. Despite losing a parent at such a tender age, Daniel has continued to work hard at one of the reputable government high schools in Malawi, where he is a form one (9th grade) student. Unfortunately, because of a simple lack of school uniform, his education was hindered until Goods for Good distributed school uniforms last April.

In April 2008, I participated in the uniform school distribution at Consol Homes. Consol Homes is implementing this program in partnership with Good for Good. Goods for Good provides the fabric for making the school uniforms while Consol Homes uses their students enrolled in a tailoring vocational training – usually orphans who dropped out of school – to sew the uniforms. This partnership teaches a marketable skill to orphans without other options, and provides free school uniforms to those orphans still enrolled in the school system.

I was fascinated by the huge numbers of boys and girls who turned up to receive the school uniforms on this particular day. Many of them walked on dirt roads without shoes for over ten miles to get to the distribution. Then they waited several hours in the hot sun to see if they would be one of the lucky ones to receive a uniform. It made me feel both sad and inspired that they were willing to go through so much for something as simple as a school uniform – an item that many children across the world disdain and take for granted.

Of course, children wouldn’t be lining up in the hot sun if uniforms weren’t critical to success in the Malawian education system. School uniforms are required by law in Malawi, a policy that excludes many impoverished children from obtaining an education. In particular, orphans attending school in Malawi find it challenging to save the money, about three dollars, for a school uniform. Although cheap by US standards, they cost a lot for a low-income family in a developing country. Most caregivers cannot afford them, especially when they are caring for many children as the result of AIDS-related deaths in their community. Unfortunately, many children obtain a uniform only by missing school to work odd jobs, saving up for their uniform and other required school materials bit by bit.

On that sweltering April day, Consol Homes distributed 700 uniforms to students in primary and secondary school in rural Malawi. The need is so great that many more than 700 children showed the day of the distribution, but there was only enough for 700 children. It was during the distribution that I met Daniel, one of the fortunate children to receive a uniform. He told me that he was very happy to receive the school uniform because he had been told by his teachers that those students who would come without school uniform when school opens for the second term would be sent back immediately without any negotiation. Daniel had been kicked out of school for failing to wear a uniform last term, and he confessed that the teachers’ announcement worried him very much. He told me that sometimes he borrows a school uniform from a friend to attend classes.

Two weeks after the uniform distribution, I made a visit at Dzenza secondary school to see what a difference the school uniform was making in Daniel’s life. He told me that the uniform he received had allowed him to start the school term with joy. He was able to attend every class, which had resulted in immediately improved grades: He had performed very well with an average passing mark of 75%, the level of “distinction” in Malawi. Daniel has truly turned around his educational path, and the impetus was the school uniform. As I continue in my employment with Goods for Good, I look forward to being a part of many more simple, but transformative moments.

A Beautiful Sunday Afternoon

2008-06-09T10:07:00.000-07:00

It was a gorgeous, warm, sunny, summer day as we descended down the elevator to Goods for Good’s basement storage facility in Bridgewater, New Jersey. My sister Ilana and I could not help but wonder whether we shouldn’t be lounging at the pool instead. Our concerns were quickly allayed when the elevator door opened. We saw over a dozen volunteers like us going through hundreds of boxes of donated clothing from The Children's Place and organizing them by size and type for Goods for Good’s partner organizations in Malawi. It was inspiring to see a group of dedicated volunteers from various backgrounds giving up their beautiful Sunday to spend hours sorting through children's clothing for orphans in Africa.

The work was not complicated but it was important and necessary. Goods for Good has been able to provide so much for so many because of the tireless efforts of Melissa and her staff as well as the many volunteers who come out to help get the goods ready for shipment. This was my second trip to the basement storage area for a packing party. At the first party, I was joined mostly by family members and some close friends who I had known for years, and it was great. But this time was much different and really showed how far Goods for Good has come as an organization. Instead of family and old friends (though there were still some), volunteers from a local church, G4G’s intern Denice, work associates of Jeremy’s, a Board member, and Melissa and Jeremy's Chichewa tutor Merriam all came out to assist. I particularly enjoyed the banter between Merriam, a native Malawian and Jeremy over Jeremy's grasp of her native language.

It was wonderful to be there and the experience really demonstrated the diverse community that Melissa has brought together to make G4G a success. Each volunteer helps G4G realize its mission to provide the goods that we have in excess to those who really need them. In the end we packed a record number of boxes (102!!) of school bags, shirts, shorts, pants, jeans, jackets, dresses and accessories that will soon be shipped to partner organizations in Malawi.
It really was a wonderful way to enjoy a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Zach Kahn

Uniforms Created With Donated Fabric Allow 1100 Orphaned Students to Attend School

2008-05-05T13:16:00.000-07:00

Our first stories from the field are from three of the 1,100 students who have benefited from our uniform program. They speak for themselves

MALITA ENELODI, (pictured below in the red skirt) an orphan who lost her mother
My name is Malita Enelodi and I am 18 years old. I lost my mother in the year 2000 and immediately I went to stay with my grandmother who is very old. I started facing various problems including lack of school support. Through other people in the village I managed to get contact with volunteers who were helping vulnerable children with school support who later linked me to Consol Homes. Currently, I am a form two student at Chiwe Secondary School and I will sit for Junior Certificate of Examination this year which I am confident that I will pass.

Today I am so excited with the school uniform I have received from Consol Homes and it has come at the right time as the second school term will open two days from now. Last school term I was being stopped from attending classes by the teachers because I had no school uniform but now I will attend classes freely. My full participation in classes will help me to progress well and eventually become self reliant when I finish my education. My grandmother cannot afford to buy me school uniform and I know she will be very happy when she sees this school uniform when I go back home

I am so glad that this school uniform has been made by my fellow friends who are orphans. I intend to help my fellow orphans when I become an adult. I am so thankful to Goods for Good for helping me to have a school uniform which was difficult to get on my own. It is really “Goods for Good” as the name says.

DANIEL MSONTHI, (pictured below in the center) an orphan who lost his mother
My name is Daniel Msonthi and I am 14 years old. I lost my mum when I was five years old. I am a student at Dzenza secondary school in Lilongwe. When I was selected to secondary school I had no one to pay school fees for me. A volunteer working in my village assisted me to get connected to consol Homes who started paying school fees for me.

With the school uniform I have received today, I will be learning without any worries. Last February 2007, I was sent out of classes because I had no school uniform. My friend had to lend one to me to attend classes, but I had to give it back to him when school closed. This uniform is my permission to enter into class. I expect to do well in class as I will stay full time in class: I will not miss any classes. My ambition is to become a lawyer. I want to execute justice to the poor which are oppressed.

I am glad that my fellow orphans who were trained in tailoring can produce such a beautiful uniform. I am so hopeful that the skills they have required will help them to generate income either through employment or self employed and move on with life.

CHIFUNIRO WILSON, (pictured below third from the right) an orphan who lost his mother
My name is Chifuniro Wilson and I was born in 1981. I lost my father in 2004 who was suffering from tuberculosis and I moved to stay with my brother. In 2007 when I was in standard eight, my brother approached the volunteers asking them if they could assist me to get school support, which finally worked. Now I am a form one student at Namitete Secondary School and Consol Homes is supporting me with school fees.

Today I am very happy that I have received a school uniform. I thank Goods for Good for making this happen. When we were closing last school term, the head teacher made an announcement that students who come without a school uniform would not be allowed to attend classes and added that such students will be sent back home. I was worried about this because I knew that missing classes would put me at a disadvantage: by missing classes I will not manage to achieve my goal of being in the top ten lists when class examination results are released. Additionally, it was interested to hear that this school uniform was made my fellow orphans and I know they have contributed something to my education and I am happy with them.

Back in New York!

2008-02-12T13:11:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone,

We're back in New York and are working hard on all of the exciting programs we set up during our stay in Malawi. Please visit our website at www.goodsforgoodinternational.org to check out what we're doing.

Thanks for all of your support!

Melissa Kushner

Farewell to Malawi...For Now

2007-12-20T01:30:00.000-08:00

We’ll be leaving Malawi in two weeks so it seems like a good time to share our parting thoughts on our 6-month stay here. It’s going to be very difficult to sum up our activities and feelings. It seems like each day has brought out a different emotion in us and I’m not sure we even know how to make sense of it all, let alone capture it in our blog. But that’s not to say we won’t try.

We came to Malawi with high hopes for growing Goods for Good and are happy to report that we’ve accomplished so much. Goods for Good is now operating on the ground in Malawi as a registered NGO with the stamp of approval from the Ministry of Women & Child Development and we’re in the process of hiring our first Malawian employee. More importantly, in addition to our ongoing support at St. Mary’s, we now have partnerships in place that, over the next couple of years, will expand the number of orphans and vulnerable children we reach in Malawi to over 30,000.

What we believe is special about these new partnerships is that although each will reach the orphans and vulnerable children in a different way, they all match our goods with trained caregivers and teachers to improve the children’s lives.

Through our partnership with Consol Homes we’ll be working with a Malawian organization that practically invented the idea of formalizing the training of caregivers.

By working with Consol Homes we’ll be able to put our clothing, blankets and educational materials directly into the hands of people who are trained to maximize their uses. Consol Homes has programs for nursery school and primary school children as well as extensive psycho-social support programs. Our stay here has really emphasized the need to couple emotional support with material support as the majority of children we are working with are traumatized and severely affected by tragedy in their home lives. We believe our partnership with Consol Homes will enhance the sustainability and effectiveness of their work with thousands of orphans and vulnerable children. (To learn more about them log on to their website www.consolhomes.org they are pretty great.)

