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Tea Party- Africa Send off!

Denise Savoie (MP of Victoria) had joined us at the tea party

Important Dates!

March 8, 2012-International Women’s Day

Women for Change will be preparing for the International Women’s Day Celebrations that we will take place in Chongwe, one of the districts in Zambia. We will be participating in a march along with the YWCA, and NGOCC  (Non-Governmental Orgnaisations’ Coordinating Council).

 In the world in which we live, It is saddening to have only one day in the entire year to dedicate to all the women in the world. Women bring so many gifts to the world and make up over slightly 50% of the human population.

I looked at the international calendar, and kindly remind you to mark these days down.

March 8-International Women’s Day

March 22-World day for Water

March 29-Earth Hour- 8pm local time

April 2-International Children’s Book day

April 7-World Health Day

April 22-Earth Day

June 16- International Day of the African Child

August 9- International Day of the Worlds Indigenous Peoples.

September 8-International literacy day

October 16- World Food Day

October 17-International Day for the eradication of poverty

November 25-International Day for the elimination of violence against women

December 1-World AIDS day

December 10-Human Rights Day

All of these dates, are to remind the world, these issue still persist. Many people fight year round for these causes. Luckily, there isn’t complete oblivion and these days do exist to educate people who may not know or understand the extent of the issues.

 It’s silly to think there is a World Frog Day. That one I don’t understand. LOL Quiet curious actually! but I know I’m getting kind of preachy lately but my goal is to educate you, and share what it is like to live half a world away from you.

Lesson Learned

After lunch today, I encountered my first child street begger. I had an orange Fanta in my hand, and a donut in a brown bag, that I decided to treat myself to at the local bakery. I was walking back to my office, as the lunch break was coming to an end.

The boy came up to me and I heard this little quiete voice, say “Miss….I am hungry” and I tried to ignore him. I heard the little voice again “I am hungry Miss” and I turned around to look at him. It was a boy who was hardly older than my brother Justice who is 7 years old.

At that moment, my heart cringed, It was a feeling I tried to push away. I did not want to feel that way. I can’t even find the words to describe the pit that formed in my stomach.

 I know that giving this child food and giving into his begging was not going to help anything but only be a temporary solution. I had to walk away and say” No I’m sorry”. I had to walk away fast, because I did not want that little boy to see me cry.

He followed me a few steps, and kept saying “Miss, I am hungry”. My back was turned to him.

 I can still hear his voice echoing in my head, I can still see his eyes, filled with sadness. I felt I was looking at my own eyes, the same feeling of sadness that he had.

My dad always told me, to give what you have, even if you are struggling. I knew this was a test to me. I had to fight my inner self, on what the Christian thing would be to do, and the realistic view of child poverty in Zambia.

We’ve been educated not to give in to child beggers, because they most often will work for someone in the streets. Whatever people give them to goes to whoever employs them and the food/money/ items does not go to the actual child themselves.

Often, other kids may be involved, and if they see one child begger, who has something, they might get attacked by other children for the food. It is a lose-lose situation.

My boss/sister/mom Rohan, so kindly reminded me that I’ve been partnered with an amazing NGO who strives to eradicate child poverty and empowers mothers and children to not have to resort to begging in the streets for survival.

 It was a hard lesson to be learned today but It took everything out of me to say no and choose to fight to eliminate poverty in another way. A more sustainable way.

Macaroni!

Good Morning, While It is the morning here in Lusaka, Most of you are sleeping and catching some zzz’s.

I cannot stress how much and how grateful I am to be here. I wish you all could be here to experience everything with me. I wish you could smell all the new smells. Feel the African breeze on your skin and the see a beautiful Zambian sunrise. I wish you could feel the warm sun on your face and be completely happy.

I don’t know if you know the feeling, but when I am in Lusaka and walking on my way to work, I feel so peaceful and so happy, knowing all of this is worth it and thankful for such a rare opportunity. This came at the perfect time in my life, I know the creator guided me here, because everything happened so perfectly and everything fell into place smoothly. My dad always said that when you have to fight with something or it is constantly a battle, it isn’t meant to be, you’re fighting something that isn’t on your path.

