New Directions

If three years ago someone would have told me what I would be doing now, I would have laughed and never believed it. Three years ago I was majoring in Political Science and was too scared to spend a semester studying abroad. The only traveling I had ever done was while on nice vacations, and I was pretty content with my life in North Carolina. After spending one summer doing summer school, I knew I should do something more interesting the following summer, and figured I would spend the summer studying in Europe, like what most of my friends were doing.

Yet a friend told me about her experience with World Camp and after hearing her stories I knew it was what I wanted to do. I had recently changed my major to elementary education and this opportunity just seemed to fit perfectly. I was a little nervous to go to Africa but I knew it would be more interesting than another summer of summer school.

The time I spent in Malawi with World Camp was an absolutely amazing, life changing experience. My time there made me look at the person I was and think about the person I wanted to be. So many aspects of the experience contributed to this self-evaluation, from my interactions with the students and people in the villages, to the things I saw, to the vast knowledge I acquired about real poverty in a Third World country and the fight against HIV/AIDS.

The people I met were especially influential, both the Malawians and the other volunteers. I met so many people with interesting stories and fascinating life experiences. Hearing these accounts of extensive traveling, meeting people of all different cultures and backgrounds, and really seeing what the world was like made me question what I was doing with my life and I what I wanted to do with my life. All of the Malawians and other volunteers I met were such diverse, interesting, and amazing people and really made my World Camp experience very meaningful.

Within days of returning from Malawi, I knew I wanted and needed to go somewhere again after graduation. I had got a taste of what the world was like and all the different people out there. World Camp gave me the confidence and the desire to want to move to a developing country. A few months after World Camp, I was hired as a 1^st grade teacher at a school in the Dominican Republic and moved here in July 2010. I also volunteer at an activity center for street kids, and one program I have helped start is an HIV Education program. Living and working in a developing country is a challenge every day, but I absolutely love it and will likely be here for years to come.

I am so thankful to World Camp for opening up my horizons and really helping to change the course of my life. Without my experiences in Malawi with World Camp, I am 100% certain I would not be where I am today.

Submitted by: Sarah Gleason, WC Alumni 2009



**Part III in a series of impressions and memories of volunteering with World Camp. Please email submissions to info@worldcampforkids.org or katy@worldcampforkids.org. Journal entries & emails/letters home during your experience, pictures, etc. are encouraged!**

The Chicken of the Sea

"This morning we got off to an early start. Christopher joined us on an excursion to Lilongwe. To Molly’s delight, Christopher brought a friend…a smelly friend…a loud, flapping friend. That’s right…a living chicken “sample” to persuade restaurant owners that MCBO chickens are plump and healthy. Today, our main priority was finding a home for 230 chickens. We had two successful visits to a hotel and a local restaurant. We await confirmation phone calls tomorrow, but both owners seemed confident that they were interested in buying the whole lot of chicks.


While in Lilongwe, we also ran a few other errands. We stopped by the hospital to pick up a few thousand male and female condoms. We also made a visit to the vet because some of our chickens have fallen ill; he provided us with some medicine. Lastly, we headed over to the Ministry of Education’s office to hand deliver an invitation to MCBO’s Distribution Day next friday. Distribution Day is a community-wide event where the volunteers at MCBO will hand out school supplies and clothing (all donated by Goods4Good) to school children and OVCs in the community. The guest list includes: the Minister and Secretary of Education, 10 student reps and 2 teacher reps from 7 of the neighboring schools, 46 village headmen and their favorite of their often, many wives, MBC TV, and the most special of all, Cheryl Levitt. You read correctly…Mama Levitt is gracing MCBO with her presence in ten days!

The remainder of our day was filled with a long executive meeting and a fight amongst travel companions over canned tuna. If Darren used silverware, maybe this debacle could have been avoided. We are finally friends again, but Darren is not permitted in arms distance from Molly until the tuna has had 24 hours to remove itself through whatever bodily excretions are necessary."

The SWOT Team

Lesson 1: Teamwork.

The majority of the class consisted of team building exercises to encourage trust and communication. We led our students in a variety of different games including Trust Fall, Island Game, Human Pretzel, Willow in the Wind, and Get-in-Order-of-Your-Birthday-Month-Without-Speaking Game (which failed horribly). Although these games might sound clichè or elementary to those of you back home, it was all new to our students - complete with an overwhelming amount of laughter. After the fun we spent some time discussing ways in which we could make their team meetings more effective in the future.

