Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Board of Directors: Meet Katy Lackey!


"The western preoccupation with time as an exact, linear unit of measurement with a future dimension is generally foreign to traditional African cultures. This seems to cause no end of anxiety for westerners. In Africa the importance of an event or activity is that it happens, not the timing or the quality. In fact, I think that the essential different between western and African cultures is that Africans are concerned with the form of life and westerners dwell on the content."

~David Mozer, Bicycling in Africa: The Places in Between

Kata-kata, my feet pound softly on the grassy earth - one after the other. The cool morning air rushes into my lungs replenishing heavy breaths. Sunlight fights its way through the billowing trees only to then be dispersed by the red dust of the dry season. I pass by the Area 3 market guys on my way back to the World Camp house. Slowly unpacking fruit and veggie stands, they casually sway to the gentle beat of reggae, nodding good morning at one another as the deep orange African sun appears from the end of the dusty road. I relish this time of day. These last moments of calmness before the world around me fully awakens.

The stillness of the Lilongwe Golf Course during my 5am run is a stark contrast to a few hours later when small hands will grasp mine tightly in anticipation of clapping our arms above our heads and shouting “Bananas of the wooooooorld, UNITE!” as 300 students, staff, and volunteers dance together ridiculously in the middle of the African savannah. 

Yet somehow these paradoxical moments evoke the same feeling. A feeling transcending time and space. A feeling that whatever is happening is enough, is all that matters. A feeling that reminds me why I am here.  

Indeed, even on my worst days in Africa or India, I woke up feeling grateful that this work –- a mix of happiness, stress, challenge, struggle, disappointment, frustration, hope -- happened. 

Because real change does not *BAM* strike or come out of an AH HA! moment. That may be the moment we look back on and declare the point of impact. But the change, in fact, is the amalgamation of a million tiny moments, everything leading up to that manifestation. It is slow, brutal, full of failures, and so inconspicuous at times that we don’t even know it’s happening until that moment of ‘impact.’ 

But that meaningful moment is a mere reflection of the importance of everything that has happened and will happen. I’ve seen it in myself. In the boy who gleans a new perspective in empowerment session, however fleeting it may be. In the girl who dares for a second to assert herself before shrinking back into a predefined role in life. In the smile behind unspoken understanding between field assistants and volunteers. 

And that is what kept bringing me back to Malawi and India. To volunteer, coordinate, and now serve on World Camp’s Board of Directors. Those small, insignificant, transient moments that somehow, together, make a world of difference in who we are, how we relate to one another, and our impact on this planet. 

Malawi and World Camp have changed a lot over the years. Not all of it has been good, not all of it has gone as planned, not all of the good things that have happened stuck. And it certainly hasn’t been easy. 

But today HIV transmission rates are lower, reproductive health has been mainstreamed into the Ministry of Education’s curriculum, conservation efforts are gaining ground, and while female secondary school rate may still be dismal, at least people are talking about ways to keep girls in school. 

World Camp joined forces to get shizzaz done in three countries; expanded from working with kids to conducting outreach with teachers, communities and local NGO staff; started the Camp Hope project working directly with HIV+ kids. Nearly 15 years later, World Camp is still prominent figure in Malawi. 

Change has happened. 

And over the years,  weaseled its way to alter the path of my own life and career as well. Several years with World Camp in India and Malawi -- two vastly different environments and cultures -- spurred a deep interest in the connection between environmental and human health. 

This carried me back to Washington DC and down to Costa Rica and Colombia, where I pursued a dual masters at the University for Peace and American University's School for International Service. I studied water quality, watershed protection, stormwater, low impact development, and climate variability, change, and adaptation. I had found my niche in water resource management and climate policy. Currently I'm finishing a multi-agency project on water utilities and extreme events (e.g. when treatment plants flood during a hurricane, how do you get potable water back online as quickly as possible?). 

As World Camp transitions into a new era of programming and leadership, I'm excited to once again be a part of this community. Change is happening. We're reassessing to figure out how we can best meet needs in Malawi that are different than when we first began, how to expand Malawian ownership, how to promote sustainability. We’ll have questions and struggles along the way, but the importance is that change happens. 

I look forward to working with current and former board members, staff, donors, volunteers, and World Camp supporters. Be sure to check in frequently to hear more about our on-going initiatives and upcoming opportunities. And please, share any feedback or ideas you may have! After all, you're already part of the change that has happened and is happening now. 

