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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