After class, Darren spent a few hours getting his butt spanked in soccer with about 40 kids until it was too dark to see. Molly documented.

Lesson 2: 'Real business skills' - concentration: Marketing

We used a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to determine if MCBOs current and future IGAs (Income Generating Activities) are attractive for incumbent entrants. We were pleased to discover that Lilian Mama had already heard of SWOT and knew the meaning of the acronym. To the rest of the class it was very new territory. So new that it put our one student Austin to sleep.

The real highlight of our day was after class. While Darren played soccer and Molly read her book, a melodious sound echoed throughout our neighborhood. We were curious where it was coming, and minutes later William was introducing us to the local church choir. We got a private rendition from both the junior and female choruses. We were pleased to be invited back next Tuesday to witness an entire practice. Videos to come.

On the way home William pointed out the boundaries of the Mchezi district. We were promised a tour in the near future.

We have been invited to his home next week to meet his wife and mother (who is 107 years old and a great, great, great, great grandmother)!

P.S. It took us an unusually long amount of time to write this post; we had to keep stopping to listen to the young girls singing outside of Molly’s window. It’d be nice to know what they were saying… We better work on our Chichewa.

Tionana mawa. See you tomorrow.

Hot Water...

"We love bathing in a bucket, pooping in a hole is much easier and cleaner than we had predicted and nsima is totally the new sushi.
This morning, just after our bucket bath, we were introduced to the entire primary school (all 2800 students). It wasn’t the introduction we could have forseen.
While preparing for the day we were surprised to witness our Malawian mayi (mother) Lilian sprint out of the house in the direction of all the school children. Amazed, we followed suit to see what was going on. Our mistake. As soon as we were in sight of the growing crowd, we became the object of everyones attention.
The running of the bulls is the best description for what happened next. Before we could blink the school children had rushed towards us, completely engulfing the unsuspecting ‘wazungus’ (white folk). They chanted wazungu and laughed and stared. It was a bit overwhelming. Out of nowhere two older students pushed their way to the center of the circle. One held a microphone which was attached to a brick, held by the other. We were then interviewed for Malawi TV.
Making sure they got everything on brick, we were escorted by the herd of students to our house. Lilian came appeared to save the day as she pushed us inside and shooed away the mob of school children. Good morning!
We later learned that what had originally taken place is very similar to what we call a ‘snow day’ in the States. Rumors of a Satanic Person had spread like wildfire throughout the community, reaching the primary school at prime time. Supposedly this Satanic Person was headed towards the school to drink the blood of the little children. Students dispersed in great numbers and school was forced to close. This wasn’t the first time something like this took place. It is a common occurance throughout Malawi.
We spent the remainder of the morning at the satellite office working on OVC spreadsheets and writing a proposal to the Nike (RED) Campaign. MCBO is applying for a grant from Nike which supports organzations who fight HIV through soccer. We created a pretty sweet application and will send it in tomorrow.
After lunch we had our first official lesson with the MCBO executive staff. Today’s topic: Leadership skills. We introduced it with a really fun activity that was basically follow the leader, blindfolded. It was certainly a sight to be seen. Afterwards we spent the next hour discussing different types of leadership methods and when it is deemed necessary to utilize each method. We concluded the lesson with an assessment quiz to identify each members’ leadership type and were pleased when they asked for more copies of the quiz to be used in the future."
"Overall a very successful day!"

"Tomorrow’s topic: Teamwork. We’ll let you know how the Trust Fall goes!"

Week 1 Concludes at Mchezi!

We have finished our first week of assessments and are feeling right at home here. Our week was busy meeting community members and assisting the Mchezi CBO staff through some housekeeping affairs and we are looking forward to our schedule for this week! Exciting reports should be coming in daily as we begin our training with CBO staff and helping with various outreach projects. Check back each day!

This week we experienced our first Mchezi CBO executive meeting.







Pictured above (from right to left) is Christopher the MCBO Director, Jordan the Youth Coordinator, William OVC Coordinator, and Mackenzie the Vocational Skills Leader.
***
The agenda included:

1. "How/where are we going to sell 256 chickens and at what price? They have been growing for the past six weeks and are now plump enough to have their heads chopped off. Every day they aren’t sold we lose money on their feed and security."
2. "Prices for school uniforms that have been made by the tailor workshop. Selling them is not a problem. They are in high demand throughout the community."
3. OVC Sundays. We had a few simple ideas that could improve the efficiency and order of registering the orphans we didn’t get to. Yesterday was kind of mayhem with some kids running around, some filling out forms, and some getting pictures taken. It’s going to take a few days of shuffling through papers to match all the info up.
   
