Report

My interest in the Coca-Cola World Citizenship Program at UFIC formed from a desire to understand the scope that HIV has affected countries in Africa. I did my internship was with the American Red Cross in Lilongwe, Malawi. My primary assignment was to carryout a survey of Home-Based Care (HBC) Volunteer organizations that care for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWA). Because of the large number of patients in rural areas, access to the district hospitals is limited. Therefore, many organizations have established programs that teach the villagers to handle the everyday needs of PLWA such as basic nursing care and psychosocial help. The purpose of my study was to determine the effectiveness of the services the HBC programs were carrying out.

A survey was designed asking different HBC organizations throughout Malawi, if these programs were able to maintain volunteer enthusiasm and retain volunteer numbers if the HBC kits, containing items such as pain killers and condoms, are useful for clients and if so, what parts of the kits are most often used by the volunteers. The survey results indicated a need for better communication between organizations and shared responsibilities, such as training seminars.

Beyond the original objectives to which I was assigned, I also volunteered to help with other projects that were being carried out by my coworkers in the American Red Cross. When the Food Security officer said he needed to travel up to the northern districts to view a Food for Work project he was overseeing, I volunteered to travel with him. We went to see the roads that we being repaired as well as the cassava fields being raised for payment of the work.

My interest in volunteering with PLWA stems from previous volunteer work with the Boggy Creek Gang Camp, a Hole in the Wall Camp dedicated to terminally ill children, just outside of Orlando, Florida. After volunteering with children that were born with HIV, I came to realize how devastating the disease is, not only to those infected but all those around them, from their families to their entire community.

To my surprise, I learned that the Hole in the Wall Camps runs a brother organization, Children in the Wilderness (CITW), program in Africa. This camp is designed to help children orphaned by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The program not only takes children off the streets for a week, but the goals of the camp offer Malawi youth a diverse program combining wildlife conservation, environmental awareness, recreation and key health education (HIV/AIDS, nutrition and hygiene) in a unique environment. Through activities that offer campers self - awareness and growth, and through greater sensitivity to their natural environment, these camps strive to empower the campers to become ambassadors of wilderness and the skills to be leaders within their communities.

I went to the camps and talked with the staff on their policies and activities and offered suggestions based on my own personal experiences. My experience with the Hole in the Wall Camps in the United States has given me an advantage in being able to help the new camps become more effective both in their policies and in working with the children. I was able to obtain $500 from a local charity in cooperation with the local Coca-Cola bottler and received matching funds from the Coca-Cola Foundation through the Coca-Cola World Citizenship Program to help the CITW camps.

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Survey in the North

Kids from the Village

Greg in Nyika