POST 29 – Lots of traveling and a new opportunity!

The month of February was full of traveling. I spent one crazy week in Mwange to move into our new house and have a lot of meetings to make sure things were sent for the coming month that both Daniel and I would be gone. It was hectic, but being busy makes the time really fly!

I was lucky enough not to have to take public transport to Lusaka because of a generous offer from one of the OPs, called Right to Play. They have been really helpful and the guys are great. Check out their website at: http://www.righttoplay.com/site/PageServer. By getting a ride with them, I was fortunate enough to get to stay at their house in Kala and watch some real television, including a Stanford basketball game and a little of the Superbowl!

After a fun comfortable ride to Lusaka, I had a few busy days to do PM work and to buy midwife supplies for the trained refugee midwives in Mwange. The Global Fund for Women (GFW) is “an international network of women and men…that advocate for and defend women’s human rights by making grants to support women’s groups around the world”. The GFW was generous to donate to the women of Mwange, so now the women who for whatever reason do not use the Red Cross clinic, will have midwives with good sanitary equipment to help them have safer births. I’m really excited FORGE, GFW and Red Cross were able to work together to make this work! Check out the GFW website at: http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/cms/

Then, it was time to go to Meheba to get ready for the new FORGE staff to come and to learn about the new FORGE model called the People-Powered Development Model. This new model utilizes refugees by having them design the FORGE projects instead of bringing in American college students to design our projects. I think this will be a great change for FORGE because it will further the empowerment of refugees by enabling them to have a stronger voice and more responsibility in the Camps. FORGE is going to apply the model in Meheba first and then move to the other Camps because Meheba is the Camp with the greatest need for more projects. I have accepted an exciting offer to stay in Meheba to help implement this new model, so after I return from Tanzania I will be in Meheba for a few months!

xoxo