Africa is not what you would expect it to be. Africa is beautiful. Africa is Alive. It is so beautiful beyond words. I truly wish everyone could see how unbelievably gorgeous the land is and the work ethic among Zambians is truly inspiring and empowering.

People ask me all the time in Lusaka, on why I came to Zambia. I tell them I’ve come to live and learn in a culture on the opposite side of the world to help my own peoples at home. I’ve come to observe how people so similar to First Nations can achieve sustainability.

I live in a community whose quality of life has been compared to such a low standard of living. I read in a sociology text in my first year university that First Nations Peoples in Canada live the same quality of life, as developing nations. I remember reading that and I was infuriated and I was so bothered by it. I made a vow then and there, I would not be a statistic.

Who is to say, my quality of life is less than that of another race. How would you make that assumption/accusation. I know it is based on statistics from the HDI. Just because we are poorer for many reasons (mostly from the effects of colonization) does not mean our quality of life is worse. My family may not have as much money as others but were happy. We have our health. We have each other.

Writing this almost brings me to tears because I truly care about the work I do and the future of my community and for the First Nations peoples everywhere. I have a purpose in Africa to complete a job here in Zambia but I see so many of these skills transferable to home. I’m always trying to link or modify what I learn to apply it in a situation at home. I want life for young youth to be meaningful and full of rich experiences.

If I wasn’t a feminist before, I sure am now! I look at my own culture and how we are still a patriarchal society. Regionally all the way to the National level .I know these are our traditional values, but these traditional values are hindering development within the Nation. Women can be just as great leaders as men.

My goal is to empower young women and youth to become leaders.  I look at my own leadership ,3 women council members out of 12. All of the support staff for the chief and council are women. How is this supposed to empower women to become leaders. I know this extends to other reserves as well, not pointing fingers at my leadership, they have been doing an amazing job! In the near future, I would like to see more women at all levels of leadership be more involved in policy making and political issues.

As a young Indigenous Women myself, the stats are against me, I am most likely to not achieve a high school diploma or any post-secondary education, I’m more likely to be poor, I will be paid less than a male & most likely suffer from mental health diseases.

The same goes for Women in Africa, when there husband dies, the wife will lose the land, women do not have access to education, women are poorer because they have no skills to make income. Women are more likely to be raped because there word against a mans does not mean anything. Women in Zambia are responsible for all the cleaning and cooking and taking care of the children. Women are more likely to contract HIV/AIDS, and leave orphan children behind.

Just kind of want to let you know a little what I’m advocating here, and at home. I understand it is very easy to point fingers at leadership at all levels, but the first step is acknowledging the problem. I’m always the first one to point our faults with governments and how there failing First Nations peoples in Canada, and prior to this, I have always just been all talk and no action. I will be the first one to admit, however, I have chosen to be a voice for change.

I encourage you, as the reader to not be so passive to social issues, but stand up for what you believe in. Sorry my posts have been very critical to issues in Canada, but I promised I would educate people on these issues and open people’s eyes. I feel if I help one person from all my experience and become a positive role model for one single person, that all of this work in this internship will have all been worth it.

Ash-WFC Intern

Ps: Just a kind reminder, if your going to use my blog for your own use, please cite it, These are my words and my work! Thank you! <3

**This one’s for you Ally- I listened to Good life right before I went on my safari and I laughed, because I remember before I even heard of the Africa  internship, that this always reminded you of an African Safari, and when I played the song, I laughed because It was so true. Miss you chicklet.

Orientation Week

To my family & friends

Today is a beautiful hot day out, Even at 7 am, you can tell the day is going to be a scorcher. I am always the happiest on days like today. I am a sun chaser! I always laugh with my family when I tell them I was born in the wrong country, I should have been born somewhere tropical, but the stork dropped me off on the coldest country in the planet Canada!

 We’ve got two orientations scheduled today with the information and advocacy unit as well as the traditional leaders unit.

I will be working within the information and advocacy group, my position is the Information and Research Coordinator. It is a very busy department but I will be working with all departments within the organization documenting and distributing information.

