The Site as of 20 September 2009
It may not look too exciting yet, but there has been a lot of progress on site this month!
Stage 1 - Clear land & shift materials to site --
COMPLETED!
Stage 2 – Break ground & lay foundations
Stage 3 – Raise the walls
Stage 4 – Roofing
Stage 5 – Plastering, pointing and finishing
By the time you receive the next newsletter we should have completed stages two and three.
What we’ve been up to this month...
There was a slight delay with the contractor, but it didn’t hold us back. In fact, we found this pause useful as we spent the month shifting materials to the building site. The community have moulded bricks (250,000 in total) all over Chisala, some close by, some several kilometres away. Similarly, sand has been collected by community members all over the village. Bricks and sand must therefore be transferred from these areas back to the building site which is a time consuming and labour intensive job. Over the past month we have stockpiled tens of thousands of bricks and nearly 60 tonnes of sand and 30 tonnes of quarry stone (aggregate). Having these materials on site in mass quantities will help construction run smoothly once the contractor arrives as it is often because of a lack of bricks, sand or quarry stone that building projects are delayed. There is also the difficult job of land clearing which is part of the communities’ contribution to this project. Clearing land without chainsaws (or any saws for that matter) is also incredibly labour intensive. The community have felled trees*, removed stumps and cleared heavily forested areas using just small axes, hoes and ‘slashers’ (machetes).
*Hey, all you tree-lovers out there don’t worry! We are already planning a tree re-plantation scheme to repopulate the area around the clinic with indigenous trees and plants.
Mangalasi Construction Company is scheduled to be starting construction on Monday, 21 September.
The Truck
Moving bricks, sand, quarry stone (aggregate) and materials like cement would be impossible without the use of large vehicle. We have purchased this 3-tonne truck with the help of the Nkhata Bay District Hospital which will be essential throughout the project. Once the project is complete in December we will donate this truck to the District Hospital. This vehicle will be useful to them in future maintenance and building projects.
Introducing the Maternity Clinic Committee
We are very fortunate to be working with a dedicated and hard-working maternity clinic committee who were selected by their communities to take these positions of leadership. They are the key to the project’s success. Whether shifting sand or leading meetings with village headmen and the Traditional Authority, the committee are on site before we arrive and leave after we have gone home. They are also crucial in their role as translators and are always helping us to understand the nuances of village politics and Malawian culture. We’d be lost without them!
The committee have started taking us to see all 19 village headmen and their communities to check on brick production and community participation in activities such as land clearing. But this wasn’t their first time making the rounds, they had been working hard before we had even arrived, evidenced by the number of bricks and people’s understanding of the project and their role in it. This time-consuming and challenging task really brought into relief the leadership skills and strengths of this well-respected maternity clinic committee. For a community-based project such as ours this type of understanding in the villages and the successful dissemination of knowledge is invaluable.
(Left to right: Leonard Chisiwawa (Vice Chairman), Elias Kandawire (Chairman), Agnes Lungu (Committee Member), George Mkwakwa (Secretary), Matthew Kasambala (Treasurer).)
Introducing the TEVET trainees
One of the most exciting aspects of this project is the TEVET Scheme (Technical, Entrepreneurial, Vocational and Educational Training) which is run all over Malawi. In coordination with TEVET, we have selected five young people between the ages of 18-35 with a minimum level of education to learn the building trade through on-the-job training over the next three months. They will learn everything from how to dig foundations and lay bricks to wiring, plumbing, carpentry and roofing. As part of the TEVET scheme we have purchased all the tools they will need as well as a toolbox to get them started. We had many applications and held formal interviews but ultimately had to choose just five very promising and enthusiastic applicants. We look forward to seeing how they progress over the coming months.
(Left to right: Dickens Ngwira, Mayor Kauta, Happy Banda, Christian Theu and Foster Nyrienda.)
Stories
While the project is progressing well, there are also those days where we meet obstacles or complications which have made this project challenging. But this month we have witnessed firsthand or heard stories which serve as daily reminders of our purpose here.
Last week we were approached by a community member and friend whose daughter, Emma, is seven months pregnant. He explained that she thought something was wrong and asked if we would take her to the nearest maternity clinic in Mpamba which is approximately 17 kilometres away. Of course we agreed and minutes later we were driving Emma and her aunt to Mpamba. We learned the next day that she had been admitted and would have to live at this clinic until November because if further complications did arise she may not be able to get back to the maternity clinic in time. She must live there alone for the next two months. Her family are devastated as they will only be able to visit her occasionally. Transport is a major problem in this area. No one in Chisala owns a vehicle and public transport is practically non-existent.
Christian, one our TEVET trainees, is married and his wife, Daliess, is expecting twins. She has been living at the guardian shelter in Nkhata Bay (even further than Mpamba maternity clinic) with her mother for over a month awaiting the birth of her babies. Like all women in Chisala, it would be very difficult and risky attempting to get to a maternity clinic once in labour (particularly with multiple births), so they make the journey far in advance. Christian must now get firewood and money for food to his wife and mother-in-law however he can. We are happy to give him rides to and from Nkhata Bay when we go, but if we weren’t here to provide rides he would struggle to get these essential lifelines to them.
Mrs. Nyali, the nurse at the existing health clinic in Chisala told us a story about a woman who, just last week, had come to her with a newborn baby. Mrs. Nyali enquired, as she always does, how this woman had delivered. The woman explained that she had been trying to walk to Mpamba maternity clinic but labour had progressed too quickly and she had given birth alone in the woods by the side of the road without any medical supplies or assistance.
Come December, women like Emma and Daliess will be able to live at home with the support of their families and friends and will be able to access the maternity clinic in a matter of minutes. And women will no longer have to risk long walks to access a safe birthing environment. On the difficult days, we remember stories like this (and many others) and the obstacles or challenges we face seem small in comparison.
Thank You!
Thank you all for your donations, advice and ongoing support. We hope this newsletter gives you a better picture of the project and community you are supporting. We look forward to hearing your feedback and will be in touch soon. And thank you particularly to GAIA for all the advice and assistance that they have given us over the past year, and particularly in the last month.
Contact details and further information
Contact
Maggy & Andy: 00 (265) 88 402 7251 / Emily: 00 (265) 88 843 6248
Because internet access is relatively scarce and the connections we get are so slow, we are not checking our project mail as often as we were and have reverted to using our own email accounts. For more information or for ways to get involved please contact one of us:
maggykeet @ googlemail.com / andykeet @ hotmail.com / emkm99 @ hotmail.com
