Dear Swansea friends and family!
As we near the end of our Zambian phase and prepare to go our separate ways in a week and a half (sob sob!) we wanted to give you a flavour of some of the things we’ve been up to over here.
There’s been so much going on it’s hard to know where to begin! Firstly you’d be impressed to see how our host parents have us trained – sticking to 6 or 7pm curfew and doing our fair share of chores and (for the girls) cooking. In good old Swansea tradition we had a BBQ with host families a couple of weeks ago.
For this phase we decided to do three big Community Action Days, instead of lots of smaller ones as we did in Swansea. The first was our community welcome, held in a square in the town centre. This brought together lots of local people and organisations, allowing us to provide information on key local issues such as water and sanitation, HIV/AIDS and gender based violence, as well as GX providing lots of fun and entertainment of course.
Our second CAD was a ‘Smile Day’ at Mwagwero School for the deaf. We thoroughly enjoyed putting on a day of activities including drama, sport, jewelry and banner making for the lovely pupils.
Last Saturday we all became actors for our final CAD. The team prepared a variety of sketches to sensitise on HIV/AIDS, water and sanitation, sustainable farming methods, gender based violence and children’s rights.
Our Global Citizenship Days have been a great success and we've taught eachother loads about topics ranging from child headed households to witchcraft. During the GCDs we've also engaged the community through surveys, sensitising on the topics we've learned about and running a games session for children in a community school. We've also had weekly local radio interviews on our GCD topics and other key issues, so we're now famous in Chipata!
We’ve been lucky enough to be invited to a few weddings and Luchembe and ‘Zikalo’ (Dom now has a Zambian name!) impressed us by being part of amazingly choreographed and performed ‘line ups’ - eight young people performing Zambian style dances during the ceremonies and reception.
We’ve celebrated a few birthdays and also Ngawa’s engagement! All a good excuse for us to give the local nightclub some of our best Zambian dance moves.
The GX netball and football teams have been out challenging local teams at the weekends (we’d be lying if we said we’ve won every match!) and the UK volunteers have been getting used to Sunday mornings being spent in church.
We enjoyed our Mid Phase Review at a lodge just outside Chipata. As well as the weekend being packed full of sessions, we had a mini sports day and even managed some swimming and boating in the damn beside. Next week some of our debrief will take place at Mfuwe National Park, so we hope to catch a glimpse of lions and elephants.
All in all the team is having a wonderful time together and we’re going to be devastated to say goodbye to Chipata and eachother. We miss you loads, hope all is well in Swansea and look forward to hearing from you. Don’t forget to have a look at our blog www.swanseazambiateam94.blogspot.com where there’s much more detail about stuff we’ve been up to and even some pretty fine poems from the team!
Lots of love,
GX Team 94 xxx
Monday, 31 August 2009
Mndemba Day!
On Saturday 22nd August Team 94 traveled to Mndemba village to do our final Community Action Day. Mndemba is a village 45mins outside Chipata, within which GCPDO, one of the volunteer work placements, is operating to encourage community development.
The programme for the day was made up of five different sessions. In groups of 3/4 people we prepared and presented to roughly 100 villagers on the topics:
1) Water and Sanitation – Charlotte, Maggie, Fatness, Matt
2) Gender Based Violence – YWCA Drama Group
3) HIV/AIDS – Vally, Paul, Prudence
4) Children’s Rights – Jackson, Eliot, Christina and Jessy
5) Agriculture – Tommy, Matt, Mwata and Naomi
Through a mixture of the role plays, flipcharts and sharing of leaflets we sensitised the people on the topics. It was a great day, the audience responded well, interacted and Team 94 was happy.
The programme for the day was made up of five different sessions. In groups of 3/4 people we prepared and presented to roughly 100 villagers on the topics:
1) Water and Sanitation – Charlotte, Maggie, Fatness, Matt
2) Gender Based Violence – YWCA Drama Group
3) HIV/AIDS – Vally, Paul, Prudence
4) Children’s Rights – Jackson, Eliot, Christina and Jessy
5) Agriculture – Tommy, Matt, Mwata and Naomi
Through a mixture of the role plays, flipcharts and sharing of leaflets we sensitised the people on the topics. It was a great day, the audience responded well, interacted and Team 94 was happy.
