The Camp Hope Experience

With Camp Hope just around the corner (the first session on August 2nd and the last on August 18th) we at World Camp are quite excited. Camp Hope is a summer program that happens each summer for kids in Malawi living with HIV. With a HIV prevalence of 10.6% HIV is unfortunately common amongst Malawian youths. Camp Hope gives these kids a space to meet other youths living with HIV and engage in educational programs to help them cope.

Some of the main focuses of Camp Hope are to: increase understanding of anti-retroviral therapy (ART), promote nutritious eating and healthy living, as well as to improve self-confidence and decision making skills. Youths living with HIV and their guardians face a plethora of issues ranging from social stigma around HIV/ AIDS to remembering the names of treatments and how to take them. Camp Hopes both guardians and youths to handle these issues by developing programs which help kids handle all aspects of their health as much as they can while enabling guardians to provide the best support.

This year Managing Director Emily Stallings and myself are traveling to Malawi in the beginning of August to assist with this year’s Camp Hope. This will be my first year helping out in Malawi after interning in the Asheville offices for a year and I could not be more excited. Camp Hope will be my first opportunity to try doing what I want to do for the rest of my life; teaching health education abroad, particularly sexual health education. While there’s room for improvement in the American sexual education system, I feel that teaching sexual health in the developing world truly change the world. Especially in countries like Malawi, where 46.9% of the population is under the age of 14, empowering youths with knowledge of sexual health could prevent so many negative health outcomes.

Camp Hope is particularly interesting for me because of the holistic approach they take. Sexual health and ART understanding are taught right alongside healthy cooking and eating classes as well as classic camp activities like crafts and games. Even after the completion of Camp Hope there are Camp Hope Follow-Up sessions and Guardian sessions to reinforce and expand upon the themes at camp. I’m so looking forward to seeing the effect that Camp Hope has on these kids and their families as well as on myself and the staff and take that knowledge with me into my career.  Here’s to another great session of Camp Hope for all the kiddos and the adults, we all have a lot to learn!

Current Events in Malawi

Malawi to Launch New Nutrition, HIV and AIDS Project

 

The principal secretary of the Malawian Department of Nutrition and HIV/AIDS, Edith Mkawa, announced during a conference Monday, February 25, 2013 that Malawi is set to launch a new five-year Nutrition and HIV/AIDS program February 28, 2013. President Joyce Banda will preside over the function at Bingu International Conference Center.

The new program will focus largely on the reduction of childhood stunting, childhood and maternal anemia, and the prevention of HIV. Mkawa stated that while Malawi has made significant improvements on reducing HIV transmission rates, its prevalence rate still remains among the highest in the world, making prevention a priority. Some of the most recent statistics show about 900,000 to 1,000,000 people of all ages living with HIV in Malawi. (UNICEF)

Child stunting is an issue that is caused by under-nutrition that poses a large threat in Malawi. Those who suffer from it live with poor physical health throughout their lives and damaged cognitive abilities that limit their capacity to learn and earn a decent income. (CNN)

“Malawi has made significant gains in child survival and maternal health, but no significant improvements have been made so far on child survival and stunting. Stunting also has long term effects on cognitive development, school achievement, and maternal reproductive outcomes,” Mkawa explained.  

It is hoped that the implementation of this project will reduce levels of HIV transmission in both children and adults in addition to reducing stunting levels. Changing these statistics would greatly improve the overall welfare of the country. 

World Bank Lending to Malawi By Volume (in USD Millions)

Funding for this program is being provided by the World Bank, with the US providing about 80 million dollars in funding. About 50 million will go towards HIV and AIDS programming while 30 million will assist in the child nutrition portion of the program. Other money will come from Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). About 60% of this money is a grant, while 40% is a loan. 

Story link:

http://www.nyasatimes.com/2013/02/25/malawi-to-launch-nutrition-hiv-and-aids-project/