Katy Lackey


Joined the WC Board: Fall 2013
Education: Dual MA International Affairs and Natural Resources/Sustainable Development
Age: 29
Originally from: Frisco, Colorado
Current Location: Washington, D.C.
Current Position: Research Consultant, Water Environment Research Foundation
WC Experience: Malawi and India Program Coordinator 2008-2011
First Volunteered: Malawi Summer 2005
Most Excited About: increasing Malawian ownership, connecting alumni, Camp Hope
Favorite Malawian Dish: does John’s enchiladas or curry count?
Favorite WC moment: 

  • When strangers go crazy together during the banana song.
  • Seeing a room of 60 Malawian teenagers immediately respond “no!” and applaud when a volunteer shared that he was not married because he is gay and asked if they thought different of him knowing that. 
  • Full moon futbol game on homestay at Mt. Nkoma. 
  • A female student in India listening to her entire empowerment group state they wanted to be doctors, lawyers, truck drivers, and then saying “I want to be a stay at home mom. It makes me happy and I provide a good life for kids.” That’s empowerment. Having the opportunities, but making the choice. 

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Board of Directors: Meet Baker Henson!



World Camp has been an important part of my life since college and founding the organization with Laura Ivey and Brenna Dorrance way back in 1999. I have been on the board in some shape or form since then and spent 10 years working on regular World Camp programming in Malawi. My first trip  to Africa to set up World Camp seems so long ago. 
During our 1st volunteer program we were novice, to say the least….To think that we designed, ordered, paid for, shipped, and distributed 10,000 T-shirts to the World Camp students during our first year with volunteers. Especially  since the T-shirts arrived the very last day that we were in country!!! We traveled as a group of 10 from South Africa to Malawi and back by car, leading camps along the way; crazy.  
We have come a long way. Our new Mediserv program is one example. This coming October I am leading a group of doctors and nurses to Lilongwe, Malawi to operate on 150-200 people who desperately need surgical care. There are only 37 registered surgeons in the entire country of 16.5 million people. This will be World Camp's first of several medical projects. It was also great to see World Camp expand to India and Honduras; we hope to return there soon! 


I am proud of World Camp's accomplishments and I look forward to the future. On occasion I still see a worn out World Camp T-shirt on a Malawian child from that first year. 
I look forward to each project and I thank you all for your support!
Baker Henson
Joined the WC Board: 1999 when I founded the Board of Directors 
Education: pursuing an M.D.; currently in surgical residency
Age: somewhere in my 30s
Current Location: Harrisburg, PA
Originally From: Boone, NC
Current Position: Vice President World Camp Inc; General Surgery Resident
WC Experience: yes
First Volunteered: N/A
Most Excited About: expanding WC's health work to the Mediserv program. 
Favorite Malawian Dish: Carlsburg
Favorite WC Moment: There are too many great ones to single any out. We have all had great moments at the projects; watching the presentations of the students, teaching that one student who finally really gets it on the final day of the project, etc. We also have all had great moments on safari; some of you will remember Pete Golf cracking the front windscreen of the landrover with his rear end. I had to drive 7 hours back to Lilongwe from Zambia in the rain with a cracked windscreen…thanks Pete.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Hope in the Heart: World Camp's programming - Camp Hope