Our second exciting partnership is with Africare and in January we will be distributing school materials to extremely under resourced school children. Africare is working with some of the most disadvantaged schools in Malawi to provide basic sanitation services where there is currently none. All of the schools Africare is working with were in danger of being shut down by the Ministry of Health because of the absence of any sanitation facilities. Goods for Good will support Africare’s infrastructure initiative by providing school materials to improve the learning environment. The first provision will be 2 pens per term to each student at theses schools. We’ll then follow up this distribution with what we’re calling a “Supplies Closet”. We piloted the Supplies Closet filled with markers, crayons, poster board and other assorted materials at St. Mathias during our stay and saw first hand what a difference it makes both in quality of lessons and teacher morale. Many teachers have over 100 students and absolutely no materials, they often have to ask students to bring in trash from home to use as paper for class lessons. This combination of no materials and hundred of students drastically affects the learning environment and morale of the teachers. We’re excited to have the chance to improve the learning environment and lessons for dozens of teachers and thousands of students.

Finally, we have our pilot program at Tiyambe Nawo Community Based Organization (CBO), where we are working directly in the community, partnering with them to meet a variety of their needs.

We’ll be providing goods to the orphans and vulnerable children, continuing to train the caregivers and committee and will be overseeing the construction of a new center for the hundreds of orphans under their care. Our work with Tiyambe Nawo is very personal. We meet with the community regularly to hear about what they are doing, learn about their needs and discuss how together we can best address those needs. These discussions not only help us improve our work with Tiyambe Nawo, but also build our own knowledge base on how to improve our services with all of our partners. On a more personal note we also get so much inspiration from this community, despite the poverty and incredibly difficult circumstances many of them live in, they are so enthusiastic and dedicated to the children.

Our experience in Malawi has certainly been unforgettable. We’ve had moments of elation and times of tremendous despair. The things that are most memorable to us are the children and the dedication of those committed to improving the lives of the children.

Whether you’re in school, the village or just passing by on the road, you will always see a smiling, waving child. When you’ve spent as much hands-on time with the children as we have you can’t help but look into the future and wonder where these children will be down the road. Once you start thinking about their future, and seeing how difficult the road ahead is, you can’t turn away from doing everything you can to make that road easier.

It is amazing to have the opportunity to work with Malawians who have dedicated themselves so completely to these children. Mr. Banda and Mr. Mkhota at St. Mathias, Mr. and Mrs. Chapomba from Consol Homes, the Committee at Tiyambe Nawo, the Sisters at St. Mary’s and the dozens of other volunteers, chiefs, community leaders and teachers we have met along the way are all an inspiration to us. Their commitment to the children is something you can only believe if you see it first-hand. Each one of these people make our work possible because with their dedication and our assistance we can improve the future of thousands of Malawian children.

Thank you for keeping up with our experience and make sure to check www.goodsforgoodinternational.org to see how our work in Malawi and Liberia continues to grow. Zikomo Kwambiri!!

Exciting Times at Tiyambe Nawo

2007-12-11T04:31:00.000-08:00

The caregivers at Tiyambe Nawo finished their training a couple of weeks ago and are already hard at work implementing the lessons they learned. We spoke at length with one of the caregivers and she felt so much more prepared to teach the nursery children than before the training. Of course, with all new endeavors, this one was not without a few hitches. Somehow a few of the village caregivers were under the impression that they needed a Junior Certificate (2 years of high school) in order to participate in the training and since they didn’t meet this standard, they didn’t attend the training. Therefore the village sent a couple of new caregivers who met this qualification.

This turn of events was obviously worrying to us because the two who dropped out are two of the most committed caregivers. The last thing we want to do is disrupt any of the amazing programs at Tiyambe Nawo so we’ve assured these caregivers that we’ll get them into a future training and in the meantime we’ve asked one of the other caregivers to give them a crash course on what was taught.

More big news...Because of Goods for Good’s close involvement with Tiyambe Nawo, two private groups have decided to finance the construction of a new nursery and community center. The groups are donating the funds to Goods for Good and GFG will be overseeing the project. It is an amazing step forward for Tiyambe Nawo, the hundreds of children benefiting from their services will not longer have to meet under a tree or in a shack but in a comfortable safe and clean shelter. By the middle of next year the community will have a center for their programs, goods for their children and the nursery, as well as trained caregivers. caregivers who are trained on how to best use these goods. With these three components in place, the community will be ready to provide an even higher level of care to the hundreds of orphans and vulnerable children in their community. In some of these pictures you can see the juxtaposition of the construction site alongside one of the current sheds 80 children under the age of five are meeting in everyday, I think this picture says it all.

Chaka-Cha Rainbow!

2007-12-11T04:20:00.000-08:00

Sorry for not writing for the past couple of weeks. We took a road trip with Melissa’s brother Marc and cousin Ruthie through southern Malawi, which for those interested in visiting the New York Times’ 29th best place to visit in 2008, is absolutely gorgeous. Zomba Plateau, the mountain above the former capital of Malawi, and the endless tea estates on the foot of the massive Mount Mulanje are especially worth seeing.

Our Goods for Good work has also been moving along well. Two-weeks ago St. Mary’s hosted Chaka-Cha Rainbow (the Rainbow Feast). This is an annual event where all of the 130 orphans who stay at St. Mary’s and the 450 who receive home based care put on performances for about 50 guests. Melissa, Brigitte and I had the pleasure of being involved this year by preparing a few performances and making more costumes than I thought possible.
Additionally, Goods for Good was able to play a large part in the program. Each of the children received a tote bag courtesy of Sanofi-Aventis and all of the boys received a pair of Children’s Place jeans. These contributions were incredibly important as they provided the children with materials for the coming year.
The feast was a huge success as all the kids did amazing jobs. We were so happy to be a part of this event. We’ve attached a few pictures

Caregiver Training

2007-11-20T03:53:00.000-08:00

Last week we spoke about the need for psychosocial support and now we are glad to report that this past week Goods for Good, in partnership with UNICEF and Preschool Playgroups of Malawi facilitated the training of 10 caregivers. The trainees, all currently untrained nursery school teachers, are participating in a two week residential training where they will get a crash course in not only teaching pre-school but also addressing the physical and emotional needs of their students. While it is not possible to learn everything in two weeks it is wonderful start for these formerly untrained teachers.

One of the modules in this course is making materials for the classroom. We were very happy to provide the trainees with assorted fabric to make plush toys for the children provided by Star Garments as well as colored paper and assorted craft materials provided by Write Way.

What has been especially exciting has been the community’s reaction to the training. First, the community worked with little notice to gather all of the caregivers in Lilongwe. Given the distance and the fact that it’s the beginning of planting season this was very impressive. Second, after going on about how happy they were about the training thus far, they asked us to provide them a test so they could evaluate what was learned and allocate the caregivers to the three nurseries in the best way. Tiyambe Nawo once again impressed us with their commitment and we cannot wait to see the benefits of the training being realized in their nurseries.

Guest Blog from Matt Katz

2007-11-20T03:38:00.000-08:00

I'm a friend of Jeremy's and Melissa's, and they were kind enough to have me out in Malawi for a full week. The only thing that they asked of me is that I write a little blog entry about my experiences. I promptly forgot about this -- until now, two weeks later -- but here goes...

For those who haven't had the good fortune of traveling 35 hours from Philadelphia to Lilongwe, Malawi, here's a rundown of what life is like for Melissa and Jeremy. First, Jer and Mel have elephants and hippos for pets, and they see antelope before breakfast each morning...That's not true, actually, but for my first two nights there they brought me to a national park, where we went on safari and saw elephants and crocs and zebras and baboons and something that Jeremy told me is a "pig monkey." The animals were all just feet away, which was amazing and slightly terrifying. When we returned to the Goods For Good (or G4G, as the kids call it) headquarters/house, the schedule was strict: Melissa and Jeremy wake up at ungodly hours each day, because there's constant work to be done. Here's a snippet of some of the things that Melissa and Jeremy accomplish in a single day:

- Jeremy teaches the area of a rectangle to 66 8th-graders and Melissa reads them Charlotte's Web.

- Jeremy and Melissa hear about an elderly couple whose huts burned down, destroying all of their clothes, personal items and food that was stored up for the rainy season. So Jeremy and Mel go to the market, reach into their own pockets, buy 404 pounds of maize and four blankets. They then drive the goods deep into the bush, where the shocked and thankful couple slap their hands together in heartfelt thanks.
The mode of transportation: Jeremy is cruising around in a blueish Nissan SUV with a G4G sticker on the side. He's driving on the left side of the road, handling the manual transmission and dodging random goats, chickens and children with ease. He might be the toughest man alive.

- Who needs a ride to town? Come on in. Whose little baby daughter needs a lollipop from the glove compartment? Here you go. Who needs a smile and maybe a hug? Smiles and hugs all around.

-Back at home, as soon as we scream in horror, Jeremy reacts. He kills 7 bugs larger than my head. He really is the toughest man alive.

-Jeremy tries to clean the virus off the nuns' computer at St. Mary's. Since there's no Internet at St. Mary's, the source of the virus is unclear. Jeremy does his best, but the nuns think he knows way more about IT work than he really does. The virus won't go away. He feels terrible

-Mel tutors four girls in English for an hour. She has a million other things to do, no one is making her do this, but she does it anyway. This is the only schooling they're getting.

