Mtako Wowawa

Last post I promised to give ya’ll a brief about what I’m doing with my time now that I’m at Mitundu. OK, here it is. Let’s start with work:

These past few weeks I’ve been spending a lot of time on my bike sweating, getting sunburnt, and covering my khaki pants in dust while moving around the area meeting different groups and trying to get a sense of what kind of NGO and governmental assistance is already going on in the area and to find out where I can help. In this area, which I can generally call Mitundu (although the geographical scope of my work has already gone well beyond the general area of Mitundu (good thing my bike’s and I are both in good shape)), there are a handful of small, semi-competent community-based organizations (CBOs) that have the general purpose of getting funding from the government and other larger NGOs (i.e. UNICEF, Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services, etc.) and then use this funding to help orphans, elderly, and the sick in a variety of ways. Throughout the developing world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, especially in Malawi, these CBOs have a reputation for giving, at most, half of the assistance they claim to be giving and using, at most, half of the money that has been given to them for the purposes it was intended for. It’s easy to call this corruption and theft, but I’ve come to understand that this lack of monetary efficiency (I’ll have to go into this in further detail another time, but in short…) is do to many complicated factors such as disinterest, incompetency, and laziness by the donors themselves; a culture of skimming a little money off the top since you (the worker at the CBO) are usually almost as poor as the people you intend to help; and a general disorganization and lack of understanding between all parties involved. I’ve come to realize that not all of the blame can be put on the CBOs that are “misusing” the money.

Anyhow, during my first two years here, I didn’t have a lot of exposure to these CBOs, and now I am working with them on a daily basis. So far (keep in mind that I haven’t gotten very far yet), its become clear to me that the people working at these CBOs have good intentions and most of them actually do good work, but the general issues they have include a lack of applicable experience, guidance, and knowledge in the area of development and assisting needy people. I’m clearly over generalizing here, but life (not to mention writing blog posts that can be read in less than ten minutes and don’t put your reader to sleep) is so much easier when we over generalize. What I’m trying to get at here are two things. One: I will have a difficult time here working with these people IF (notice: IF) I find that they are more interested in skimming off the top and exploiting donors than helping people and promoting development. Two: I should try to focus on helping these organizations to become more efficient, competent, and honest.

I’ve got two projects started that look as though they may actually be successful, make me proud, and put a chip in the mountain of problems that we have here. To make things easier for me, I’ll just cut and paste the “Basic Description” of my first project, Mitundu Area PLHIV Food Security Project (keep in mind that PLHIV stands for “people living with HIV” and OVC stands for “orphans and vulnerable children”):

This project was initiated by the Grace Foundation PLHIV Support Group, requesting help for funding of farming inputs to provide food security for the upcoming year. Since the initial planning stages, the project has expanded to include five other PLHIV Support Groups in the Mitundu Area.

The basic plan is to plant a total of 12 acres of land. Three quarters of the land will be planted with maize inter-cropped with beans, and the other quarter will be planted with soya beans. The maize, beans, and half of the soya beans will be divided up between the PLHIV members at harvest. The other half of the soya beans will be sold at harvest and this money will be banked to provide funding for next years crop and to provide secondary school fees for OVC.

The training/education plan will include a coordinated effort between Mitundu Youth Organization (MYO), agricultural agents, and the Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV). These PLHIV support groups are all affiliated with MYO, which is a 10-year-old CBO registered with the National Youth Council of Malawi. MYO is also the work site for the PCV responsible for this project. MYO will be responsible for assisting the PCV with field visits, assisting the PCV with communication with the PLHIV, and using these PLHIV support groups to help with community awareness and the importance of voluntary counseling and testing (VCT). There are four agricultural agents in the area, and they have agreed to help us in any way needed. We have asked them about talking to the group about sustainable farming methods and accompanying us on monthly inspections of the land that is under cultivation. The PCV will be responsible for developing a business plan with various PLHIV groups, encouraging and training the PLHIV in processes to add value to their cash crops, and providing advice, especially in the area of financial management, to ensure that this project is sustainable with no additional donations in the future.

Obviously, this is a farming community, and most of these members are farmers who know their land, the weather conditions, and how to care for crops maize, beans, and soya beans. That along with the technical help of the agricultural agents gives this project a high likelihood of success.

We are requesting VAST Grant funding of $1420.67. The PLHIV groups’ contributions of in-kind and cash have a value of $2204.00. That is a 61% community contribution. Therefore, the total budget for this project is $3624.67. The time line of this project is for the growing season of November 2010-April 2011.

Compared to most projects done by CBOs, NGOs, and the government itself, this is simple and straightforward. Early on in my service, I didn’t really like the idea of handing out money (or things that are bought with money, such as fertilizer, seeds, bags of cement, etc.) to people in this manner. In my short time here, I’ve come to realize that many (dare I say “most”) development projects (from large scale things such as USAID funding the construction of multimillion dollar highway to small scale things such as the construction of a four thousand dollar community library) never get completed, don’t get used for their intended purpose, or are so poorly managed that most of the materials get stolen or never used at all (At this point I feel like I should sincerely apologize for the negative tone of this post. I’m just letting the world know what I see here. Please keep in mind that I don’t go around cursing and yelling at everyone all day, but I am actually very happy, and I strongly believe that my presence here is having a positive effect on the people I live and work with). After seeing these things, one would assume that I am now less inclined to search for donations to do God knows what. There are plenty of things that I could do with my time that wouldn’t require funding. I could teach at the school like I have been doing the past few years. I could do sorely needed book keeping trainings for the local businesspeople. I could go around preaching about condoms, sleeping under a mosquito net, and farming without fertilizer. But I’ve put a string of ideas into my head these past few months that help me to justify what I’m doing:
1) This area is going to continue to get lots of aid money for a long time.
2) That aid money will continue to be mismanaged for a long time.
3) Bryan is awesome because he works with the beneficiaries of this aid money directly, he can kind of communicate with them in their local language, and he works his ass off.
4) This aid money will be best put to use towards projects that are managed by Bryan.
5) Therefore, Bryan should try to get his hands on some of this aid money and put it to good use.

