Water Issues in Malawi

I wrote a post post for the SEED Workshop Blog. SEED stands for Sustainable Environmental Education for Development. SEED is a unique opportunity for young motivated Malawians from all over the country to attend a week long environmental education workshop in Liwonde National Park. To learn more about the SEED Workshop and the Environmental issues Malawians face head over to their blog. 

“When I was young there was enough water, but now the rain is not falling as it was in past years.” My friend and active community member Jameson is speaking about the water issues in our area. In this area of Northern Malawi the rains last year started late and ended early. The image below illustrates how the rain patterns have been changing; there isn't only just less rain falling every year. 

Jameson lives partway up a mountain, where boreholes cannot be drilled due to the bedrock or the extreme depth to water. Just a few months ago, the Red Cross was trying to place a borehole in Jameson's village. They drilled to 51m in several places before they decided that one could not be placed that far up the mountain side. He and his family have to walk about 1 km to draw water from a shallow well, which is often broken. When the well is broken they have to collect what little water seeps out of a spring adjacent to the well which is often cloudy and full of debris.

In past years there also used to be a perennial steam that flowed down the mountain and joined the river 1 km (0.6 miles) away. In the past Jameson's family used to farm along this stream growing vegetables long into the dry season. Today, this stream is just a trickle during dry season and in the past 20 years has carved a 2 m (6 ft) ravine that doesn't support any farming. Jameson knows that these changes have occurred due to the increased population in the area causing the forest and mountain side to be over-harvested and burned from year to year.

When Jameson was a boy this stream flowed all year providing a source of water closer to his home for agricultural purposes. 20 years later the heavy rains have eroded away 2 meters worth of soil from the stream bed.

Jameson, and many others from his village now have to travel 1 km to the main river to grow food during the dry season, but both this year and last that river is going dry in places. The crops are still growing since the water table is so high but there may become a time when even those will fail.

Jameson and his family. He is a small-scale farmer dependant on the rain to grow enough food for his family for a year.  With the changes in the area, he must travel about 1 kilometer to the flood plain in order to grow food in the dry season.

Jameson and his community have been active in trying to counteract these changes by encouraging people not to burn the forest undergrowth and by starting tree nurseries. In an effort to mitigate these changes even more Jameson was open to creating a permagarden at his house. A permagarden is a small heavily amended garden that stores water in the soil lessening the need of bringing in water specifically for the garden. Waste water from bathing, washing clothes, and washing dishes should provide enough water through the dry season.

At the SEED Workshop participants learn how to manage water in a sustainable way in order to grow more food year round closer to the home.

Malawi Music Project

Donate to 2016's project https://www.youcaring.com/kids-between-7-and-16-517278

Malawi Music Project was an absolute BLAST!  I had such an amazing time reconnecting with my musical roots and was even more thrilled to share that passion with talented youth from Malawi. 

A brief back ground of Malawi Music Project: It was started in 2008 by a few volunteers and each year since it has been taken on and developed by a new group of volunteers.  Unlike GLOW  this camp is unique to Malawi and is a partner with Music Crossroads in Lilongwe.  PC Volunteers work with professional musicians and teachers to lead sessions on: song writing, traditional music, drum circles, hip hop, music fusion and music theory to name a few.  The youth were broken into bands and given a week to use these lessons to write, produce, record, and perform an original song about HIV awareness.  To help with content of their songs and personal awareness we also held HIV sessions that taught about transmission, prevention, healthy living after contracting HIV and provided an opportunity for testing and counseling.

Just Jammin'

Drum Circle

The week ended with a celebration and a battle of the bands where six newly formed bands preformed their original songs for the local community!  It was quite the show!  The energy was electric and the bands shared not only their passion and talents but how HIV effects them on a personal level.  They learned that they can use their talents as a voice to empower others and to educate the community on important topics.

Male Condom Demo! 

We believe in equality! Female Condom Demo! 