Smile Day!
On Saturday 1st August 2009 team 94 did a Community Action Day (CAD) at Magwero School for the Deaf, about 30 mins away from Chipata town. We wanted to learn more about how children live with disabilities and give the pupils a fun day to remember.
We arrived at the school to a friendly welcome – all the kids were very excited to see us there and what we had to offer. We began the day by having a sign language lesson for an hour, learning some of the basics. This was really fun and helped us when communicating with the deaf children that afternoon.
During the day we did lots of different activities with the kids…Sports (football, baseball, volleyball, netball), jewelry making, making smiley face masks, dancing/drumming, group circle games, physical drama around the theme of climate change and making a ‘Smile Day’ banner.
The kids were in groups of 15 and rotated around each activity after 20 minutes so they had a chance to do each activity. The kids really enjoyed the day and learnt lots of new skills. Team 94 learnt a lot about how to work with deaf children as none of us had that experience before.
At the end of the day we took lots of photos, said our goodbyes and presented the school with some gifts. We gave them exercise books, pencils, pens, felt tips, chalk and paper. In schools in Zambia the facilities and equipment are very basic and minimal so it made a difference to the school to have these gifts. We also presented them with the ‘Smile day’ banner for them to put up in their school hall and remember us by. The banner said ‘GX Smile Day 2009’ and around it everyone had drawn round their hand and written a message or drawn a picture inside it.
Smile Day was a big success and all the pupils and team 94 had a good time. It was a life changing experience for some people who are now determined to learn sign language and it was the sort of experience we’ll never forget. The experience also taught the volunteers a lot about communicating with people with disabilities and learning difficulties. It has given us all more confidence to interact with a wider range of people from with diverse needs whilst developing knowledge and experience on how to run sessions and interact with youths. ‘Smile Day’ definitely lived up to its name!
We arrived at the school to a friendly welcome – all the kids were very excited to see us there and what we had to offer. We began the day by having a sign language lesson for an hour, learning some of the basics. This was really fun and helped us when communicating with the deaf children that afternoon.
During the day we did lots of different activities with the kids…Sports (football, baseball, volleyball, netball), jewelry making, making smiley face masks, dancing/drumming, group circle games, physical drama around the theme of climate change and making a ‘Smile Day’ banner.
The kids were in groups of 15 and rotated around each activity after 20 minutes so they had a chance to do each activity. The kids really enjoyed the day and learnt lots of new skills. Team 94 learnt a lot about how to work with deaf children as none of us had that experience before.
At the end of the day we took lots of photos, said our goodbyes and presented the school with some gifts. We gave them exercise books, pencils, pens, felt tips, chalk and paper. In schools in Zambia the facilities and equipment are very basic and minimal so it made a difference to the school to have these gifts. We also presented them with the ‘Smile day’ banner for them to put up in their school hall and remember us by. The banner said ‘GX Smile Day 2009’ and around it everyone had drawn round their hand and written a message or drawn a picture inside it.
Smile Day was a big success and all the pupils and team 94 had a good time. It was a life changing experience for some people who are now determined to learn sign language and it was the sort of experience we’ll never forget. The experience also taught the volunteers a lot about communicating with people with disabilities and learning difficulties. It has given us all more confidence to interact with a wider range of people from with diverse needs whilst developing knowledge and experience on how to run sessions and interact with youths. ‘Smile Day’ definitely lived up to its name!
Saturday, 22 August 2009
Work placements
Ness and Franklin
YWCA... stands for Young Women's Christian Association. They deal with issues of Gender Based Violence, mainly involving cases of spousal battery, defilement, child abuse, property grabbing, rape and matrionial despute.
At the Co-ordinated Response clients come in for counselliong, paralegal advice and to seek shelter. YWCA also runs sensitisation programmes in the community and runs workshops.