-Jeremy goes to the airport to pick up packages for kids at the orphanage. I find out that government agents who handle import/export don't like video coverage of their operation. Oops.

-Mel, Jeremy and Brigitte meet with other NGOs and community groups to get a better handle on the specific needs in specific places. G4G's operation is totally grassroots. They're not saying, "Here, this is what you need." In fact, much of their time is spent in meetings and on the phone communicating with community-based organizations run by Malawians. G4G asks them how they can help -- "How many shoes can you use? How many school uniforms can we provide? Could the orphans at your school use school bags?"

- Mel speaks on the phone for an hour with Allison at the New York G4G office, sharing what she has learned from the community organizations and making arrangements for more partnerships in America.

-Jeremy drinks a container of Chibuku, the native Malawian beer, which might be the most foul-tasting beverage in Africa, or the world. Jeremy, of course, finishes it. I spill half of my beer on the ground to make it look as if I'm nearly as tough as he is.

And that, from the outside looking in, is what G4G life is like. There are some variations, of course. There's Tuesday, which is Internet day, and Thursday, which is Market Day. There's also plenty of Pizza Days at Mamamia's in Lilongwe, where Jeremy wows the wait staff with his tremendous appetite.

But what really struck me most about my week in the country is the work that the G4G team is doing that goes beyond the stated mission of their group. They are building relationships and making connections in sustainable ways that will hopefully help lift this place up. This is a shockingly impoverished nation, the most densely populated in Africa, with needs that run deep, from clean water and basic medical care, to shoes and shelter. But Malawi is also peaceful and generally politically stable, meaning that organizations like G4G can operate safely and without excessive governmental interference. The work they do and the impact that we can have with G4G as our conduit is remarkable. I hope they're as proud of themselves as the rest of us are of them. Zikomo!

Why Meeting Material Needs is Only Part of the Equation

2007-11-06T05:41:00.000-08:00

One of the most valuable lessons that we've learned while living and working with orphans and vulnerable children in Malawi is the importance of combining material support with programs that improve childcare and provide psychosocial support.

St. Mary’s Rehabilitation Center is a place where the material needs of the children are met but what’s often lacking is perhaps the most important need – emotional support. Unlike many children in the local village, the children at St. Mary's have food, clothing, security and the freedom to be kids, but it's important to remember that they are still orphans. Some were orphaned as babies and never knew their parents and others saw their parents die. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the US or Malawi, if a child goes through that kind of trauma they need emotional support.

This is true for the orphans at St. Mary’s and at all of the other Community Based Organizations (CBO) and Community Based Child Care Centers (CBCC) with whom we work. In order to begin to meet this need, Goods for Good is now coupling goods donations with Malawian Government sponsored childcare trainings for caregivers. The types of trainings range from training caregivers in Early Childhood Development with some emotional support training, to dedicated psychosocial support trainings. Goods for Good believes these trainings are an integral part of our work for two reasons. First, the trainings will empower the caregivers to use our goods and provisions more effectively. And second, the trainings will help caregivers address the emotional needs of the children.

It’s easy to forget what else is behind that smile when you hand a child a new shirt or toy. If we don’t remember the needs of these kids beyond material support, we risk leaving them exposed to an even more difficult road ahead.

What it Really Means Not to Have Security

2007-11-06T05:37:00.000-08:00

Tragedy recently struck one of our fellow teachers at St. Mathias. Alex, whose son is one of our best students in Standard 7, came to school a couple of weeks ago and told us that his parent’s home had burnt down. Losing their home not only meant losing their shelter, but it also meant that all of their maize, which was supposed to last them for another 8 months, was gone. Because of our relationship with Alex and his son this tragedy hit us too, so we decided to help the family out. Last week we drove with Alex to his parent’s house to deliver 300kgs of maize and several blankets to help alleviate part of their suffering. After a difficult drive through village roads, across a maize field and down a steep quarry, we arrived at their home and were instantly struck by how vulnerable these people truly were. Alex’s parents are very old and their house isn’t close to any neighbors or source of water, so we were immediately picturing what it must have been like to watch their home burn helplessly. After we delivered our donation, Alex’s father explained to us that when he saw the fire taking everything they had all he wanted to do was run into the fire and end his own suffering. There is not really much anyone can say to make everything ok for this couple but as they begin to rebuild their lives we are thankful that we could help in some small way.

I have to say though that this experience, one week later is haunting me and I cannot stop thinking about the lack of security people in the villages have. If “all the stars are aligned” things can appear to be okay for villagers. But when you think of the countless things that can happen, such as fire, a poor maize harvest, serious illness, caring for orphaned relatives, etc., you realize that there is no margin for error. If any of these things strike a family all of their work to barely make ends meet gets washed away and they become basically helpless. Thousand of grandparents like Alex’s parents are now caring for a half-dozen or more of their orphaned grandchildren. They’re just not prepared for that. One of the goals of Goods for Good in supporting CBO’s caring for orphans is to alleviate this demand on people who are simply ill equipped to handle it on their own. Visiting Alex’s parents didn’t show us anything we didn’t know already, but it did serve as a strong reminder the risk people here are facing and how important it is to help them deal with today and prepare for tomorrow.

Choose a community or let it choose you?

2007-10-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest challenges of partnering with organizations working in Malawi is finding the right partners. Some organizations come to Malawi to rollout programs designed in their offices in the US or the UK with little or no input from the people and organizations on the ground. These groups aren’t really looking for partners; they’re looking for recipients. Other organizations, such as Goods for Good, are trying to find people and organizations in Malawi with whom to partner. Goods for Good is actively looking for partner communities that are providing sustainable care to orphans and vulnerable children, where we can provide goods and training to improve care. The problem with this model is finding the right partners when you are an outsider. Many people here have been schooled on the right things to say to visiting organizations but before any partnership can be formed one needs to dig much deeper.

We’ve been fortunate to have a wonderful Malawian liaison for Tiyambe Nawo who has facilitated many meetings with the community leaders and visits to their programs. But how would we have been able to match up with Tiyambe Nawo if it wasn’t for our liaison? How could we know that this organization was actually as good as advertised?

The answer we’ve settled on is twofold. First, organizations must utilize Malawians to work here effectively. Any organization that thinks it can stroll into the country and order people around is in for a rude awakening.
If you want to work here you have to work with the people. That is why we plan on hiring an experienced Malawian program officer, someone who not only knows our model but knows the culture and local language. Second, is something those in the business world know well – a simple, but all important process known as ‘doing your homework’. We recently discovered through a series of meetings with other western organizations that none of them had done a reasonable amount of diligence on their partners. It doesn’t matter if it you’re working with community organizations in Malawi or Investment Banks in New York, when it comes time to make organizational decisions you have to do your homework.

Choosing partners is not a perfect science but working with the locals and spending time in the field is an important step to implementing meaningful and lasting programs.

What is more Contagious, Apathy or Motivation?

2007-10-25T07:30:00.000-07:00

As you know Jeremy and I teach in the mornings at the local public school in Dowa District. Jeremy teaches 7th grade Math and I teach 7th grade English. We have been teaching at the school non-stop for the last three and a half months (including 1 month when all but 3 other teachers were on holiday) and it is incredibly challenging. Relatively speaking, the school is not resource poor; the buildings are in good shape, there are plenty of teaching materials provided by Goods for Good and there is a well-stocked library.

So, why is it so challenging? Why do I kind of not want to go many mornings? There are a couple of issues that are quite upsetting and concerning, the common theme being apathy. The first is the issue of the feeding program at the school. Responding to the food insecurity in Malawi, an organization called Mary’s Meals runs feeding programs at public schools throughout the country, including St. Mathias. St. Mathias is provided with a kitchen, high capacity low energy cooking pots and nutritious porridge mix for all of the school children. All the community has to do is provide volunteers to add water and stir the boiling pots each morning. So why may you ask are the St. Matthias children often going hungry 3 days a week? The community cannot keep organized or motivated long enough to provide one full week of porridge for the students! So children come to school everyday with their little cups and go back home with empty bellies. This has been going on for the last three and a half months and frankly I am about to cook the porridge. Why don’t the communities seem to care enough to ensure their children have porridge?

The second issue is the attitude of the 5 teacher trainees working at St. Mathias. Our school has 8 full-time teachers for its 1,000 pupils. Fortunately for St. Mathias, and other schools who have even fewer teachers, the Teacher’s College sends trainees for a year of field work. We spoke to our Head Teacher the other day about the 5 at St. Mathias, and although the first 2/3 of the school year was considered a success, the final term has been an unmitigated disaster. The issues are too many to list here but they range from complaints that there aren’t enough materials (as opposed to making the most of what’s available as the excellent full-time teachers do) to treating the other teachers as if they were inferior because years of experience don’t match up to being enrolled at the teachers college. But what really sets us off is the attitude towards the students. These trainees seem to have little use for their pupils other than for using them to fetch water for their homes. Are these really the future teachers of Malawi? From what we’ve heard the teaching profession has become a career of last resort for many. There’s no question that teachers are underappreciated the world over, but for these schools, where is so much work to be done and so much possibility to change the lives of these kids, something has to be done to make education a priority again.