The Information aspect of the department is to let the stakeholders, WFC donors, district groups, and the public to be educated on what is happening at WFC.

Advocacy is very important at WFC in terms of advocating for the 5 basic rights in respect to access to clean drinking water, access to education, sustainable housing, medical care, and food.

·         An example, WFC would NOT advocate for the government to provide food BUT to change the policies for a person to have the right to grow food. As I stated before, Women for Change does not advocate for hand-outs but to work on the ground to help rural communities become sustainable.

WFC takes part in the World Social Forum, and Say NO to Liberalism, which means NO to privatization and NO to capitalism. For those of you who study politics, you know politics is heavily influenced by economics.

 For those of you in Canada, especially Alberta, Conservatives and Liberalists are dominant. Which is sad because, neither of those platforms support First Nations issues. I read the “Social Watch” this morning. It is a report done by countries all over the world to monitor how the government promises to support their peoples. This is what It said for Canada

            “One in Three Aboriginal and racialized people in Canada live in poverty. One in four people with disabilities, immigrants, and female single parents in Canada live in poverty”

Us Aboriginal Interns will succeed in this internship, because we know what it is like to be surrounded by poverty. We know what it is like to be colonized. We have many of the same traditional values of the people of Zambia. I mean absolutely no disrespect to other interns or the future Western Interns to come. As an Indigenous person, It is just easier to relate when our cultures are so parallel to life in Zambia.

I would like to personally challenge my own leadership, as I know some are following this blog, to not participate in the World Business Forum but to participate in the World Social Forum. Until our peoples in our own communities, have the five basic human rights, (which many do not have access to) we will not be successful in respect to business and for our community to grow into the healthy industrious nation we imagine.

On the lighter side, Live, Love, Laugh- As Shaina would say “Smile, Life is Short” J

Xoxo

Reaching out to you at home

To all my favorite lovelys!

Women for Change, has development centers for each province that they do work in. These development centers have been built by community members and the development centers are where Women for Change facilitates their workshops.

Women for Change works with Child and Youth Development.  In these rural communities, It is challenging to gather children together in rural areas because they have a travel 5 or 10 km to the closest village. They found that bringing the children together through an iniative called “Sports for Development” has been successful.

They discuss the issues that they cannot bring up around the elders like being married off too young and how that hinders there future and providing incomes for their families.

Women for Change is trying to build libraries and obtain sports equipment for the youth in these rural communities. So I am asking a favour of you! Yes you!  I am asking if you have any books (new or used) to be distributed to these small rural community development centers. It is very expensive to ship books to Zambia so maybe it is easier to fundraise money to purchase the books here in Zambia

If you are interested in donating, please contact me at dennehya@mymail.macewan.ca

Zicome! –Thank you in the Nanja Language

Lusaka Life

To everyone back at home

It’s been less than a week in Zambia and it feels like we’ve been here a lot longer, we’ve settled in quite nicely. We live in a cottage that has two bedrooms and a bathroom and a small kitchen and me and the three other girls live in it. Nathan has his own room within the courtyard of the YMCA. The little cottage is going to be our home for the next four months.

Every day to get to the office, we have to leave the cottage at 7 am to bus to our office across the city @ WFC. It takes an hour to reach the office in the morning, and an hour after work to get back home. I don’t think it’s that bad of a journey to get to work considering other Zambians walk a lot longer to get water each and every day.

We start work at 8 am and take lunch from 1 to 2, and then work until 4:30.  So far, we’ve been introduced to our colleagues and have been briefed on each department within the organization. We have a week of orientation and getting familiar with all of the projects that WFC facilitates within different regions of Zambia.

At some point during the internship, we will be going into the field and to different provinces and staying for three weeks at a time. There will be no electricity, and no running water. There will be no cell phone service. These are the rural areas that Women for Change facilitates workshops in different areas.

Women for Change does not offer a hand out approach to helping communities. There are plenty other organizations that offer short term solutions, they will ask the communities what they need, and they say “we need food” and they will supply food. “we need water” they will bring them water, these are only short term solutions. Women for Change does not bring solutions to problems. They ask the local people what they need and they come up with their own answers to what the communities need. Women for Change just facilitates the discussions.