So I’ve been riding my bike around a lot lately trying to get all of these PLHIV groups on the same page and prepared so that starting around December we can start using this fertilizer and seed to produce a lot of food. This food (if God (please pray for Him to allow these things so that I don’t look like a fool) allows the rain to fall in good amounts and in good time, keeps our fields disease and pest free, and encourages thieves to stay away from our harvest) should feed these 105 PLHIV, whom will be doing the farming, and their respective families for about half of the upcoming year. In addition to this, they will be farming their own land so HOPEFULLY (notice: HOPEFULLY) they will have more than enough food this upcoming year. A PLHIV, or anyone for that manner, has a much better standard of living when they don’t have to deal with chronic malnutrition, which most of these people and their families have been dealing with all of their lives.

The other big project that I’m working on doesn’t entail handing out money and other nice things such as fertilizer for free, but instead it is centered on loans. One of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers has been working with a local private financing agency to give small business loans (we like to use the lingo “micro-loans”) to small groups of struggling women in rural areas. Last year they started with just a few groups, and they were very successful, with 100% payback on the loans. Due to this success, they are looking at expanding the project. I managed to talk these guys into including Mitundu in their area of expansion, they agreed, and now were getting started.

Again, they want to start small, with two groups of about 13 women each. We will start with six days of business trainings and forming cohesive groups. Then the loans will be distributed, the businesses will begin, and finally the groups will pay back the loans. Micro-loan projects such as this have been successful in the developing areas of Southeast Asia, and they’re just starting to catch on in Sub-Saharan Africa (less so in Malawi-but it’s exciting to be on the cutting edge of something). The micro-loans are centered on the idea of using social and group pressure to encourage honesty and swift repayment of the loans. Simply put, if someone in the group fails to pay back their loan, then the rest of the group has to pick up the slack. The defaulter then has to continuously deal with their own shame since the groups are formed so that all members know each other well and come from nearby communities. The loans are small (somewhere between 30 and 100 dollars) and so are the businesses they are intended to start (such as selling doughnuts, fish, or freezies at the local market). The interest on the loans is also very small (3%). The Lilongwe based company that is providing these micro-loans already makes plenty of money, and this it like a charitable side project in which they will be completely satisfied if the investment just breaks even. To be honest, I probably won’t have a large involvement in all of this once we get it going. They already have a few guys that do a great job with the training and advising of the groups, and all of the funding will come from this Malawian (for-profit) company. I just kind of encouraged them to come out here and help us, and now I just have to put the groups together and let them know that help is on the way. The guy that’s in charge of all this beams when he talks about how honest and hard working these desperately poor women are. His other “real” clients who receive the big loans are constantly late on payments and defaulting, but these women that he has just started working with seize this opportunity and don’t mess it up. Lately, he’s been hearing a lot of stories about how the women and their families didn’t have any money for food and basic needs the previous year, but since receiving the micro-loans and getting a simple, well-run business going, they have enough to get by and live respectable lives. I’m very excited about all of this, and I think it will also work well here, but time will tell.

In addition to these two big projects, I’m also working on some other stuff on the side. The volunteer that was here in Mitundu before me had to finish her service a few months early, and she was helping the local secondary school build a small science laboratory and didn’t have time to finish the project before her service ended. I offered to take things over for her, which hasn’t been a big deal since most of the work is already done. I just have to check on things a few times a week to collect receipts and make sure that stuff isn’t stolen. Plus, I’ll get to take pictures of the project when it is all done.

Perhaps you remember that girl’s hostel that I’ve been trying to get funding for since the beginning of last year. Well, I still working on that, jumping through hoops and continually landing on my face. However, I think (pray) that we’ve finally found funding so that the project can be completed in a reasonable manner. The district government has already helped us out with about a quarter of the needed materials (things such as cement, iron sheets, nails, door frames, etc.), and we agreed in a meeting last weekend that we will start construction in the next two weeks. We will start with the materials that have already been donated. It’s still on Bryan’s shoulders to find money to buy the other three quarters of what’s needed. But we’re not worried because Bryan usually pulls through.

As for the rest of my working days, I spend my time at the Youth Organization office talking with people, talking with my co-workers about other projects we want to work on in the next year, showing them how to use cool shortcuts on Microsoft Word and Excel, getting my butt kicked at chess, and writing blog posts.

Outside of work (there hasn’t actually been a lot of this time), I’m reading a lot, watching episodes of 30 Rock on my new computer (Thanks Mom. The keys get dirty a lot faster in dusty Africa so I can’t call it “new” for much longer.), working in my garden, chatting with the endless number of interesting people in Mitundu, and cooking dinner (this takes up a lot of time, time that I didn’t have to budget for when I was at Chadabwa and had someone to do it for me).

I’ll end here. Don’t be shy to tell me what you want to hear about by posting on the comments page. I do look forward to reading those, and if you don’t tell me what you want to hear I will just babble on like I have been doing for the past two years (but perhaps that hasn’t been all that bad). BTW, I still plan to be around during Xmas, and I’m excited to see you all.

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." Nelson Mandela