We don’t know why these things are the way they are. But we do know that there are many teachers and communities that are the exact opposite. What we hope to see is the positive work of these people spread to those people who don’t see the value. A big problem with our work is finding those who are already motivated.

Madonna in Malawi

2007-10-17T01:29:00.000-07:00

Madonna's highly publicized work in Malawi has shed light on the growing orphan population and has also raised questions about the best response to this crisis. There are a number of approaches that have been taken--many of them controversal--ranging from adoptions to community-focused projects, and we are actively researching the merits and pit-falls of each. But I am happy to report that Madonna and her organization Raising Malawi Trust have built an impressive community-based childcare center in Malawi that is the type of organization Goods for Good is hoping to partner with. In fact just yesterday we visited the organization Madonna is working with, Consol Homes, and visited her center’s site for the second time. The site itself is very beautiful with two large pre-school classroom blocks, a huge meeting hall and a kitchen. Additionally the center has a large meeting space for the older children, a space for the elderly caring for orphans (which is thoughtfully designed in the model of village homes), several offices and a large play area.

The project was built for an existing community based organization and will serve as its new home and as the offices for Consol Homes. Madonna’s project is very exciting because she is directly supporting the community and community based care, which we at Goods for Good believe is an important statement for her to make. She did not partner with one of the huge NGO’s but rather with Consol Homes, a homegrown Malawi organization working hands on in over 90 communities.
In fact, the reason we visited the center wasn’t to see her project but was instead to visit several of these other communities. Consol Homes is known for providing excellent training across the spectrum of orphan care, which is the best way to ensure the sustainability of the community based care.
We visited Consol Homes to learn more about their programs and to explore how Goods for Good can complement the trainings with the provision of goods to these communities.

When stars bring focus to humanitarian crisis the results can sometimes be less than stellar, but I say bravo to this project!

8,9,10,11,12 Year Old Mothers

2007-10-09T02:36:00.000-07:00

Yes there are very young mothers in Malawi but in this entry I am referring to the thousands of young girls that are forced to become mothers everyday, caring for their younger siblings after their mother’s pass away. (This problem affects boys as well, but the burden falls much more heavily on the girls)Over the last couple of weeks, I (Melissa) have been trying to teach three young girls, now mothers, how to read and write. The three girls are 12, 14 and 15. Two of them are cousins and are at St. Mary’s looking after newborn twins, Yonah and Yohane. The girls are here for about one year watching over the babies until they are old enough to be left here.

During this year the young girls do not attend school but watch the two babies. Whether or not they were in school before is questionable, given their lack of knowledge coupled with evident poverty and recent illness of their late mother. Regardless, seeing these young girls taking care of these babies day in and day out is heart wrenching. It is such a stark contrast to the children living around them at St. Mary’s whose days are filled with school and play. These girls’ days are filled with babies, babies and more babies. They have no time for school and not time for play.

The real question for me is what does this mean for their future and how many more are there just like them, maybe even worse off then them? It is impossible to even begin to think about what these girls go through, first they have to deal with their mother’s death which in Malawi means you are an orphan because men remarry quickly and often abandon their children from previous marriages. Then they are left, at such a young age, to care for their younger siblings, uneducated and poor.

In the classroom these girls are shy and embarrassed. All three did not know how to spell their names, and we had one whole lesson on figuring them out. There is not much more to say about this other than it is just not fair, and with each passing day more and more young girls and even some boys are ending up as mothers and fathers, with no other choice than trying to survive and provide for their younger siblings.

Beach Party

2007-10-09T02:23:00.000-07:00

This past Monday was Mother’s Day. After making cards for the sisters and house mother’s (the women who watch over the children at St. Mary’s) 65 children piled into the Lorry (a huge flatbed truck) and headed to the beach. If you read the blog above it is worth mentioning that the young “mother’s” had the day off and came to the beach as well, their first time ever seeing and swimming in the lake. All of the children had a blast! Below are some pictures from our great day!

District Tour

2007-10-02T01:19:00.000-07:00

This weekend we spent a day traveling around the district that we live in, Dowa District. First we ventured beyond Dowa, the capital town of the district, to a ‘semi-permanent’ refugee camp for Rwandans, Congolese, Sudanese and others. Unfortunately we were turned away at the gate because we didn’t have permission to enter. Apparently one needs permission because many journalists go there and take pictures and the residents dislike it. Additionally, the security situation in the camp is rumored to be less than ideal as war criminals have relocated to the camp.

While we could not enter the camp, our peripheral impression was that the camp doesn’t look much different than most of the villages in Malawi. The two differences we noticed were that the homes were closer together and that there seemed to be a great deal more electricity running through the camp than through a typical village (which is usually none). Maybe we can get back there another day.

Our next stop was the Dowa District Hospital, which is where St. Mary’s sends it referrals. Visiting the Dowa Hospital was our first trip to a government run hospital. Our first impressions exceeded expectations. The hospital seemed to be very well kept and even had a couple of new buildings. But then we noticed a couple of things that brought our collective impression back down to earth. First, during our entire tour of the hospital we saw no doctors and 1 nurse (who was actually a nursing student). The hospital apparently has a fairly strong staff of doctors and nurses but none of them were around, even though the hospital was full with patients. It seems that morale is low and focus on patient care is even lower. Which leads to the second observation – the sharing of beds. We understand that this is common practice in many developing countries for patients to share beds, but seeing it first-hand was another story.

Our final stop was to spend a few minutes watching the Dowa Hospital Soccer Club take on the club from Nkhotakhota. The experience was cool, the crowd was fairly large and the match actually had quite a bit of excitement. Unfortunately our visit to the match ended with our first taste of anti-western sentiment. It was not that big of a deal and none of us felt remotely threatened, but when you’re used to everyone being so warm and welcoming anything that diverges from that seems pretty shocking.

All and all the day was fun because we just drove around with our Malawian friend John without too much of an agenda. We stopped at the places I mentioned as well as at the market and to meet a couple of John’s friends. All of these things contribute to us learning more about the place we live and ultimately how to do our jobs here better.

Idle Time is the Devil’s Playground

2007-10-02T01:02:00.000-07:00

Ever since we started our work with the Standard 8 students at the end of July we’ve been bothered by the Ministry of Education’s calendar for these students. Across the country Standard 8 students took their National Exams during the first week of September. They will find out their scores at the end of December and some (hopefully many) will start Secondary School in the middle of January. If you’re wondering what fills the gap between their exams and the beginning of Secondary School you’re not alone – that’s what’s been bothering us. These children, some of whom are upwards of 20 years old, are given 4 months of holiday.
That’s 4 months filled with opportunities to get into trouble. As we’ve discussed before, the educational system is hard enough without endless temptations for some of the students to fall off course. And, just to be clear that we’re not being paranoid, after witnessing several of our older students spending all day one day last week drinking beer in the market, our Head Teacher Mr. Banda confirmed all of our concerns.

We’ve been thinking a lot about how this time can be managed better since there doesn’t seem to be much chance the calendar will change any time soon. Monday morning we spent a while brainstorming with Mr. Banda about this problem and we’ve come up with an idea that will hopefully work. We want to gather the class together and ask them to think about the issues and needs in their respective communities and their individual concerns about their futures. We want them to think for themselves about how they can use their time to better their surroundings.

For example, many girls in the villages drop out of school to care for younger siblings. Maybe some of the Standard 8 students can spend a few hours teaching them to read and write. A few other examples we thought of are apprenticeships/internships with some of the local tailors, carpenters, tinsmiths, nurses and shop owners, assisting the elderly in the villages and starting a part-time nursery. We want to help these kids along in the process but the goal would be to have the program driven by their own ideas and concerns. That way it can hopefully last beyond our short stay. Stay tuned for updates...

Cabbage Patch Kids Will Never Look The Same

2007-09-25T07:10:00.000-07:00

Sunday we had the chance to help our friend John plant his cabbage. Early afternoon we headed out for John’s rented plot of land, which was about a 15-minute walk through one of the surrounding villages. The 5 of us made our way through the village and happened upon an impressive collection of small farms at the bottom of a valley. We arrived at John’s plot and immediately got to work watering over 1,000 holes to prepare them for planting. Our process (as you can see in the pictures) entailed an assembly line, a healthy soaking in water that was somewhere between New Jersey tap and cesspool and a musical performance with selections ranging from national anthems to Disney songs (no one seemed interested in the Beastie Boys).

Our watering was followed by a visit to John’s nursery where we plucked over 1,000 little cabbage seedlings and finally a return to John’s plot where we planted the seedlings one by one.
Our day was certainly a lesson in what farming is like when your most advanced pieces of equipment are a hoe and a pail and your irrigation network consists of 4 westerners looking to help out a friend.

A Few Firsts for Goods for Good

2007-09-25T06:44:00.000-07:00

This week was an exciting week for Goods for Good as we embarked on a few firsts for the organization. To date we have sent our shipments by air to Malawi because of the many logistical difficulties of using sea freight to deliver goods to land-locked Malawi. After lots of work we’ve found a way and this week the first seaborne goods shipment set sail from the US.
The shipment will take a bit longer (early November we hope!) but will be a much more cost effective way to transport goods. We’re really excited for this new phase and believe it will allow us to expand our programming even further.