  Not all that long ago, World Camp solicited some feedback from our network of
  alumni. We wanted to know: how can we best communicate with you, what sort of
  information are you wanting to hear from us? One of the requests from alumni
  was more information about our programs. In an effort to give the people what
  they want, we’re starting a small blog series about our current programs. Each
  week, we will feature one of our programs, give a little background, discuss where the program is headed and share some wonderful photos. This week we will be focusing on Camp Hope, our camp for HIV-positive children.
This summer World Camp will be operating our fourth Camp Hope. The focus of Camp Hope is living positively, drug regimen adherence, life skills, nutrition, dealing with stigma and discrimination, and of course, a dose of classic summer camp fun. Camp Hope is a unique program because it specializes in psychosocial support, an oft-neglected programming area. Many programs that target individuals living with HIV/AIDS focus entirely on the physical effects of the disease. While one cannot underplay the importance of such programming, it does not address the patient as a whole. Camp is an opportunity for our campers to simply be kids, to live free from the secrecy and stigma that they normally face, and a chance to bond with children dealing with similar obstacles.
World Camp operates Camp Hope with two partner organizations. The first is SeriousFun Children’s Network, formerly The Association of Hole in the Wall Camps. SeriousFun is a global network of camps dedicated to providing children with “serious illnesses” an opportunity to simply be kids, to have fun, and where campers could, in founder Paul Newman’s words, “raise a little hell.” The third member of our partnership is Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation, Malawi. Baylor- Malawi is related to Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Baylor-Malawi’s mission is to conduct a program of high-quality, high impact, highly ethical pediatric and family HIV/AIDS care and treatment, health professional training and clinical research.
All campers come to camp through the Baylor-Malawi healthcare system, meaning that they are aware of their HIV status and are currently receiving antiretroviral therapy. Campers must also be healthy enough to attend Camp and participate in all the fun events we organize each year. Baylor-Malawi provides doctors and nurses to provide medical care on-site during the weeks of Camp.
This year marks a possible huge turning point in the program. The Camp Hope partnership received a grant from UNICEF which is allowing us to reach out to 50% more campers than originally anticipated! This summer we are expecting to host 150 campers during two, weeklong camp sessions this August. 
 World Camp also operates a follow-up program in the months after camp proper. These sessions bring back together all 80 campers to continue to build on the lessons from Camp. Further, these sessions allow campers to continue to build relationships with one another and feel directly the support of the Camp Hope staff. This year World Camp is working to incorporate into World Camp children from our area of geographic focus, the Malikha Zone. The goal is to bring 30 campers to Camp from the Malikha which would be especially amazing as they campers are currently not receiving any services.
Stay tuned for more updates or write us with any questions!

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Board of Directors: Meet Reinier Terwindt!

As I am thinking about what keeps bringing me back to World Camp, I remember a quote by Steve Jobs that I’ve always liked:

When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family, have fun,, save a little money.  That's a very limited life.  Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use (Jobs, 1995)
What does Steve Jobs have to do with Malawi?  

For the past eight years I've been interested in development in Africa, particularly with regards to people's access to quality education. When talking to people working in this field, I've often been told that Africa's development challenges -- like HIV/AIDS, poor educational standards, and bad governance -- just are the way they are. That they're simply too vast and complicated to solve. 

World Camp began with a group of young people who fundamentally disagreed with that sentiment. It is this World Camp spirit that keeps bringing me back since I first volunteered in Malawi in 2009. This spirit is also precisely what World Camp and the communities it works with have in common. 

After finishing my Masters in London, I came back to Malawi in 2011 to work on increasing the sustainability of World Camp’s programs. By far, the most important thing I learned during my time there is that somehow, despite whatever particular odds, young Malawians keep coming up with their own solutions to the complicated challenges that they face. In Steve Jobs' words: young Malawians everywhere are building their own solutions rather than accepting that the world is just the way it is. 

My work for World Camp has therefore always focused on strengthening these students in their own fight against existing issues. In my years as a World Camp Program Coordinator, as well as in between sessions, we worked on this in three major ways. One such way has been our work on student activism, by training afterschool clubs on ways to conduct community outreach about HIV/AIDS. Another way has been to meet with School Management Committees and Parent Teachers Associations to discuss how parents can become more involved with their children's education. A third way has been to learn from teachers about their challenges to deliver Malawi's life skills curriculum and suggest possible more interactive ways to go about this. 




I recently completed my graduate studies in International Educational Policy at Columbia University's Teachers College in New York City. I currently work at the United Nations on anti-corruption in the private sector and more generally in business engagement in the global Post-2015 Agenda. My spirit to continue working with Malawian communities remains, which is why I'm very excited to have joined World Camp's Board of Directors in late 2013. 

It has been great to get together with old and new friends to discuss World Camp's path forward. We are all excited to continue to learn from Malawi's youth and making sure that they are able to carry out their solutions to Malawi's challenges. 


I would like to end by saying that World Camp has developed into a strong organization because of its large network of young people who believe that complicated challenges are more easily solved when working together. As we move forward, please get in touch with us to share your ideas on our programs so that we continue to build stronger communities collectively.   

Reinier Terwindt 
Joined the WC Board: Fall 2013
Education: MA Anthropology of Development and M.Ed International Educational Development 
Age: 27
Originally from: Nijmegen, Netherlands
Current location: New York City
Current position: Anti-Corruption & Good Governance Research, United Nations 
WC Experience: Malawi Program Coordinator 2011-2012
First Volunteered: Malawi Summer 2009
Most Excited About: promoting student activism, increasing Malawian ownership
Favorite Malawian dish: nsima with nkuku 
Favorite WC moment: working on World Camp's creative writing program with Michael Kumwenda and George Kansilanga & genet hunt in Zambia