This makes me extremely grateful to have been placed with Women For Change, I’ve always been a firm advocate believing that these immediate “fixes” that happen with First Nation Communities like leadership giving money to band members for groceries  isn’t helping, its only putting a band aid on the bigger problem. We have a nation that can not attain their own food.

I am just so grateful for the Creator guiding me here to learn on how I can change the thinking of people in my own community to give the average First Nations persons a better quality of life.

Xoxo-Ash

First few days in Africa....

After we went on our safari yesterday, I was so silent. Norman asked me why I was so quiete, I said "sometimes I just need a minute to wrap my head around some things" I could not beleive I had just experienced my first Safari. I've waited all my life to go to a place like that. I was so happy all day. I must have prayed a million times thanking the creator for guiding me to Zambia.

I love waking up to the rooster outside our window (we are in the process of naming him) and I laugh all day long because were always on the hunt chasing massive spiders out of our house. Shaina is the "man" of the house and is always in charge of killing anything bigger than a tennis ball. Which is often!

We went on a safari yesterday, It was amazing!! I have some great videos to post on my cell phone. There is a hilarious video of me that I was taking of the wildlife, and all of a sudden a stick bug landed on my arm. I thought it was a stick at first and calmly brushed it away then I realized it was hanging on and had legs then I freaked out. LOL it had such big eye balls.

Have my first day at the office tomorrow at WFC! Yipee.
I miss my family very much but once I accept that this is my new life for the next few months then I think my transition into living in Lusaka will be easier.
Will post again next sunday! :) We had to find a moozongo cafe to get internet. (moozongo=foreigner) OHHH and I am picking up Nanja very slowly, but I love the language.
Zicome, Xoxo
Ash

I LOVE AFRICA!

To All my favorite lovelys!


Wow, I am mindblown. I love Africa. Everyone is super friendly in Lusaka. This is my first entry since Ive been in Africa and I have so much to share and all my first Zambian experiences. Can't write to much today, and sorry I cant post any pictures. My camera got stolen at the Amsterdam airport. :(

Xoxo Miss you all!

In Vancouver Airport- Waiting to go to Amsterdam

To Everyone following my journey to Lusaka!

Well Our flight to Amsterdam has been delayed by an hour and a half so definitely some time to do some writing. Im sitting beside all the other interns while we stay busy on lap tops and last phone calls home.

Before we went through International security, Tashayna's family sang a beautiful farewell song to wish us a safe journey, and we had a prayer circle. Everyone is so proud of us already and family is only an email away. One of the elders had told us in T'Sou-ke that when we get homesick to look at the sun, or the moon, and know that loved ones are only a smile away.

Ash, Xoxo

Still packing-Less than 12 hours to go!

To my family, my friends, my nation, all the role models in my life, and faciliatators who have prepared me for everything that have led me up to this point in my life.

Just want to thank everyone for their prayers for a safe journey! Thank you! I just want to thank you for reading and being apart of my own personal journey to Zambia.

I did the walk today for missing and murdered Indigenous Women, was very emotional, but very inspiring to see many families and friends come together to remember their stolen sisters.

Community is Unity

There is also one group today that I heard about that truly inspired me. I advocate for the NGO Women for Change in Lusaka, but I found an organization today that was amazing. Its called the Moose Hide Campaign, Please look into it! There is so many amazing campaigns that you can be apart of. I encourage you all to find one you feel passionate about. Use your talents to raise awareness.

The moose hide campaign is a grassroots movement of aboriginal and non-aboriginal Men who are standing up against violence towards women and children.

For further information please visit, www.bcaafc.com/moosehidecampaign

                                          Many support Memorial Walk (Feb, 12.12)

                                     Interns and Amy @ T'Sou-ke Nation Community Dinner :)

Fly out tomorrow :)

To all my favorite lovelys!!

The past week has been super packed with tons to learn and sessions to solidify all our learning in respect to risk management.