The other firsts are what’s inside this shipment. During our first few months here we’ve rolled out a few “pilot” school supplies distributions to St. Mathias, the local school where we are teaching. This current shipment includes thousands of pens and pads for other schools in the area around Chezi. With the help of the sisters at St. Mary’s, this school supplies distribution will provide pens for the coming school year for thousands of children in our area. In addition to the school supplies, this shipment includes clothing for Tiyambe Nawo, a Community Based Organization (CBO) we’ve mentioned in prior entries. Tiyambe Nawo is an excellently run grass-roots organization caring for Orphans and Vulnerable Children and we’re incredibly thrilled to formally begin our partnership by distributing clothes to the children under their care. Finally, this shipment will include our annual clothing shipment to St. Mary’s, where we get to see every day the positive impact it has on the children living around us.

Our final note regards another new Goods for Good partner. Sunday morning we distributed over 100 LeapFrog books and pencils to a Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program in Lilongwe. This CRS program is an orphan education and feeding program, providing periodic classes and daily meals to over 100 children of all ages. We were happy to be able to provide materials to this program and hope we can expand this partnership in the future.

Rest In Peace

2007-09-24T06:53:00.000-07:00

Some sad news to report...Sunday morning we found out that the young malnourished boy we talked about last week, whose name was Samuel, passed away the previous night. Samuel came to St. Mary’s almost 2 weeks ago and the sisters had been fairly pessimistic about his chances from the beginning. It seems Samuel had AIDS and the combination of his illness and his severe malnutrition were too much for him to bear. He couldn’t survive even with the care of the clinic here. Hopefully he’ll rest in peace.

Reality Check

2007-09-18T05:05:00.000-07:00

Last week my parents visited us at St. Mary’s for two days. One of our activities while they were here was a walk through Cavala village, the largest village in our area. The walk started off very nicely; it was a pleasant day, the village was full of children, we had a sit-down with the Chief and my parents got a good feel for what normal life is like for the people who live around us. However, towards the end of our walk we all got a first-hand look at what some children are susceptible to as part of village life.

A 36 year-old village woman with five children, the youngest of whom is a 6 month-old baby boy, has AIDS and has an urgent need for medication. A little while ago she went to the district hospital to try to enroll in an ARV treatment course but because she was required to bring someone with her and no one would come with her, she received no medicine. In fact, her mother even said she didn’t care if her daughter lived or died, a telling illustration of the stigma people receive when they are perceived to have HIV/AIDS. This woman is in very bad shape and we came across her hut where other women were outside holding the 6-month old boy. As soon as we laid our eyes on the baby we were struck by the severity of his condition. Probably the best way to describe him is to reference the images we see sometimes on TV of severely malnourished children. He was close to dying because his mother was on her deathbed too so she couldn’t nurse him and no one was taking care of him.

The scene struck us so strongly for two reasons. First, seeing a child in that condition is truly something that you can never forget. Second, we were so confused by how the child advanced to that state. The hut where he lived was in the center of the village and many people knew about the mother’s condition.
I have no idea why people let the baby get so far along; why no wet-nurse was made available and why no one brought the baby to the clinic less than a KM away. Fortunately the boy is now at St. Mary’s receiving care for his condition and the sisters think he will recover. The day was a real reminder that although we’ve settled into a life here and have gotten used to seeing the poverty and the difficult lives, there are still things going on around us that we can never get used to.

Con-Graduation!

2007-09-04T02:51:00.000-07:00

On a different note, our standard eight kids graduated this week. There was not much of a ceremony, in fact when we found out there would be no certificates of completion (i.e. diplomas) we took it upon ourselves to make sure that there were some for the children. We both felt that the children should feel proud of their accomplishment, especially considering that so many drop out before this very important day. In addition to the certificates the kids had a party with food (rice and goat) and music. Jeremy and I helped to sponsor the party because we have become so fond of the students.

We were not sure how the students felt about us, but we came to the party late after picking up Jeremy’s parents at the airport and were greeted with loud cheers of excitement and laughter.

Coming from such what I would call ‘guarded’ children, this made us feel pretty amazing! Now the exams...they begin on Wednesday only after the communitywide prayer service (non-denominational, don’t worry) on Tuesday.
According to one of the teachers this is “the most important thing we can do before the exam...”. I am sticking with studying as the most important thing, but that is just me. We are going to miss these kids and now we just have to hope that they stay in school and out of trouble.

School Supplies

2007-09-04T02:35:00.000-07:00

This past week, Goods for Good delivered teaching materials to St, Matthias, the public school at which we teach. We delivered hundreds of books, Leap Pads, several roles of paper, hundreds of pages of oak tag, markers, tape, etc. Thank you to Write Way, Pfizer, the third grade class at Abraham Joshua Heschel School and Leap Frog for making this wonderful and very important donation possible. These materials will allow the teachers to implement the new teaching methods they learned in the training sponsored by Goods for Good, as well as help them to create a school that encourages learning and creativity.

These materials were delivered to St. Matthias in Goods for Good’s new car on Sunday afternoon. We purchased the car third hand (that is older than second hand) from and ex-patriot leaving town.
Lets just say no one will doubt that we are spending our money on programs and not overhead, if you get my drift. We got a great deal but now of course there is the issue of taxes, which are over 100% of the price of the car! Oh Dear! Regardless we are excited to be mobile, as we have been planning to visit several different sites and communities.

Our New Addition...no we have not adopted, mom!

2007-09-04T02:30:00.000-07:00

We are excited to tell everyone that Brigitte Zimmerman, Goods for Good’s new Program Associate, has joined us in Malawi. Brigitte will be working as both a program manager and research associate while she is here in Malawi for the next eight months. Brigitte brings a wealth of program management experience as well as field research to the team. Over the last two weeks while Brigitte has been here we have embarked on our formal research, gathering general information on what the various stakeholders have been doing to respond to the orphan crisis in Malawi.

Our research includes combining visits to NGO’s, governmental bodies and grass roots organizations with general community based research through our work at the local public school. We all feel very positively about our method of research, because while meeting with the NGO’s etc. is important, at the end of the day working and living with our beneficiaries is the best way to create and implement projects. We are so glad to welcome Brigitte to the team!

Chezi Children vs. Children in the Village

2007-08-28T03:15:00.001-07:00

Standard Eight Class Studying Outside

2007-08-28T03:08:00.001-07:00

Give Me Money!

2007-08-28T02:47:00.000-07:00

During the first 2 months of our trip we have been confronted with the harsh reality that a significant portion of aid is often misused, not only on the macro level but also on the micro level. Seeing this type of thing day-in and day-out is discouraging. For example, yesterday we rode our bikes to another school to lend our services and the ride was filled with children on the side of the road yelling to us “Give me money!” We sometimes respond “Give me money” in order to make light of the situation but when you stop and think about it, little children associating Western visitors with handouts is an upsetting problem.

Another example is a story we heard when we visited a hospital run by the Sisters from the same congregation as St. Mary’s. A couple of weeks ago some men came to rob the Sister’s house at gunpoint wearing the very clothing the sisters had given them days before. Not to mention that they cam to rob the house because they heard there were Westerners staying there and thought that they most likely travel with a bag of money because they are always giving it out. Whether it’s donor fatigue (ie there are too many Westerners visiting all the time giving out things for free) or a cultural issue we have become concerned about being able to find a self-motivated and honest community to work in.

This concern of ours was allayed this past week when we visited the Comuniy Based Organization in the village mentioned above, Tiyambe Nawo. For every example of misused, underappreciated or stolen aid we had seen or heard, this community represented the opposite. Four women started this Community Based Organization (CBO) 5 years ago with nothing but a few Kwacha of their own, the support of the Senior Group Village Head Man, and an incredibly strong desire to improve the problems that were beginning to take over their village. We’ve talked about the community before and have described the many services they provide in the site report (which you can download from the website). Meeting them again and hearing about their passion, their commitment and the personal sacrifices they’ve made was a real reminder of the type of organizations we want to help. We often think about charity in the Western sense of the word, people who have enough give away something to help others. In the village charity is different; these people are living at a the subsistence yet find the time and money to help others in greater need then themselves.

My favorite example of this community’s strength is what they did with their local school. Several years ago the CBO realized that their children were not starting Standard 1 until ages 10 or 11 because the primary school was over 6km away. They saw this as huge problem, especially for girls who were at risk of being pulled at of school at 15 or 16 with half of a primary school education. Instead of simply talking about the problem, the CBO and the villagers found a small amount of money from a local friend and built a school block for standards 1-3 (the young children who cannot walk so far to school) in the village entirely on their own. With a completed school block they went to the Ministry of Education and got 4 teachers sent to the school. Now there is a proper school for Standards 1, 2 and 3 in the village. This is the type of organization we want to work with; one that believes in the future of their children and will go to almost any length to try and make that future possible. Above are a couple of pictures from our meeting.

Culture Contrast

2007-08-28T02:18:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago in our “Dance Fever” entry we talked about Mua mission and its work, bringing Catholicism to Malawi while preserving the local culture. This weekend we had a first-hand look at both sides of that equation, attending a traditionalMalawian funeral on Saturday and a Catholic baptism on Sunday.

On Saturday we traveled to a village about 30km from Lilongwe to meet with a community that impressed us during our December research trip. We arrived at the village while a funeral was in process. This funeral was special because the deceased was in the chief’s family and so there were many elaborate dances performed by the Gulu Wamkulu, a secret club of predominantly men who dance in masks and costumes. The Gulu Wamkulu are one of the best known elements of Malawian culture and some of the stories about them (such as midnight dances in graveyards) are examples of Malawian culture contrasting and sometimes conflicting with Western ideas. Before Saturday, we had seen an occasional member on the side of the road doing his dance in costume, as others have. However, it is highly unusual for visitors to be invited to watch a performance close-up.

