ONE member Kim Dixon Perez recounts her experience traveling with a mobile HIV-testing clinic with the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance in Malawi.
A women’s finger is pricked for the HIV test
Five-year-old Charles was warming himself by the fire when his shirt caught the flames and most of his back was burned. His mother had to carry him -– on foot -– four miles for help.
Charles’ family lives in a remote village in Malawi. Because most Malawians lack transportation to medical care, the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA) brings care to them. “Mobile clinics” offer HIV testing, prenatal care, family planning and care for acute illnesses. Separately, 250 caregivers visit homes in 60 villages.
Kelly Hauser, who works on agriculture issues on ONE’s policy team, talks about a regreening movement in Niger that has helped transform the lives of more than 2.5 million people.
Last October, while working for ONE partner Oxfam, I had the unique opportunity of helping to host a group of African farmers and scientists who came to Washington to talk to policymakers about smart agriculture aid in Africa. One of the farmers, Sakina Mati, was an incredible source of inspiration and proof of how transformative smart aid can be.
Sakina grew up during a time of famine in Niger. But now, despite recent drought, she and her family have plenty to eat thanks to a movement to “regreen” her region. Planting trees on her farm has brought her family improved yields and income, and she is the director of the village committee that monitors agroforestry in six villages in Maradi, Niger. She said that becoming a community leader was one of the best things that she has done in her life. Traveling from village to village, teaching and encouraging, she is an expert in agroforestry farming and helps others achieve what she has done on her own farm.
Martin Kabaluapa works with the World Food Programme’s Purchase for Progress project to help farmers in Kenya grow their own food to feed their own people. In this blog post, he explains how the project works — and why it’s so successful.
Martin Kabaluapa working with a local farmer in Kenya.
As the Purchase for Progress (P4P) Coordinator in Kenya, I tour the country to see how the World Food Programme (WFP) can use its purchasing power to promote agricultural development and improve market access for small-scale farmers.
At the heart of our efforts is a straightforward concept: supporting nations to grow their own food to feed their own people. The opportunities are great. Almost 80 percent of the nearly $1 billion of food WFP buys each year comes from developing countries (See an interactive map of where WFP buys food here). In the past three years alone, we have purchased more than $500 million worth of food from East Africa, a place that is sadly better known for its droughts than its surpluses. Can you imagine if a substantial amount of this money was going into the pockets of small-scale farmers working on an acre or so of land?
On a trip to Dakar, Senegal, Ben Brophy from Malaria No More sees widespread evidence of progress in the country’s efforts to prevent malaria.
I have been working for Malaria No More for just over a year and a half and have loved the cause every step of the way. For me, investing in the fight against malaria just makes sense. There has been demonstrated return on investment, economic benefits and lives saved. Quite simply, the statistics made a powerful case to me. Perhaps most compelling is the fact that there is a light at the end of the tunnel: we can end malaria deaths by 2015.
There is, however, a difference between knowing and seeing.
ONE staffer Chris Scott visits a primary and secondary school in Malawi — and sees for himself that education in the country has come a long way.
Last month, I got a chance to travel to Malawi to see for myself some of the progress and problems facing the country. One thing I’ll never forget is stepping out of the van and being immediately engulfed by a crowd of smiling and laughing schoolchildren, getting ready to start their day at the Nsoni Primary School near Blantyre, Malawi.
Students from the Nsoni Primary School in Malawi
Though the kids were all smiles and joy, the primary school itself had some real problems. The student-to-teacher ratio was extremely unbalanced, and classrooms were overcrowded, which meant most schoolchildren had to sit on concrete floors. There was also a severe lack of proper sanitation and infrastructure to handle such a large influx of students (Malawi has offered free primary education since 1994).
Secondary school building
But I only had to walk a few feet to the Nsoni Secondary School to see some of the tremendous progress being made in Malawi’s education system. Renovated just two years ago, the school had new, well-kept buildings, complete with desks, a laboratory and library, and proper sanitation services to handle the number of students. The difference between the two schools was like night and day.