   

Molly working with William, the OVC Coordinator, compiling the information we gathered yesterday about each orphan. This is the lone computer for the CBO at their satellite office across town.

This was their first introduction to Excel and we think that it will make their lives a lot easier if they stick with it.
***

We had our first experience making and eating Nsima (pronounced ‘n-seema’) which is pretty much papp, or maize flour and boiled water. Bland but filling. Gotta learn to love it. It’s all we have out here in the bush.
EDUCATE.INSPIRE.CHANGE.

The Warm Heart

I had always wanted to visit Sub-Saharan Africa, and expected to enjoy it, but through World Camp, I not only had a good time, but also developed a unique connection with Malawi and its people. Malawi is full of experiences that will change you and leave you eager for more. This was certainly true for me. One of my most fond memories was connecting with my students through Chichewa, the local language. It took me a few weeks to develop working knowledge of Chichewa, but by my fifth week in Malawi, I could crack jokes, sing some songs, and even ask basic questions. My students loved the fact that an azungu, slang for a Caucasian person, could communicate with them. It was thrilling to see how open and excited these students were to gaining life saving information regarding HIV/AIDS and the environment. The experience left me driven to do more. I am grateful that World Camp allowed me to return to Malawi last January to explore new ways the organization can expand its outreach. I continue to help World Camp in the United States and am craftily sorting out how to get back to Malawi in the near future. My time with World Camp is unforgettable. It has shaped me and given me direction in future goals, and has also left me with a sense of connection to many people 8,000 miles away.

Submitted by: Andrew Beckman, WC Alumni 2009
(Andrew is also the son of David Beckman, who recently received The World Food Prize!)

**Part II in a series of impressions and memories of volunteering with World Camp. Please email submissions to info@worldcampforkids.org or katy@worldcampforkids.org. Journal entries & emails/letters home during your experience, pictures, etc. are encouraged!**

Hello from Mchezi!!!!

Hello everyone! Molly and Darren here from Mchezi in Lilongwe, Malawi.
We have officially begun our very mini peace corps. We are going to try to keep the updates coming as often as we can get them written.
When we first arrived around noon on Sunday we were immediately put to work. On most Sundays at Mchezi CBO all the OVCs (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) gather together to sing songs, play games and mingle. Today however was a unique situation. Our arrival coincided with the lone computer at Mchezi CBO crashing earlier in the week and the OVC register was completely lost. Today we spent a few hours going child to child gathering their information. To rebuild the OVC registry we needed to conduct face-to-face interviews to collect the lost information. This included name, age, grade, reason if dropped out of school, which parent had passed if not both, current guardian, living situation and any acute problems, such as lack of clothing, food, school supplies, etc. It was a tiresome experience. Molly filled out paperwork while Darren took head-shots of each child to upload onto the new register.
Molly wants to bring home every single child. The little girls sat on her lap the entire time, and one even fell asleep there. Later we learned that she was positive for HIV...
The OVC gathering concluded with the children lining up while we passed out pens (from a pharmaceutical company in the states, thanks to Goods for Good) to each child. They were ecstatic.
After the kids had left, we finally got the chance to move into our new abode.
We know, it looks (and is) a lot nicer than you would expect to find in the African bush. It comes complete with solar powered lighting, a kitchen (a camping stove and trash can full of water), a room with a hole leading outside (aka shower), an outhouse with feet placement and a key hole pee hole, and three bedrooms. It was built for the staff of the primary school, but as we know they are lacking teachers. Our next door neighbor is Mr. Kumanga, the headmaster.
After we moved in we got a brief neighborhood tour which ended at the hut of the local village headman. He is in his late 70s and is responsible for 34 different villages. He welcomed us with open arms and an open heart.
‘Zikomo’ means thank you in Chichewa. It was just about the only word we heard all day long.
We walked back to our house under an African painted sunset as children from all directions came running up to hold our hands and laugh at Darren's funny hair color.
We are very excited for this next chapter.
Check back tomorrow for more on life at Mchezi!
EDUCATE.INSPIRE.CHANGE.

World Camp's LABS initiative launches in Malawi!