Luckily for us, because we were the guests of the Senior Group Village Head Man (the most senior chief in the area) we were not only invited to watch the dances, but were even encouraged to take photographs (an indication of our good fortune was that the Malawians who accompanied us on the trip told us that they would never have been allowed to witness the dances had it not been for our invitation, since they had not been initiated into the society). Finally, when the men chased away the women and children for a very secret dance, our invitation ended as well. As the pictures show, the experience was something we will not forget.

On Sunday, as we usually do, we went to mass at the parish next door to St. Mary’s. Only this time the mass was quite different. The crowd was much larger and the choir was visiting from several villages away.
The reason for this was that there was a mass baptism of about 50 Malawian men and women. These men and women certainly did not choose to be baptized on a whim; some of them have spent years studying and preparing for this day. As mass progressed we had the pleasure of seeing first-hand what a mass African baptism actually looks like (unfortunately it wasn’t the best time to take out our camera). We could see in the faces of those who had just been baptized that the experience was powerful and exciting.

One interesting thought we had about this weekend was that we are fairly certain some of the dancers we saw on Saturday were baptized Christians and some of those baptized on Sunday were also members of the Gulu Wamkulu. We are certainly in no position to make any judgment call about which one is better than the other or if some combination of the two, as Mua Mission promotes, is the ideal situation. But for us, as visitors working to get a better understanding of the people so that we can deliver help more effectively, it was fascinating to see close-up the delicate balance between religion and culture.

Expecto Patronum

2007-08-21T01:19:00.000-07:00

Over the last month we have been working with the Standard 8 students, preparing them for their national exam. The students take exams in English, Math, Social Studies, Science, Agriculture and Chichewa. These exam determine if the children go on to secondary school (equivalent of American high school). Once they pass the exams they need to be accepted to a school and then, if they are lucky, they can find sufficient funds to go to school. I am in the process of finding the statistics of what percentage of Standard 8 students pass the exam and of those, who can afford to go on to school, but I am sure that it is staggeringly low. If the mock exams are an indication, 7 of 74 students in our school passed the exams. (It is worthwhile to note that 20% of Malawian men attend secondary and 11% of Malawian women attend secondary school.)

Jeremy and I have been using the mock exams and past national exams to prepare our students for the national exam. In the process we have been taking many exams ourselves. Each time one of us takes an exam, not only do we find several typos and mistakes, we also find some incredibly difficult questions. Some difficult because of the concepts (such as clauses), others difficult because of the subtleties about which they decide to test the children. The mock exams in particular are entirely too difficult and oftentimes incorrect.

When I began to realize these issues I asked the headmaster who was writing the mock exams. He informed me that the mock exams are written by committees within each school district. In a way this gave me some re-assurance; at least the national exam board did not write these mock exams, but at the same time it was deeply concerning. The student’s teachers wrote these exams, which means that the teachers are either knowingly testing children on things they did not learn or not taking the time to ensure the tests are appropriate. This is in addition to the fact that the exams have several mistakes and inaccuracies. I am quite sure that many teachers would have trouble passing the exams themselves.

So ultimately, where does that leave our students? Depressed and totally disenchanted. I don’t think that over 90% of your class failing their mock exams increases morale for taking the national exam! To make matters worse, these children do not really speak English, yet they are expected to know minute details of the language, not to mention colloquial English. For example, they needed to know the difference between the vocabulary “fares” and “rates” and whether one says dying from AIDS or dying of AIDS. The fact that the mock exam has questions about people in the villages dying of AIDS is an entirely different problem.

One central problem (of many central problems) seems to be that up until Standard 5 children are learning all of their subjects in Chichewa, and English is only one subject in school. Then all of the classes are taught in English and Chichewa becomes a subject. For those of you who went to Jewish school that would be like having to learn all of your subjects in Hebrew beginning in 5th grade while English became only one subject...how would you do? I would fail miserably. I would have gone from just being bad in Hebrew to being bad in all of my subjects. What makes matters even worse is that most of the teachers for Standard 5 and lower don’t really speak very good English.

A good example of this problem is the performance of some of the students in Math. For many of them if you put a complicated division problem in front of them they could solve it with little difficulty. But if you put the same problem in front of them in the form of a word problem many of them wouldn’t have the first idea of where to begin. How can we build on the fairly strong core knowledge in Math if we’re trying to do so in a language they barely speak?

Between this language shift and these incredibly hard mock exams, it begins to feel like education system is just setting the kids up for failure. This is a shame because I believe that many are bright and simply don’t speak English very well. As a result we’re left with students who, as of Standard 8, are largely lost not only in English but also in Science, Social Studies, Agriculture and Math.

In other news we just captured a grasshopper the size of Jeremy’s index finger in our living room after returning from watching Harry Potter with our students, we are just glad that the grasshopper wasn’t a monster in disguise. The kids didn’t know what Harry Potter was, but afterwards realized that some of the clothes that have been donated have a Harry Potter theme, and they were excited to wear them around.

More to come on education...stay tuned next week.

Goods for Good Distribution to Standard 8

2007-08-14T02:09:00.000-07:00

As we mentioned a few weeks back in “Can You Spare a Pen or Paper?” we’ve been thinking more about supporting local schools with in-kind donations as a way of helping children while strengthening local institutions.

Our first project of this type was successful when Melissa and Leora conducted a teacher’s training program at St. Mathias sponsored by Goods for Good. In order to ensure that the teachers could maximize what they learned during the training, Good for Good donated pens and notebooks to the teachers to use for lesson planning during the holiday, as well as additional school supplies to be used for the preparation of classroom teaching aides such as posters and signs. If it hadn’t been for the donation the teachers would have had to choose between using their small salaries for the resources and having none at all. We felt it was essential to supplement the training with the resources necessary to implement the lessons learned.

Our second distribution came this week and was also at St. Mathias. We’ve been teaching the Standard 8 children as they’ve been preparing for their Secondary School entrance exam. During our teaching we’ve been noticing the students have been stretching their scarce resources about as far as possible. Given their impending exam we felt that searching for a scrap of paper to practice an English composition was far from ideal. Therefore Goods for Good decided to donate pens and notebooks to all of the Standard 8 students. This donation served as an excellent example of what Goods for Good wants to achieve. We want to work with strong organizations improving the entire community such as St. Mathias and St. Mary’s, where a donation of goods can be put to targeted use where there is a specific need and desired outcome.

Chezi Market Day

2007-08-14T01:01:00.001-07:00

Every Thursday our quiet walk to school changes into a bustling market. Meat, fish, bread, house supplies, school supplies and even barbershops are available to the hundreds of people who come weekly. We’ve included some photos to show you what it’s like.

The Value of a Dollar/Kwacha

2007-08-14T00:39:00.000-07:00

Recently we’ve been talking more about money with people in order to get a better understanding of how hard it is for people in our village to afford the things they need. We found out the starting salary of a worker at St. Mary’s and we learned the monthly food budget of one of the workers and his family of three. This information got us thinking about the relative value of the dollar/kwacha in our village.
There is so much discussion at home about people living on a dollar or less a day, so we started to think about how reasonable it is to equate the value of a dollar in Malawi and the US. We came up with some interesting facts:

At my last job’s salary, if I started work at 8AM Monday morning, and calculated my salary on a 10 hour day, I would have earned the starting month’s salary of a worker at St. Mary’s by 9AM that same day

I would have earned that same worker’s entire annual salary by 10AM Tuesday morning

If we stopped at those facts we would immediately see a huge income disparity but we would also miss the very important second part of the facts:

I would also have earned the annual food budget of the family of three I mentioned above by 1PM on Monday

And if that worker at St. Mary’s wanted to pay my rent for one month it would take him 11 years

Clearly there is somewhat of an offset. The income earned in the US is much higher but so are the expenses. This is not to say that the people here have the resources they need or that poverty is not a huge concern. In fact, most families are closer to 5 or 6 and often care for other relatives, which makes the demands on their incomes even greater. I only bring it up because hearing that someone is earning a dollar a day sounds quite different when their food budget is less than 50 cents a day.

Back in the Field

2007-08-06T05:36:00.000-07:00

We are in the process of making plans to move forward with one of the projects we pinpointed last December in Malawi. The project is to expand and improve the quality of services being offered at Ndifamodzi Community Based Organization (CBO) and Community Based Childcare Center (CBCC) (you can read more about this CBO and CBCC in the December 2006, Malawi Site Visit Report downloadable from our website - http://www.goodsforgoodinternational.org/static/projects-malawi).

The project is perfect for Goods for Good because the community is already organized and incredibly dedicated to the children, they just need some extra resources to bring their programs to the next level. We think this project can be a model for our work of strengthening community based care for orphans and vulnerable children moving forward.

Stay tuned for updates on this project...

Home is Where the Heart is?

2007-08-06T05:25:00.000-07:00

This week was one of the more difficult weeks for us here at Chezi as the children went home for a one-month school break. Families, mostly aunts, uncles, grandparents and siblings came to pick up their loved ones on Sunday and others came over the course of that week. On Tuesday, we also dropped off four children in town. From the beginning, we have been asking how these children feel about going home or “back to the village.” My gut feeling was that many are pretty scared and nervous, but I was assured time and time again that they are so excited to go home because they love the freedom of village life.