One thing we have achieved is we planned, implimented and facilitated workshops on GBV issues in four different schools in Chipata. At the end we organised a quiz and debayed contest between schools, which clearly indicated how much the pupils had learnt.
****************************************************
Paul and Valley
Kwacha Kum'awa
- Distibutes information to the youth about issues such as abstinence, condomising and HIV/AIDS through the magazine
-Goes into schools and churches to talk about these issues.
-We achieved educating the youth
-Enjoyed most talking to the women in the church and seeing the participation activity.
*****************************************************
Luchembe and Eliot
Youth Care Entertainment
YCE is a organisation that focuses on empowering, educating and entertaining youths through thte mediums of music, film and sports. Its main area of work is in the Mchini compound within Chipata district.
During the past three months Eliot and Luchembe have spent most of their time planning a youth development and resource centre that will be set up within the Mchini compound. They hope this will have a positive impact on the community and be of much use to YCE and Mchini.
***************************************************
Matt and Mwata
St Paul's Anglican Project
St Paul's is a faith based NGO that works with many projects including agriculture, health, women empowerment, youths and water and sanitation. During our time with them we have supported people living with HIV/AIDS, designed and delivered workshops on water sanitation, waterborne diseases, HIV/AIDS and malaria and also trained a youth group in Chipungu village to continue to disseminate information in a sustainable way to surrounding villages.
************************************************
Jackson and Jessy
Young Happy Healthy Safe
YHHS focus on creating a happy, healthy an dsafe environment for young people. It works in rural communities and within schools providing sexuality and life skills. It works with traditional initiators in an effort to challenge traditions that pose a risk to young people.
At our workplacement we ahve enjoyed creating a web blog for our organisation, which will hopefully be soemthing sustainable for the NGO. Please visit www.younghappyhealthyandsafe.blogspot.com.
*****************************************
Maggie, Ngawa and Tommy
Great Commission for People Development and Orphans
GCPDO empowers rural communities in the Eastern Province of Zambia to eradicate poverty through sustainable development by trageting education, income-generating activiites, food security production, health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, water-sanitation and advocacy in lobbying.
We ahve built relationships through focus group discussions with people in the communities we are trying to help in order to create accurate brochures on the above topics. It's been an amazing experience and we've learnt so much about community development and attitues towards change.
**********************************
Christina and Mwansa
Treatment Advocacy Literacy Campaign
Our organisation is on advocacy and treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS. We enjoyed working together and comminicating well, and meeting people with different experience of HIV such as nurses, doctors, ministers and support groups. We achieved the sensitisation fo mothers on female condoms and research and advocacy for improvement of ART (anti-retroviral therapy)
*************************************
Prudence and Charlotte
Tikondane Home Based Care Foundation
Tikondane is an organisation involved in HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention and care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS. It also provides support and activities for orphans and vulnerable children and children affected by HIV/AIDS. As well as helping out with the great variety of activities and projects taking place within the organisation we also initiated a project. We planned and implemented a jewellery making activity and co-operative in order to provide an activity for clients which teaches skills, brings communities together, provides a gathering for focused group discussions and sensitisation, as well as being an income generating activity.
YWCA... stands for Young Women's Christian Association. They deal with issues of Gender Based Violence, mainly involving cases of spousal battery, defilement, child abuse, property grabbing, rape and matrionial despute.
At the Co-ordinated Response clients come in for counselliong, paralegal advice and to seek shelter. YWCA also runs sensitisation programmes in the community and runs workshops.
One thing we have achieved is we planned, implimented and facilitated workshops on GBV issues in four different schools in Chipata. At the end we organised a quiz and debayed contest between schools, which clearly indicated how much the pupils had learnt.
****************************************************
Paul and Valley
Kwacha Kum'awa
- Distibutes information to the youth about issues such as abstinence, condomising and HIV/AIDS through the magazine
-Goes into schools and churches to talk about these issues.
-We achieved educating the youth
-Enjoyed most talking to the women in the church and seeing the participation activity.
*****************************************************
Luchembe and Eliot
Youth Care Entertainment
YCE is a organisation that focuses on empowering, educating and entertaining youths through thte mediums of music, film and sports. Its main area of work is in the Mchini compound within Chipata district.