Localized Action for Better Solutions = LABS

We are proud to announce our latest initiative in Malawi that will develop localized, year-round outreach and support efforts in target communities around Lilongwe. We will be bringing you updates from the field provided by Molly Cohen and Darren Levitt who are currently living in Mchezi and participating in our Field Study Program. Molly and Darren have an ambitious learning schedule for participants as they immerse themselves in the community and expose the leaders and staff of Mchezi CBO (community based organization) to what business can really accomplish. They will be living and working with the staff and community of Mchezi CBO to explore enterprise-based solutions to alleviate poverty, support HIV+ individuals and orphans and vulnerable children.

Check in often as we'll be getting reports from Molly and Darren!

A Typical Drive in Malawi

So much has been going on. But I realized I’ve never written about the typical things I see – only the extraordinary or unusual. So I decided to write down what I saw on our 45 minute bus ride to Mitundu FPS; everything normal and regular. And then I realized just how astonishing it all is.

• A police truck that drops off policemen who will stand in the middle of the road waving cars to the shoulder. They don’t have squad cars to follow anyone driving, so they are stationary. The newly emptied police trucks now give locals rides around town.
• A woman with bananas piled two feet high carefully placed in a tub, perfectly balanced on her head.
• Coffin street: hundreds of beautiful coffins and ribbon decorations in every color for funerals that haven’t been held yet – and I barely notice. Death is different here. John, who works in the World Camp house, told us that we fear death too much. It’s a natural part of life that is accepted and even embraced here. Ten minutes further down the road: stone tombstones. And you’d be hard-pressed to find one without a cross on it.
• A mother who carries a boy, maybe nine or ten, on her back as she would an infant because he has casts on both legs.
• Full goat carcasses hanging from stands on the side of the road fully exposed to car emissions, flies, and the intense sun.
• A group of women pumping water for the day – enough for drinking, cooking, and washing.
• Glad we didn’t get stopped by the police today, even though I know we have a licensed driver and a properly insured bus.
• Men pushing their bikes with wood stacked eight feet high because they are too heavy and unstable to ride.
• Waiting at a red light next to a begging man with shoes on his hands because he cannot stand upright and walks on his hands and knees.
• Billboards in English next to billboards in Chichewa advertising safe driving, Carlsberg beer, female condoms, Bingu’s new agricultural policies, and paint brands.
• Girls in pants remind me of a quote from yesterday’s Nyassa Times: “There is a growing tendency among girls in the country to wear miniskirts, exposing thighs, which force men to rape them.”
• Signs advertising for plumbers, electricians and key makers hand painted on large pieces of wood and nailed to trees: PLUMBER tel: 099725673
• Barber shops, where I know kids fear they’ll contract HIV.
• Two women, each with a child on her back and a bundle on her head carrying another huge bag between them.
• All while I sit in a dirty bus that I’ve complained doesn’t have a tape deck that burns through diesel as if Malawi wasn’t experiencing a fuel shortage.
• Telephone lines that run along dirt roads.
• Children run beside our bus for as long as they can, always chanting azungu. azungu. azungu.
• Brick homes with tin roofs, brick homes with straw roofs, brick homes without roofs.
• People chewing sugar cane and thinking it’s cleaning their teeth.
• Beautiful cloth blowing on clotheslines.
• The line of eight women with their faces hidden by the massive bunches of brush they carry on their heads; at least ten feet long and three feet in diameter.
• The village drunk that stumbles along the road.
• The flat bed truck with at least forty people crammed in for the ride.
• A group of ten sitting in a dust brown field picking ground nuts.
• Goats.
• Chickens.
• Cows.
• Dogs.
• Donkeys.
• Pigs – for variety, and only if you’re lucky.
• AVOID AIDS GUYS spray painted on the back of a road sign.
• Barbed wire around Bingu’s farm with more than twenty workers picking maize.
• Taking the same detour we took in January – will they ever finish the road?
• Stopping in the middle of the road to wait for a herd of unattended goats.
• A line of three men on bikes with woven baskets on the back.
• Forty minutes outside Lilongwe and there’s still telephone wires next to the road. I don’t know where they’re going; no one has any use for them out here.
• Kids that wave, although I’ve done nothing to win their admiration.
• Traditional skirts. Western shirts. An AYSO jersey.
• Trash.
• Piles and piles of burning trash.
• A graveyard.

And we’re here. A quick 45 minute drive and it’s time for Day 4 at Mitundu FPS.