The truth is that some of the children do love going home and others are terrified. After all, several of the children living here were abandoned by their families while others watched their families die from disease. When we dropped the four children off in town to go home to their families all of them seemed scared and upset. This was confirmed when all four wet themselves in the car and were hysterically crying as we drove away. For all we know they were fine once we left. I mean, didn’t we all go through this in kindergarten at one point? But I can’t stop thinking: what if they're not fine? What if their family is neglecting or abusing them or even worse don’t want them? In fact, there are a couple of kids left at Chezi whose family did not come to get them at all. At least the kids who are here know they will be fed and that they will be safe at night. Maybe the kids who are still here are the lucky ones.

It’s hard to say, should Chezi send them home or not? Knowing where they come from by being able to live in the village is incredibly important on so many different levels, but is it okay to send a child home to a place that might not be the most healthy environment? There is a larger question about what is a better way to care for the orphans: Community based care where children live in the village or at orphanages such as one we are living? At orphanages such as Chezi the children are safe and healthy but have limited exposure to their culture. With community-based care the children are fully immersed in the culture but do not always have the security of a guaranteed meal and a warm blanket. There isn’t a right answer to the question because both sides are so important. Maybe sending their children home for a month is Chezi’s attempt at an answer.

Dance Fever

2007-08-06T05:08:00.000-07:00

This weekend we spent a day at Mua Mission for its annual “Cultural Dance Celebration”. Mua is Catholic mission run by a French-Canadian priest named Father Bouche. Mua’s approach to Catholicism is untraditional compared to other missions. Rather than seeking to distance the Malawians from their tribes and cultures and introduce them to Catholicism, the mission emphasizes the importance of local culture. It works to create a Catholicism that embraces and uses traditional practices to enhance the spirituality of worship. The mission is decorated with tons of tribal art and has a museum where visitors can learn more about the different tribes indigenous to the area.

If you are wondering, today tribes are still important in Malawi. People are encouraged to marry within their tribe and keep the traditions alive. In the city however, tribes mix more freely. The Chewas were the tribes of the former Dictator Hastings Kamuzu Banda and he chose the Chewa’s language Chichewa as the national language, even though it is only one of many tribal languages. This decision helped to create a unified language and general unity in the country but also clearly favored one tribe over another. Mua Mission has also revitalized wood carving as an important and very beautiful art form in Malawi. The

The Celebration we attended was a dance festival where members of many different tribes came to perform their songs and dances. The performances were interesting and fun and the costumes were great. We included some pictures from the day.

School’s Out for Winter!

2007-07-31T02:05:00.000-07:00

Last Friday marked the end of the second term of the school year. All the children (except for Standard 8) are now on Holiday until the end of August. You may be asking yourself where do the children at Chezi go, for the most part they go to their Grandmother’s or Uncle’s house and some go to their Father’s house if he is still around.

The main activity at school marking the end of the term was an assembly where all the students, teachers and a few parents came together for some singing, dancing and announcements of the class rankings. That morning we came to school proudly showing the other teachers that a few of our students had taught us the Chichewa words for a song sung each morning at assembly. Unbeknownst to us our singing earned us a place in the assembly! When we were told of our act we were assured that the kids would join in soon after we started but we had no such luck and ended up singing by ourselves in front of the whole school. I’m no Chichewa music critic but I think we did a first rate job.

The class ranking part of the assembly was pretty interesting. The top children in each class received gifts from the PTA, a few parents and some teachers. (you can see some of our students in this picture, they don’t look thrilled but in person they were excited, modest but excited) The gifts ranged from pens and notebooks to small amounts of money. The main goal of the gift giving was to praise the children for their work, especially those who showed a great deal of improvement. One interesting thing we noticed was the make-up of the top performers in Standard 7, our class. Of the top 15 children in class 5 were from St. Mary’s (where we live) and two were the sons of a teacher and the headmaster, respectively. It was noteworthy to us (albeit far from scientific) that the children who came from homes where education was a priority were the top performers. This in and of itself is nothing earth shattering but it did make us think how much potential there is for the other students to excel if education became more of a priority. There’s no question the school is working towards that goal but as we saw from the disappointing parent turnout at the assembly there is still a long, long way to go.

One thing to note is that there are some efforts being made, in fact just two days ago I submitted essays from students for a national essay competition, the topic was the environment, you can see the essay group here. I will let you know if we have any winners! (The prize is over 30,000K which is like over $200 plus lots of other goodies)

Teacher Training

2007-07-31T01:54:00.000-07:00

We are happy to have a guest writer this week, Melissa Benton our close friend and third grade teacher who has been running a teacher training workshop with Leora Klein for the last 12 days in Malawi. Take it away Mel....

Leora and I did not know what to expect. We both spent months gathering materials, items that would have otherwise ended up in our schools’ waste bins. The truth is that all of the preparation in the world could not have prepared us for the 14 teachers we were assigned to work with. The teachers ranged in age and experience. One had over 25 years of classroom experience, while several of them had not yet graduated from their teacher education programs. Although we mastered Chichewa greetings, we experienced a few communication difficulties. Don’t get me wrong, their English was ok, in fact, it was quite good, but between our accents and sometimes speaking too quickly, we were often left with big smiles, which in Chichewa means, “I have no idea what you are taking about.”

All of the communication mishaps aside, Leora and I felt that we were able to share many ideas with the teachers as well as learn a lot from them. We covered a range of topics in the two week workshop including creative writing, classroom management, and research skills. The teachers were excited and enthusiastic, and it turns out that no matter where you teach or what you teach, the challenges facing educators are pretty universal—too many students (I really can’t complain, the Malawian classrooms have at least 50 kids per class), not enough time, meeting the needs of all learners, not enough materials... The successes are common, too—creating an inspiring lesson, watching a child enjoy a book, the light bulb moments when your students truly demonstrate a passion and understanding for learning. The light bulb moments are a problem when the lights keep going out. (Note, the electricity went out as I was writing this). We really came to appreciate the Goods for Goods philosophy of not only providing necessary supplies for communities, but empowering local people to help themselves and improve their communities. I hope that our workshop helps the teachers to improve the education of their students, because these are the children that will one day become the leaders of this country.

Our Class Photo – Standard 7, St. Mathias

2007-07-24T02:38:00.000-07:00

Our Goods Arrived

2007-07-24T02:35:00.000-07:00

We are happy to let everyone know that the Goods for Good shipment of school supplies and educational toys and books arrived in Malawi last week. The goods arrived in perfect order and will be distributed to local schools and Chezi in the coming weeks. We also had the pleasure of visiting Malawi’s “Capital Hill” this week. We had to visit the Office of Finance because the Malawi Revenue (MRA) refused to grant us tax exemption on a shipment of fabric arriving in Malawi in August. You might be asking yourself the same question I asked, how much could the tax really be? Well, it can be upwards of %50 of the total value of the goods.

Our friend Mr. Gundaphiri, who helps St. Mary’s clear their shipments from customs, asked us to visit the Finance Office, “prepared to fight.” So much so that we even joked around about bringing some of the babies living at Chezi to pull at their heartstrings. I am glad to say that we did not have to resort to that, in fact the gentlemen we met with practically laughed at the refusal from MRA, and while we waited (which is unheard of here) he wrote a letter reversing their ruling. This was both surprising and concerning. What if we had not gone to speak to him? Why did MRA say no to begin with? Bureaucracy is not easy to deal with, but at least this time, the kids will get what the need.

Island Surprise

2007-07-24T02:19:00.000-07:00

This past weekend marked our first vacation in Malawi. Our friends are here and we have spent the better part of our first three weeks in Chezi, so we decided it was time to explore a little bit. What better place for our first Malawi adventure than Lake Malawi? Friday afternoon we headed out for what we thought was a 2-hour drive. Four hours and many, many kilometers of potholed dirt road later we found ourselves in the dark with our car barely climbing a treacherous mountain road. The last thing we expected to find was our destination, let alone two lovely western women greeting us with Carlsberg beers, much needed peanuts and a chance to calm our nerves.

Soon after we were joined by our Malawian friends, Ralph and Miriam (whose journey made ours look like heaven) and the eight of us took a 30-minute boat ride to Domwe Island. We woke up the next morning to see our home for the weekend a beautiful island for just us. The weekend was full of kayaking, snorkeling, hikes, fresh fish bought from a local fisherman riding by in his canoe, no electricity and an amazing sunset on Saturday night. It was great to see the country from a different perspective. To date our time here has been exclusively devoted to seeing and working with the many problems that the country faces. This past weekend gave us a chance to the very beautiful and untouched part of Malawi.

Did You Say Witches?

2007-07-24T02:16:00.000-07:00

As each day and week passes we are getting a wider view of the way things work here, some great others more difficult to understand. We had the pleasure of visiting a bank in town last week. We strolled into the bank ready to do a quick transaction but there must have been close to 300 people on line. It seems that the combination of tobacco selling going on at this time of year and the fact that the biggest note is equivalent to $4 means banking takes a while. People came in to the bank with duffle bags full of money, and waiting for the teller to count all of it is an entire days work.