I fly out tomorrow. Take the ferry to Vancouver, fly from, Vancouver to Amsterdam (9 hours) Then we have an 8 hour lay over Amsterdam, then we fly to Nairobi (12 hour flight) and then team Uganda will fly to Uganda and myself and 4 other interns will be flying to Lusaka. :) Going to be an interesting three days of travel. :) So excited for journey and spending time in airports. This is the life that I love. I love living out of a suitcase and being in new places. This is when I am the most happiest.

So thankful for everyones support during this pre-departure training. It has been a turning point in my life and this training will benefit First Nations Communities all over

Going to participate in the mission Indigenous Womens Walk today to show my respect and raise awareness.
Xoxo
Ash

LAST 7 DAYS!

To all my favorite lovelys!

7 days to goooo! Macaroni!

Its going to be a jam packed last 7 days, but take it day by day, the butterflies are like a feeling, Ive never felt before, Its the sense of an experience that I know will take my breath away.

Today we met with Liz, a former intern from Women for Change in Lusaka and gave us an idea what to expect when we arrive in Lusaka, and what its like to partner with an NGO. Liz was great for giving us the highs and lows and how important it is to take care of your mental health, She said the poverty is so distinct, there is the upper class and they have no problems, and the massive lower class. There is no in between classes like there is in Canada. She said to be prepared to deal with the poverty and especially the children in poverty, I can only imagine at this point what this feeling feels like. It is very important to have an outlet for this sadness, It is also important to note, that Africa is not all sadness and a country of resillence and beauty.

We also did some career planning and how to transition into Canada upon completion of the internship, Every single resource person that has come in and spoke to us, has said that coming home is the hardest part. Africa changes people, and people dont want to know how Africa was, You will have a conversation and someone will ask "So how was Africa?" and You'll say "Amazing" and the conversation will most likely end there. How do you begin to tell someone all the things your eyes have seen.

Tomorrow (Feb.6/12) We are meeting all day in the office, to have a Zambia resource person in and ask final questions and having a skype date with the NGO's. Our boss says they are super excited to have us, not as excited as us I bet! Then in the evening we are heading to T'Sou-ke nation for a goodbye feast.

Every day is a new opportunity for learning and am going to soak up and absorb as much as I can. 7 Days left and there jam packed! Everything is on such a fast pace and I love it!! Thanks for reading. Absolutely makes my day when someone reads my blog :)

Xoxo
Ash

8 Days to Go!

Good Morning all my lovelys!!

Spent the past few days drinking lots of coffee pushing through on the long days. The staff at Serious Coffee, kiddie corner to the office have been getting to know me quiete well. VIDEA and the Interns have been working so hard! Im so proud of each of them. Sometimes I feel like I talk about all the time, but it makes me so happy when I see the potential unfold and I feel so confident everyone is going to do amazing things and have stories to share for a life time.

We had a professionalism workshops for office settings with Amy who helped me so much in terms of some of the weaknesses I was unsure about when reading my job description. One of my duties is to prepare a newsletter for Women for Change and now with the skills I learned from Amy and her excercises I feel so much more confident. I was afraid of finding the perfect tone when writing for people when English was not the first language.

My presentation and public speaking skills are getting better by the day, trust me we get lots of practice. There is no room to be shy being an intern, especially a pilot project, everyone is super curious. I love sharing where I'm from and how I want to make a difference locally as well as internationally.

Now were on the single digits countdown- 8 Days to goooo! Holy Moly Macaroni! Soooo excited. Like my tummy gets butterflies when I think about how big of a deal that this actually is. :)

It was my birthday on Friday, The interns and Rohan, and a few of our host parents had all met at the Reef for Dinsky and it was awesome. It was a much needed evening of relaxation and we all needed just an evening to hang without working. Lots of laughs were shared and I got a Justin Beiber book :) The interns know me so well already, lol Write more tonight!! Xoxoxo
Ash

Got this quote from my wokshop today with BCHC, Couldnt wait to share it with you all.

"Youth are the leaders of today, Not tomorrow"

Leaders and leadership always say, we are the leaders of tomorrow, but right now you see the youth taking charge of their own future.