Written by: Karen Clark, WC Coordinator
(Karen is currently studying in Botswana and interning at a VCT clinic. Check back for a reflection on the HIV crisis in Malawi and Botswana.)


**Part I in a series of impressions and memories of volunteering with World Camp. Please email submissions to info@worldcampforkids.org or katy@worldcampforkids.org. Journal entries & emails/letters home during your experience, pictures, etc. are encouraged!**

Lessons from RBRC: Sex is...sex, wherever you may be. Awkward, interesting, important to talk about.

It seems that no matter what I am doing, I constantly have a thought of India in the back of my mind. In class, I daydream about the brightly colored saris and chai stands on the street corners. While doing homework, I think about how I would much prefer playing Phase 10 with the four wonderful women I lived with in Ahmedabad. The birds in North Carolina seem slightly average after the sarus cranes we saw while driving through lovely Gujarati countryside. I even get slightly nostalgic for laundry done in buckets and sweating more than anyone should biologically be able to.

My memories are flooded with images of the children we worked with, the Field Assistants who quickly became our lifelong friends, and the other people we met along the way. One of my fondest memories is of my group of girls from RBRC, an all-girls school in the Old City. The class named themselves “Team Happy Banana,” inspired by the fabulous Banana Song. Every morning, the girls rushed into the classroom, pinching Rina-ben’s cheeks, shoving pictures they had colored for us into our arms, and standing at their desks with their brightly decorated journals and pencils out, ready to begin.

Sadie McCleary, India volunteer, with girls
from "Team Happy Banana." 

Throughout camp, all of the games and lessons were played and listened to with an eagerness and enthusiasm that was unique to RBRC. Whenever an idea was presented about the environment or HIV/AIDS, the girls wanted to know more and to ask as many questions as possible. The atmosphere of the classroom was completely exhilarating, and I quickly grew attached to Team Happy Banana.

By the time Female Empowerment, my favorite section of the World Camp Curriculum, rolled around, I was beyond excited to see how the group would respond to the information. I was incredibly confident that an intense and fulfilling discussion would ensue, and everything would run smoothly. Instead, the next two hours that passed were filled with screaming, students standing on benches in order to yell over their peers, a little bit of crying, and absolute chaos. To help control some of the general disorder that had taken over the room, I passed out blank paper for the girls to write anonymous questions on. This quickly turned into a game of guessing and taunting who wrote what question. My frustration was mounting, close to tears myself, and Naini, the Field Assistant with me, looked like she may never come back to work with us.

Sadie and Naini Chokshi, Field Assistant, with Std. 9 girls
at RBRC Girls Secondary School in the Old City.
Ahmedabad, India July 2010. 

Then, as quickly as pandemonium had taken over the classroom, amidst mockery and snickering, I also heard shushing and pleas for other girls to be quiet. Even though they were acting rowdy and disinterested, most of the girls were actively listening while trying hard to look like they were not. I began answering the anonymous questions, and girls started asking other questions, and eventually we ran out of time. After class, some of the students came up and asked me things they were too embarrassed to ask in front of the class. Despite losing my voice from yelling and needing a very strong cup of coffee, it was one of the most successful (but definitely the most overwhelming) empowerment sessions that I was able to be a part of.

Now, when I encounter uncomfortable conversations about important topics such as sexual health, anatomy, and sexual assault, I remember the RBRC classroom and how even though the girls seemed completely disengaged and ready to leave, they actually were interested and needed to know the answers to all of those anonymous questions. It is funny that the same awkwardness related to sex can be encountered all across the world!




Written by: Sadie Ann McCleary, India Volunteer Summer 2010

**Part II in a series of reflections on how we internalize what we learn abroad into who we are back home. Email submissions to info@worldcampforkids.org or katy@worldcampforkids.org. Articles, thoughts, poems, quotes, pictures, etc. are welcome!**

Connections Without Borders

I've been thinking a lot about labels and connections lately. (This is going somewhere, I promise.) Nearly two years of traveling and working abroad has provided a great deal of space to contemplate the notion of identity. Perhaps more than I would like at times. Surfacing again and again are the age-old and eternally unanswered questions, who are we? how or where do we fit in this world? what are we doing with our lives? The truth is, we begin this endless exploration of our identity when we're kids; we first recognize a concept of ourselves as individuals and eventually in relation to those around us.

