Mental Health Check up

I believe that EWB has one of the best support networks out there with people who truly and genuinely care about personal and professional development. Saying that, at the midterm of this placement, all the EWB Junior fellows and the long term overseas volunteers attended a retreat for a couple days on the beautiful Senga Bay shore.

Despite having the beautiful Lake Malawi a stone’s throw away, we were able to concentrate on the work at hand. I mean, where else would you find a group of twenty-something year olds gathered around a table on the lakeshore and engage in discussions ranging from Urban vs. Rural Livelihoods, NGO Collaboration, Exit Stratgies, and providing valuable feedback to each other about, well, each other. Also, where else would you find a group of 20 something year olds who would learn about Organizational Development and Strategic thinking?

 

I walked into the retreat with a certain mindset that felt like no matter how hard I try, no one would truly understand what I’m going through. However, I away from the retreat realizing that I’m not alone, that the challenges I face are shared by many others as well, with each person being able to think through the problems and develop an Impact Pact.

 

I’m excited about the future of this placement, about the future of the EWB Malawi family. Most of all, I’m excited about the future of Malawi.

The Global Implications of a Tree Hugger

After two weeks of no internet access, no newspapers, no information influx, it’s hard to keep up with the news from the world. However, since I’ve been in town, I’ve remembered something along the lines of a Live Earth Concert/awareness campaign that has had huge global implications in my eyes.

 Malawi is a small landlocked country with a giant lake covering about half of the country’s size. However, despite having so much water readily available to her people, Malawi is still vulnerable to certain global implications, one of which is the fluctuating weather patterns. On any normal day in Calgary at home, I wouldn’t have noticed the 1 or 2 degree increase in the last 10 years, but in Malawi, when the main livelihoods here are mainly dependant on the weather patterns causing drought, decreasing the crop resistance to disease amongst many other variables, it’s quite a different story.

 The good news though, is that environmentalism and environmental sustainability (as much as I hate to use buzz words) is not a new concept here. I have found that instead of focusing on the recycling part of the R­³, that the communities here are instead focused on the reducing part (which I believe to be much more sustainable than the counterpart).

Anyway, I just wanted to say that the project funding for the Chia Lagoon Project has been extended by the Norwegian Embassy with a slight change in the mandate. The change in mandate stipulates that the project should focus more on the environmental sustainability of the Chia Lagoon area. Interesting how this funding pulled through 3 days after the massive global drive for Mother Earth’s survival (but after a much longer and slower burning desire for environmentalism from a grass roots level).

The Story of Magadelena

I shall not start this story with “Once upon a time” as this is not a fabled fairy tale where the Princess is saved or lives happily ever after in a Kingdom, although idealistically, I wished it was so. Instead, this is the story of Magadalena, born on June 23^rd in the village of Gulugufe in Mwansambo in Malawi. Magadalena was actually born when I wasn’t present in the village, as I was in Lilongwe, spending some significant time in the office.

 

Magadalena comes crying into the world after her 23 year old mother made a 5km trek to the Mwansambo hospital – all the while in labour. There were actually two that were born that night but tragically, Magadalena’s sister passed away at a few days of age. How tragic, but it shows that the infant mortality rate is quite high (in this village alone of 10 households, 5 households have had the misfortune of infant mortality).

Magadalena I see, and as you can see too has the bright potential of any baby, maybe one day, she will become President of this country, Ambassador, business woman, teacher, police woman…The world is her limit, and how can it not be? She has the full support and love of her family, of this entire village who is all looking out for her well being and her survival (Grandmother today walked for 14km roundtrip to get her some medicine for her cough). With this support from her family, from her community, she is sure to find potential in any of her actions.

Magadalena however, is vulnerable, although she’s still too young to understand so. She’s vulnerable to sickness, she’s vulnerable to access (or lack of) to education, to appropriate technology, she’s vulnerable to the thoughts and actions of the people reading this blog. But within this vulnerability, how much can she control her vulnerabilities and how much can we control it?

I’m going to leave the ending for you to decide the outcome. Maybe Magadalena won’t be so vulnerable after all but how can someone sitting in front of the computer reading this blog halfway across the world begin to mitigate these vulnerabilities that Magadalena has? I think by providing a voice for Magadalena through supporting the organizations that lobby for Magadalena, by lobbying the government to increase foreign aid and to spend it responsibly, by joining an organization that works towards Magadalena’s cause, by providing financial support for these organizations, but most importantly, by empowering Magadalena by empowering ourselves to truly understand the many complexities that may affect her life.

This is the story of Magadalena. How the story ends is up to you to decide.