The progress I saw at the Nsoni schools is indicative of a trend throughout Africa. Almost 42 million more children have started going to school in Africa between 1999 and 2007, thanks to debt cancellation, smart aid and strong African leadership. And on average, since the 1990s, approximately 16 percent more students are completing primary school in developing countries.
What’s happening in Nsoni is truly living proof of what a profound difference investing in education can make in the lives of African children.
For more personal stories like these, visit the Living Proof website, and be sure to celebrate the proof with friends and family, too.
During a listening and learning trip to Malawi, ONE staffer Kim Hunter witnessed the power of US partnership projects on smallholder farmers in Africa.
As we learn more about the important role of agriculture in fighting hunger, a key challenge facing many smallholder farmers is earning enough money to go beyond feeding their families and enable parents to send their kids to school and purchase school books. In Malawi, there is a real need for more dairy producers, because otherwise, milk must be imported from other countries, which increases the cost. Producing milk gives smallholder farmers a steady income as well as a vital source of nutrients and protein that contributes to a healthier diet.
I saw this effort firsthand at the Chitsanzo Milk Bulking Group (MBG). It began in 2007 as part of a USAID-funded public-private partnership project with Land O’Lakes and General Mills to support local dairy farmers in the rural area of Dedze and expand dairy production in Malawi. With farmers biking with 30- to 40-liter jugs of fresh raw milk to sell daily, the Bulking Group — which began as an initial investment of milking cows and a single cooling tank – has grown. In fact, MBG has raised enough money to purchase a second cooling tank to increase production.
In this blog post, Malaria Griot, mom and ONE member Kristen Swanson shares her amazing story about her family’s personal experience with HIV/AIDS and the efforts to fight the disease in Africa.
Matthew and Will Swanson
I have two sons, and one of my sons has four brothers.
A riddle?
No, just a family blended by the great adventure of 10 years in Africa, the tragedy of AIDS and the joy of adoption. Matthew was born in the US, but grew up in Tanzania, inseparable from his best friend, Will. When Will’s mom lost her battle with AIDS, we adopted him as a young teen and brought him with us when we moved back to Pennsylvania. He now makes us proud as an engineering student at the University of Pittsburgh.
For a few years, we lost track of Will’s youngest brother, Rama, who spent time in a village with relatives. Then, in 2007, my daughter and I visited Mtwara, our old home in Tanzania, and found him back with his grandmother and the other grandchildren she cared for so well. Sadly, we discovered that Rama, the little boy Will had watched out for as a young boy, had contracted HIV from his mom at birth. But at 13, Rama was still attending school, playing soccer and growing into a teenager himself.
Joanna, Rama and older brother Jackson
We had left Tanzania in 2000, a time when anyone who contracted HIV could expect to live only a few years. But Rama seemed to be doing amazingly well! His brothers and grandmother had been caring for him, faithfully taking him for antiretroviral medications that PEPFAR had provided to so many in Africa. We were anxious to see him, but on the day we visited, he was at school — with the same teacher that Will had known years before.
Just before we saw Rama at school, he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) in addition to AIDS. At the time, I was afraid that it would be too much for any boy to bear, but Rama has even beaten TB, and is still thriving! This is more than I had ever hoped for, after having lost my own cousin to AIDS in 1991, then living in East Africa in the earlier years when HIV was a hopeless diagnosis. But so much progress has been made since then. In fact, nearly 4 million Africans have been placed on life-preserving antiretroviral treatment for AIDS since 2002.
I am so proud to be part of a nation that extends the miracle of life to kids like Rama, not a stranger or a statistic, but my son’s little brother. He is living proof that our investments are working and that more can be done to save lives.
For more personal stories like these, visit the Living Proof website, and be sure to celebrate the proof with friends and family, too.
Right now, some of the world's biggest oil companies are fighting to keep some of their deals with foreign governments secret. Let's tell big oil we won't be bullied.
Cuts to poverty-fighting programs won't balance the budget, but they will set back progress on Canada's development priorities and risk jeopardizing existing investments.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
![Matthew and Will Swanson[1]](http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5209/5243636891_5a1ae30af7.jpg)