Female. Male. American. Malawian. White. Black. In a relationship. Single. Married. Victim. Friend. Lover. Child. Parent. Unemployed. Employed. College graduate. Uneducated. Groupie. Musician. Healthy. Ill. Social worker. Accountant. Student. Voter. Politician. 

Malawi, Africa.  January 2010.

The labels we place on ourselves, or at times fall into, allow us to "know" ourselves and thus form connections with people around us. In some sense, this shapes who we are and what we are doing. At least for a given moment. Our identity, and our connections, are constantly defined and redefined by these labels. They shift depending on where we are, what we're doing, and who we're with.

For me those connections materialize most when I'm traveling. People often ask why I work with kids in India and Malawi when there are so many problems right here in the U.S., or why I choose to travel to Phom Penh when I haven't even been to my country's own capital? I never have a good answer, because I don't really know. For some reason I feel connected to certain parts of the world, inspired by certain groups of people, and angered more by certain "social" issues. 

Over time and through my work these connections seem to have defined me and what I am doing here. I have become an NGO worker, a foreigner living abroad. I build connections with empowerment groups because we share the label of being "women." I share understanding with kids in developing countries because we both have a concern of what it would mean to be HIV positive. My labels, my identity, have opened me to incredible experiences and connections around the world. 

And one of the things I LOVE about India (sorry boys), is the women. I was talking the other day with a friend's mom about relating to women in India and how they respond to us and World Camp's work there. How the sense of female camaraderie and spirit just permeates everywhere. A mother tucking a blanket around my feet on an overnight train. Rolling rotis in the kitchen and playing with spices. The smile a woman on the street gives me as she approves of my Indian dress (yet another label here--fitting in vs. unknowing tourist). Mothers shopping for bangles with their daughters. A conversation about educational opportunities for girls. Or giggling over the slimy lubrication during a condom demonstration.

Ahmedabad, India. July 2010.
Photo credit to volunteer Amanda Waldrop. 

My connection with women, and among women in India, was one discovered immediately on my first trip in 2005. It's one whose power continues to amaze me with each return. The welcoming spirit they have for those of us from far off lands (and lives).  Their physical and emotional strength to survive--nonetheless, succeed--in a world oppressive in so many ways. This connection, like so many other connections I've encountered abroad, breathes life into me while I'm there, yet I somehow worry will disappear when I leave.

The other day I was in a yoga class in my hometown--a beautiful little studio with views of the mountains and the lake, and, this time, a small group of 6 women. The theme for the class was "embracing change, being open to new things, and rooting in our gratitude for them." We practiced facing each other, and focused on heart-opening poses. Then came the handstands that then roll over into backbends. An incredible challenge to being open and embracing the fear of gravity.

One woman gently fell out of the pose, said it was too much, and tears began to flow. As we were rolling up our mats after class, she said she had no idea what came over her, just suddenly had to release. She thanked everyone for opening that space for release. None of us knew each other, but the rest of the group then exploded with conversation about how grateful they were that wherever we go there exists a kind of "female space." That space to release, to embrace overwhelming emotions--whether it be excitement and dancing or sadness and crying. How tough it must be for men not to have that (guys, feel free to challenge!).  How we were simply grateful to be...women.

I think when we travel we unconsciously open ourselves up to the world. To experiences and people. It's almost dramatic, really. And it comes so easily. We tend to guard ourselves when we are in places where people already know us, where we've already been labeled, where we're already comfortable.

That day, like so many of my experiences abroad and with World Camp, was a reminder of connection.  Of how, though our identity may be under constant re-definition, it doesn't mean connections aren't there.  And how those connections are what allows us to bring about (and perhaps more importantly, embrace) change.

Connections know no borders. They have an ability to transcend so many of the labels we place on ourselves and remind us that, at the core, we are all just human. That we have the same hopes and desires, that we share the same fears and sadness. And I think it is that very reminder that allows us to be effective in our work, whether it's here in the U.S. or across the ocean in Malawi.

World Camp reproductive and sexual health workshop. Pictured are Field Assistants Prerna Aroa & Prachee Shah with volunteer Kendall Strautman and women at Gramshree. Ahmedabad, India. July 2010. 

Written by: Katy Lackey, WC Coordinator


**Part I in a series of reflections on how we internalize what we learn abroad into who we are back home. Email submissions to info@worldcampforkids.org or katy@worldcampforkids.org. Articles, thoughts, poems, quotes, pictures, etc. are welcome!**