During the past three months Eliot and Luchembe have spent most of their time planning a youth development and resource centre that will be set up within the Mchini compound. They hope this will have a positive impact on the community and be of much use to YCE and Mchini.
***************************************************
Matt and Mwata
St Paul's Anglican Project
St Paul's is a faith based NGO that works with many projects including agriculture, health, women empowerment, youths and water and sanitation. During our time with them we have supported people living with HIV/AIDS, designed and delivered workshops on water sanitation, waterborne diseases, HIV/AIDS and malaria and also trained a youth group in Chipungu village to continue to disseminate information in a sustainable way to surrounding villages.
************************************************
Jackson and Jessy
Young Happy Healthy Safe
YHHS focus on creating a happy, healthy an dsafe environment for young people. It works in rural communities and within schools providing sexuality and life skills. It works with traditional initiators in an effort to challenge traditions that pose a risk to young people.
At our workplacement we ahve enjoyed creating a web blog for our organisation, which will hopefully be soemthing sustainable for the NGO. Please visit www.younghappyhealthyandsafe.blogspot.com.
*****************************************
Maggie, Ngawa and Tommy
Great Commission for People Development and Orphans
GCPDO empowers rural communities in the Eastern Province of Zambia to eradicate poverty through sustainable development by trageting education, income-generating activiites, food security production, health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, water-sanitation and advocacy in lobbying.
We ahve built relationships through focus group discussions with people in the communities we are trying to help in order to create accurate brochures on the above topics. It's been an amazing experience and we've learnt so much about community development and attitues towards change.
**********************************
Christina and Mwansa
Treatment Advocacy Literacy Campaign
Our organisation is on advocacy and treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS. We enjoyed working together and comminicating well, and meeting people with different experience of HIV such as nurses, doctors, ministers and support groups. We achieved the sensitisation fo mothers on female condoms and research and advocacy for improvement of ART (anti-retroviral therapy)
*************************************
Prudence and Charlotte
Tikondane Home Based Care Foundation
Tikondane is an organisation involved in HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention and care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS. It also provides support and activities for orphans and vulnerable children and children affected by HIV/AIDS. As well as helping out with the great variety of activities and projects taking place within the organisation we also initiated a project. We planned and implemented a jewellery making activity and co-operative in order to provide an activity for clients which teaches skills, brings communities together, provides a gathering for focused group discussions and sensitisation, as well as being an income generating activity.
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Thursday, 13 August 2009
GX are poets and do know it!
Ngawa and Vally
Newborn foals run behind their mothers,
Newborn chicks toddle after the hens,
Just like this special friendship in our counterpart pair.
I have a counterpart who is amazing, fun and just unique and different.
She is very nice and caring.
I love her because she is always there to uplift my spirit when I am feeling low,
And always by my side in hard times.
How sweet it is to have such a wonderful person for a counterpart.
Mwata and Christina
We laugh
Bumping painfully along Katapola road.
We laugh
Cooking and concoctingwonderous things.
We laugh
Singing of “our favourite things”.
We laugh
In self pity when we feel alone in our net.
We laugh
Knowingly eyeing eachother, readingour thoughts.
We laugh
No matter how miserable.
We laugh
Together but most of all Mwata laughs!
Tommy and Paul
Poem on Social Action by Tommy:
I’ve come to Zambia to open my eyes,
I’ve been affected by numerous lies,
The government says tat they’re on the mend,
But they’re driving their people round the bend,
And so I reflect on home pastures green,
I realize then it’s the same story seen.
So what can I do to change people’s lives?
I’ll do what I can to open their eyes.
A Guy Called Pauly
Pauly is a Zambian guy originally from Livingstone. He loves watching soccer and Chelsea is the team he supports. Pauly loves merry making and currently has no special partner. He loves dramatic movies specifically Nigerians. He has hopes one day to be a
movie star or play alongside Didier Drogba.
Jackson and Eliot
Viva, spending time together.
Abash, Being together never.
Viva, Nyanja speak forever.