Aside from banking I have been doing some snooping around about the witchcraft people keep mentioning. As far as I know, witchcraft is something that is practiced in the village among a few people. Those who practice it are often trained by one of their family members to carry on the tradition. The witches apparently also try to train young children. Additionally, witches can and apparently do put curses on people and many people are truly terrified of these witches So much so that, as in the case of the former standard 7 teacher at our school, they can be beaten and chased out of the community. People equate death, accidents and bad dreams to witchcraft. In fact some students claim that during the night, their teacher would take them to Japan for her wedding and when they tried to leave, she would beat them. Apparently, many of these children woke up with bruises all over the faces. When I asked one of my students why their teacher was fired he told me because “she flew at night.” I then asked him how he keeps the witches from bothering him and he replied, ‘’I pray all night, in my sleep.”

In addition to witchcraft I have been learning about some of the traditional sex practices that take place in the village. I have become particularly interested in one called Fisi. I found out about this from an anti HIV/AIDS play being performed by some students at our school. Apparently when several girls in the village reach puberty one man is assigned to have intercourse with each one of them to make sure that they are both prepared for and able to marry. This practice is incredibly problematic because not only can girls become pregnant at a very young age but if the man selected is HIV positive all of the women can become infected. This practice is not present in all communities but many in the Mangochi area.

While many of these things are difficult to understand and even more difficult to fully grasp, many people are willing to discuss them, but it ends there. Witchcraft and Fisi are deeply entrenched in cultural roots one just has to hope that they don’t interfere with the health and safety of the people.

Can You Spare a Pen or Paper?

2007-07-17T03:57:00.000-07:00

girl swaddling her baby sibling. One rarely sees men and women together including husbands and wives, and Over the past two weeks we have really begun to develop a deeper sense of the way things work around here. We have a much broader understanding of community life, family life and the experience of the individual. For example the community truly sticks together, defending members and chasing away those that have caused trouble. Within the family, older siblings take care of oneanother, in fact a common site is seeing a 12 year oldif they are they almost never touch in public. On the whole, our lessons learned will be invaluable to our Goods for Good’s projects on the horizon. In fact we have learned about several schools in the area that have a severe shortage of supplies. Lack of supplies are a particular problem for orphans and vulnerable children, because many parents and caregivers cannot afford to purchase supplies for the children. This is a very clear fit for Goods for Good and we are in the process of exploring different ways that we might be able to provide in kind-support to several public schools.

Trial by Fire

2007-07-17T03:48:00.000-07:00

You can now call us teachers. This week we both began our official teaching careers, granted a little sooner than expected. Monday morning Mr. Banda, the school’s headmaster greeted us and promptly informed us that he had a morning meeting and we would be teaching his class. The morning was a bit scary but the rest of the week went really well (hopefully the students agree). We’re teaching Standard 7, which is the equivalent to 7th grade in the US; Melissa is teaching English and I’m teaching Math. It’s been a fascinating first week. The classrooms are overcrowded and short of supplies but many of the children show an incredible desire to learn. Just like the classes at home there are the star students and those who struggle, those who raise their hands every time and those who hope the teacher never sees them and of course those who try to copy from their friends when the teacher isn’t looking. The highlight of our first week was during Mr. Banda’s science class when there was a debate with a student about some of the characteristics of a duck. Without hesitating Mr. Banda gave a student instructions in Chichewa and minutes later the student returned holding a live duck that Mr. Banda used to answer the questions (see picture above). We were both amazed and very amused.

Friday of this week was an “open-day” at school where all parents were invited to see the school and some performances by the children. The goal was to increase involvement of the parents and to raise money for the school. The parents came pretty late and not in the numbers the school had hoped for but Mr. Banda called the day a success. For us this day was another chance to see how much work there is to do to make education a real priority within the community. The students performed several songs and dances, I took a lot of video, some of which we’ll hopefully be able to post soon. In the meantime we are posting a couple of pictures here.

The final highlight of the week came Friday afternoon when Melissa and Leora arrived and of course they were short one bag. Since their arrival they have been learning the ropes around here. In fact, their first day they taught Saturday classes with resounding success. Trial by fire would definitely be the theme of their first days here in Malawi. Both Melissa and Leora learned Malawian dances with the older girls and played tons of Bar and Mat Mitzvah games that we totally brought back from the dead, chicken dance ring a bell? Anyway the kids loved it and we had a blast.

Mice on a Stick

2007-07-10T02:39:00.001-07:00

Aside from the fact that we are still missing our bag, we are settling in very well to life in Malawi. We have two housemates from Spain, Pedro and Alvero. I do no think that we could have asked for two nicer people. Since our last entry we have experienced many different things in our neighborhood. Yesterday, Thursday was market day, which takes place in front of Chezi. We were in the thick of it. We were expecting a market of only locally grown and cooked food items as well as some basic materials, but it was huge and there was quite the variety, including some canal street fakes and boiled mice on a stick.

Yesterday we spent the whole day at the school observing classes in preparation for teaching and the kids know their stuff. We were really impressed with their level of knowledge, despite the difficult conditions. St. Matthias, the public school we will be teaching at is one of the nicest and best funded schools in the area and even still it is grossly shorthanded and supplies are hard to come by. Some of the kids were using only scrap paper and or small chalkboard to write on and many of them were shivering because it was so cold.

At the break I was asked to help hand out the porridge that they provide daily for all of the students. This is a feeding program funded by a Scottish NGO and is a big draw for many of the students. I was standing over the hugest pot you have ever seen pouring the food into the children’s cups while the men just stood by and watched, because Malawian men rarely participate in household chores including cooking.

Today was Independence Day in Malawi, a National holiday celebrating 23 years of independence. There was no celebration so we spent all morning playing with the toddlers and infants. It was fun, but communication is forever a problem. Also, the caregivers are not particularly motivated or involved. To a certain extent it is a cultural thing, once children are finished breast-feeding the older sibling looks after the child, not the mother. In general children are left to their own devices and we have seen many young children off on their own lighting cornhusks on fire to keep warm on the cold mornings.

Weary Traveler

2007-07-10T02:23:00.000-07:00

Our trip to Malawi was not without drama, but we are here, minus one bag. Chezi is the same as when we left in December, still beautiful and joyful but not without challenges. The number of children requiring extra help seems to grow every month, so much so that Chezi cannot possibly accommodate all of the children in need. Even on out first day of playing with the little ones and babies (mwanas) we experienced both the hope and sorrow that everyday brings.

Our friendly neighbor the cow (ngombe) woke us up to a freezing rainy morning. We then had to muster up the courage to enter our pantry, which is currently being guarded by a GIANT preying mantis, which aside from looking like a transformer will absolutely refuse to move from our doorway, we now consider him our friend/mezuzah. Sister Victoria was nice enough to deliver some Nescafe (which is awesome) and powdered milk and we put together a little breakfast without burning our house down.

From there we played with 20 mwanas and frankly had a lot of communication problems, but they didn’t seem to mind when I called a girl a boy repeatedly. From there we went to visit the school that we will be teaching at for the next six months. We have been there before but knowing we will have to stand in front of 90 students at a time trying to teach and communicate it seemed a bit frightening! Should be interesting. We were excited to tell the Headmaster, Mr. Banda that 6 pallets of materials will be arriving for his school in the next week. I think that the items will enrich the children’s learning and also give us teachers a little help.

The day ended with a little unpacking of items sent by a visitor from Dubai and some homemade gruel......we are hoping to go shopping tomorrow to get some more food options.....oops the power just went out. Ok very dark...very very very very dark. Guess we will go to bed.

About to leave New York!

2007-06-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Melissa and Jeremy’s Goods for Good Blog! For those of you who don’t know us, I’m the Founder and Executive Director of Goods for Good and Jeremy is the organization’s CFO and my husband. Over the next 6 months we will be working together to expand Goods for Good’s work. Goods for Good identifies and collects surplus goods for targeted distribution to vulnerable children in the developing world. (Visit the Goods for Good website if you want to learn more about the organization. www.goodsforgoodinternational.org).

Jeremy and I are going to be working and living at an orphan care center near Mvera Malawi, a rural town 40 minutes away from the Capital, Lilongwe. There are two main focus areas of our work. The first is teaching and general volunteering at the orphan care center, St. Mary’s Rehabilitation Centre or more commonly known as Chezi. The second piece of our work is local partnership research and infrastructure development.

Chezi is an orphan care center founded over 25 years ago. Chezi began as a feeding center for malnourished children and their mothers and has evolved into an orphanage and community center for vulnerable children and their families. Chezi is home to 120 orphans and serves as a community center for hundreds other orphans and vulnerable children. Chezi still runs a feeding program for malnourished children as well as a health clinic, serving the entire community. Additionally, Chezi provides extra support to the local public school as well as services for the elderly and disabled. Chezi is at the center of community life and is well integrated into its tribal and cultural surroundings.

A couple of days a week, Jeremy and I will be teaching English and mathematics at the local school supported by Chezi as well as assisting with general educational activities at the orphan care center. Additionally, two friends of ours, Melissa Benton and Leora Klein, both school teachers in the United States, will be visiting Malawi for three weeks beginning in mid-July to assist with teacher training and program development.

In addition to our work at Chezi we will also be researching new programs for Goods for Good. We are focused on partnering with community based childcare centers which are locally run centers for orphans and vulnerable children in the community.

There is much more to come on our work and hopefully some play in Malawi so please do keep checking for updates, the next entry will be from Malawi!

Also many people have asked for Chezi’s Address:

St Mary’s Rehabilitation Centre
Lilongwe Diocese
P.O. Box 33
Mvera, Malawi, Central Africa

Best,

Melissa and Jeremy