All of this was amazing to witness and to be apart of but the thing that will stick with me the most was the creativity that was flowing all week!  In the United States most youth are given the opportunity to practice or learn the arts in school and to be with peers on a regular basis who have the same interest.

These youth came from all over Malawi.  All of them were musicians from vocalist to violinist, however, few of them had any training at all.  Most of them are self taught and are not used to playing with other musicians.  The schedule had a lot of free time built into it and from my past experience with camps I saw this as a potential nightmare.  I imagined youth leaving the premises, drinking alcohol, and general mischief.  The youth proved me absolutely wrong and used EVERY SPARE MOMENT to make music and just jam with each other.  I had never experienced something so organic in my life.  It was like something had awoken a completely new beast within these youth and the energy in the area was so vibrant.  There was not a quiet moment but there was never a need for a quiet moment.  The air was full of joy, music, and recently tapped potential.

I expect wonderful things for these spectacular youth and feel so privileged to be apart of this experience.

 

Soo Many Friends!! 

So proud of my band "Crazy Colors" who won 2nd Place at battle of the band! 

Camp GLOW 2014

In August I had the honor to participate in one of the most amazing, humbling experiences of my life. For a week and a half there was no place that would have rather been. I was given the privilege to to be a camp counselor to 11 secondary school aged girls at Camp GLOW! (Girls Leading Our World).

Camp GLOW is an international Peace Corps initiative that targets high school aged females and focuses on empowering these young women to be leaders in their family, communities, and in society. The camp looks different in each country, however, they all have the universal theme of empowering girls in cultures where being a girl has the potential to make your opportunities much slimmer than if you were a boy.

Our camp covered topics like self esteem and beauty, gender based violence, HIV/AIDS, malaria, careers, professional development, leadership skills, and how to share this with other girls! This is a lot to cover in a week, but we had a blast doing it! By the end of the week, even the quietest of girls, were laughing, having fun and were completely different than when they had arrived.

The camp targets secondary school girls (high school). In Malawi, secondary school girls can range in age from 14-24. We had girls from all sorts of backgrounds there. Some were from a more privileged background, some were from really rural villages, some spoke excellent English, some spoke little to none, some had children, some were pregnant. By the end of the week it didn't matter where these girls had come from or where they were going to, they had leaned the importance of supporting and empowering each other to be the best versions of themselves.

It was amazing to see these girls understand that one empowered woman does not change make, but we must encourage and empower each other as we climb. Hence the theme “Lift as You Climb”. We covered a lot of topics but the coordinators tried very hard to make sure that the theme of empowerment was through out every topic and included the element of empowering others. (the coordinating team for 2014 did an excellent job!) I cannot explain how powerful it was to see these girls from various cultural backgrounds and circumstances hold each other up.

They showed so much courage and perseverance. Out of my 11 campers over half of them had a story of someone mistreating them at some point in their lives. Sometimes it was family, a teacher, or a community member. As these girls began to learn of opportunities and see examples of other Malawian women who were successful you could see the shift in their attitudes. For them to know that women, just like them, from similar backgrounds could achieve great things was a game changer for them, especially those from the rural villages.

The challenging part for them moving forward is that they have transformed and literally have a GLOW about them, but their communities have not changed. The people and communities of Malawi, did not come to Camp GLOW and realize that all people are important, that all people have the same rights, and that all people deserve to be respected. While these beautiful, strong, courageous, intelligent girls have learned all of these things, they have a hard battle ahead of them.

BUT as we speak, these strong, motivated, empowered young women are starting clubs in their own villages and sharing this message they learned at GLOW. There were 66 girls in attendance and already a handful of them are starting clubs of 10 or more girls.

This is going to be a hard and long battle but the beautiful thing is that no one is alone, and these girls understand the importance of bringing others with them. As they improve and empower themselves they are being conscious of the fact that this is a big task and no one can do it alone.   

Shine Girl SHINE!!!!

In case you have not seen the GLOW 2014 youtube check it out!! 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbIjZ-Kwj9g