Abash, our problems being our tether.
Viva, to be friends is our endeavour.
Fatness and Ness
A Poem for My Counterpart by Fatness
We were living in Swansea.
My cp was really lovely and welcoming.
We really used to have a wonderful time together.
She supported me in so many ways.
She is really amazing and a great person.
We spend time together.
She is my inspiration.
A Poem About My Counterpart by Ness
My counterpart is really amazing,
She helps meeveryday.
She gives meadvice, she shares her thoughts,
She helps me find my way.
My counterpart is really special,
The strongest person I know,
She’s beautiful and understated,
Her friendship has mademegrow.
My counterpart is really amazing,
She evenbrins me breakfast in bed.
She looks after mewhen my backaches,
And makes sure I’malways wellfed.
My counterpart is really special,
Being her friend makes me proud,
Every time I’m with her it feels…
Like I’m bouncing along on a cloud.
My counterpart is really amazing,
When I leave here I will miss her.
Nikukonda with all my heart Fatness,
Thank you for being my sister.
Prudence and Maggie
Maggie Thomas, Maggie Thomas…
Who is Maggie Thomas?...
Maggie Thomas is my counterpart pair…
She is being good to me…
A friend, a sister, a mom and everything I have never come across.
Jessy and Mwansa
This is a story all about how,
Mwansa and Jessy met in Swansea town.
We’d like to take a minute - just sit right there,
We’ll tell you how we became Mwansa and Jessy pair.
On April 1st 2009 Dom and Henry made the beautiful pair.
We moved into our house with Jan and Mike
Where we stayed for one month never did we fight.
We went through everything good and bad too,
But we chatted and we hugged,
Everything we got through.
Now we are here in Chipata having so much fun,
Mwansa and Jessy ever stronger we become!
Matembe Song
Matembe
Mm mm ah
You wake up
Mm mm ah
You walk
Mm mm ah
You work
Mm mm ah
You have fun
Mm mm ah
You come back
Mm mm ah
You want to
Mm mm ah
Relax
Mm mm ah
Matembe
Mm mm ah
I like it
Mm mm ah
Your support
Mm mm ah
Your maturity
Mm mm ah
Your understanding
Mm mm ah
Your commitment
Mm mm ah
To GX
Mm mm ah
WONDUF!!!
Naomi, Charlotte, Franklin
We are a merry counterpart three,
Naomi, Franklin and Charlottey.
In Swansea we had lots of fun –
We ate welshcakes and lots of buns.
Now the terrific trio are in Zambia-
They’ve swapped their welshcakes for nshima.
A happy three we may be
But we’re no poets as you can see!
Newborn foals run behind their mothers,
Newborn chicks toddle after the hens,
Just like this special friendship in our counterpart pair.
I have a counterpart who is amazing, fun and just unique and different.
She is very nice and caring.
I love her because she is always there to uplift my spirit when I am feeling low,
And always by my side in hard times.
How sweet it is to have such a wonderful person for a counterpart.
Mwata and Christina
We laugh
Bumping painfully along Katapola road.
We laugh
Cooking and concoctingwonderous things.
We laugh
Singing of “our favourite things”.
We laugh
In self pity when we feel alone in our net.
We laugh
Knowingly eyeing eachother, readingour thoughts.
We laugh
No matter how miserable.
We laugh
Together but most of all Mwata laughs!
Tommy and Paul
Poem on Social Action by Tommy:
I’ve come to Zambia to open my eyes,
I’ve been affected by numerous lies,
The government says tat they’re on the mend,
But they’re driving their people round the bend,
And so I reflect on home pastures green,
I realize then it’s the same story seen.
So what can I do to change people’s lives?
I’ll do what I can to open their eyes.
A Guy Called Pauly
Pauly is a Zambian guy originally from Livingstone. He loves watching soccer and Chelsea is the team he supports. Pauly loves merry making and currently has no special partner. He loves dramatic movies specifically Nigerians. He has hopes one day to be a
movie star or play alongside Didier Drogba.Jackson and Eliot
Viva, spending time together.
Abash, Being together never.
Viva, Nyanja speak forever.
Abash, our problems being our tether.
Viva, to be friends is our endeavour.
Fatness and Ness
A Poem for My Counterpart by Fatness
We were living in Swansea.
My cp was really lovely and welcoming.
We really used to have a wonderful time together.
She supported me in so many ways.
She is really amazing and a great person.
We spend time together.
She is my inspiration.
A Poem About My Counterpart by Ness
My counterpart is really amazing,
She helps meeveryday.
She gives meadvice, she shares her thoughts,
She helps me find my way.
My counterpart is really special,
The strongest person I know,
She’s beautiful and understated,
Her friendship has mademegrow.
My counterpart is really amazing,
She evenbrins me breakfast in bed.
She looks after mewhen my backaches,
And makes sure I’malways wellfed.
My counterpart is really special,
Being her friend makes me proud,
Every time I’m with her it feels…
Like I’m bouncing along on a cloud.
My counterpart is really amazing,
When I leave here I will miss her.
Nikukonda with all my heart Fatness,
Thank you for being my sister.
Prudence and Maggie
Maggie Thomas, Maggie Thomas…
Who is Maggie Thomas?...
Maggie Thomas is my counterpart pair…
She is being good to me…
A friend, a sister, a mom and everything I have never come across.
Jessy and Mwansa
This is a story all about how,
Mwansa and Jessy met in Swansea town.
We’d like to take a minute - just sit right there,
We’ll tell you how we became Mwansa and Jessy pair.
On April 1st 2009 Dom and Henry made the beautiful pair.
We moved into our house with Jan and Mike
Where we stayed for one month never did we fight.
We went through everything good and bad too,
But we chatted and we hugged,
Everything we got through.
Now we are here in Chipata having so much fun,
Mwansa and Jessy ever stronger we become!
Matembe Song
Matembe
Mm mm ah
You wake up
Mm mm ah
You walk
Mm mm ah
You work
Mm mm ah
You have fun
Mm mm ah
You come back
Mm mm ah
You want to
Mm mm ah
Relax
Mm mm ah
Matembe
Mm mm ah
I like it
Mm mm ah
Your support
Mm mm ah
Your maturity
Mm mm ah
Your understanding
Mm mm ah
Your commitment
Mm mm ah
To GX
Mm mm ah
WONDUF!!!
Naomi, Charlotte, Franklin
We are a merry counterpart three,
Naomi, Franklin and Charlottey.
In Swansea we had lots of fun –
We ate welshcakes and lots of buns.
Now the terrific trio are in Zambia-
They’ve swapped their welshcakes for nshima.
A happy three we may be
But we’re no poets as you can see!
Monday, 20 July 2009
Dear Swansea...
Bwanji Swansea!
Greetings from sunny Zambia! GX team 94 have been here for a month now and we want to say hello to you, some of the lovely people we met, lived or worked with over the three months in Wales.
Chipata is a wonderfully welcoming community so although it’ very different here to Swansea we’ve settled in well. We are enjoying learning loads from living and working in this new community, but or course there is so much we miss from Swansea, including you wonderful people.
At the moment we don’t really have internet access so can’t keep you updated individually by e-mail, but will do our best for everyone to be regularly contributing to the blog.
We want to say a massive thank you to you for out time in Swansea. The months we spent there were truly fantastic and an experience we shall never forget.
Lots of love and thanks,
Global Xchange Team 94
Greetings from sunny Zambia! GX team 94 have been here for a month now and we want to say hello to you, some of the lovely people we met, lived or worked with over the three months in Wales.
Chipata is a wonderfully welcoming community so although it’ very different here to Swansea we’ve settled in well. We are enjoying learning loads from living and working in this new community, but or course there is so much we miss from Swansea, including you wonderful people.
At the moment we don’t really have internet access so can’t keep you updated individually by e-mail, but will do our best for everyone to be regularly contributing to the blog.
We want to say a massive thank you to you for out time in Swansea. The months we spent there were truly fantastic and an experience we shall never forget.
Lots of love and thanks,
Global Xchange Team 94
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