Hi everyone! It's Ruth and Kirstie here, updating you on our project.
Hope you haven't been worrying about us! We have had no access to the internet since Thursday. We have had a rather busy time in between.
I shall begin by updating you on Friday's trainings. Today we were looking at First Aid with both groups in the morning. Elizabeth, Emily and I (Ruth) were with the under 18 group. As first aid was very new to the girls they ended up having to take quite a lot of notes, however showing them slings and the recovery position ensured plenty of active participation. With the over 18 group Kirstie, Lorelei and Hayley found that the ladies were all very enthusiastic about learning first aid and said this was what they had all been looking forward to - very nice to hear!
In the afternoon we looked at human rights with the girls. We were all very impressed by some of the intelligent and thoughtful answers some of the girls gave when asked what rules they would have on their own islands (no killing, no torture, freedom of expression, free education for all). The girls had grown rapidly in confidence since the first day of training. The over 18's looked at the 8 point programme in the afternoon session.
Next day of training involved Lorelei, Hayley and I (Ruth) working with the over 18s on planning a camp. They had some really good ideas about how to plan a camp but had some very unrealistic budgeting ideas. The under 18s group looked at adolescent health and development, which included training on hopes and aspirations and puberty. The girls found drawing changes to the female body during puberty hillarious!
We finished this training early today but then returned later in the afternoon for a campfire with all the ladies and girls. This was brilliant! They had all prepared songs and dances and we all enjoyed singing and dancing and eating sweet potatoes cooked in the fire.
Sunday was our last day of training in Mangochi. As many of the girls had a very long way to travel home we were asked to ony come in for an hour and a half. We therefore spent the morning singing songs and playing energisers and teambuilding games. We then said a tearful farewell (thank you Emily) and were off to enjoy our first days off in a long while. We went on the back of a pickup truck to a place called Nanchengwe Lodge which is situated on lake Malawi. After being dropped off 2km from the lodge we slogged all our bags along the path and eventually reached our destination. We stayed in a beautiful beach hut 10m from the lake shore. Without going into too much detail we had a fantastic time relaxing, sunbathing and chilling out. After 2 nights at the beach house we got up at 5am this morning and have just arrived in Lilongwe after an epic 7 hour bus journey with lots of live chickens. We all feel relaxed and ready to start training again tomorrow.
Lots of love
Team Malawi x
We are team Malawi! A group of 6 members from Girlguiding UK who have been selected to go on a GOLD project (Guiding Overseas Linked with Development) in July/August 2011. We are the 2nd group to be going to the country where we will be helping to develop Guiding.
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
Thursday, 4 August 2011
Second day of training in Mangochi
Moni everyone, its Ruth (and Lorelei) here!
A strange but good day of training today. We arrived this morning and to our shock horror everyone was ready to start. This has proved somewhat unusual in Malawi so far. Myself, Lorelei and Elizabeth trained the young girls today whilst Kirstie, Hayley and Emily trained the adults.
We decided to keep the entire programme today very active and fun. We started the morning by putting the girls into patrols to ensure there was a good mix of ages in each group. We taught the girls the Crazy Elephant song which they enjoyed immensely, particularly our rubbish English dancing skills! The girls were very noisy today, don't know what they were fed for breakfast, but we want some! We then looked at scavenger hunts and treasure hunts and got some of the older girls to run their own treasure hunt. We also did lots of communication and team work games. We used some of the older girls as our translators today which worked really well.
The adults today looked at WAGGGS (World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts), focusing on their mission statement and goals. They interspersed this with lots of energisers and songs as the ladies need lots of encouragement to participate actively.
At lunch we were informed that we would be finishing at 2pm rather than the planned 3.30pm as we were to meet the District Educational Officer (DEO) - This meant scrapping most of the afternoon's planned activities. With the little time that we had left in the afternoon, the ladies created a world guiding history timeline while the girls took part in a team building straw tower challenge. The girls needed a lot of support to create a tower that could stand independently.
We have just got back from our meeting with the DEO, he talked to us about the importance of guiding in Mangochi where many girls drop out of school to start their family at a young age. He was proud that we had come to Mangochi and referred to us as role models for the girls we were training. This made us feel that this week's training is very worthwhile and important - a lovely end to a busy day.
We have also experienced eating sugar cane today, which is tasty but rather difficult to eat as it involves you spitting the chewed bark all over the streets - don't think this would go down well in the UK!
Cheerio
Team Malawi xxx
A strange but good day of training today. We arrived this morning and to our shock horror everyone was ready to start. This has proved somewhat unusual in Malawi so far. Myself, Lorelei and Elizabeth trained the young girls today whilst Kirstie, Hayley and Emily trained the adults.
We decided to keep the entire programme today very active and fun. We started the morning by putting the girls into patrols to ensure there was a good mix of ages in each group. We taught the girls the Crazy Elephant song which they enjoyed immensely, particularly our rubbish English dancing skills! The girls were very noisy today, don't know what they were fed for breakfast, but we want some! We then looked at scavenger hunts and treasure hunts and got some of the older girls to run their own treasure hunt. We also did lots of communication and team work games. We used some of the older girls as our translators today which worked really well.
The adults today looked at WAGGGS (World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts), focusing on their mission statement and goals. They interspersed this with lots of energisers and songs as the ladies need lots of encouragement to participate actively.
At lunch we were informed that we would be finishing at 2pm rather than the planned 3.30pm as we were to meet the District Educational Officer (DEO) - This meant scrapping most of the afternoon's planned activities. With the little time that we had left in the afternoon, the ladies created a world guiding history timeline while the girls took part in a team building straw tower challenge. The girls needed a lot of support to create a tower that could stand independently.
We have just got back from our meeting with the DEO, he talked to us about the importance of guiding in Mangochi where many girls drop out of school to start their family at a young age. He was proud that we had come to Mangochi and referred to us as role models for the girls we were training. This made us feel that this week's training is very worthwhile and important - a lovely end to a busy day.
We have also experienced eating sugar cane today, which is tasty but rather difficult to eat as it involves you spitting the chewed bark all over the streets - don't think this would go down well in the UK!
Cheerio
Team Malawi xxx
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
1st Day of training in Mangochi
Hi all,
Lorelei, Ruth and Kirstie updating the blog.
After a fairly restful night - minus the 4.45am wake up from the mosque next door we had a plain breakfast of - bread, bread and more bread! Kirstie and Emily slept through the mosque wake up call, I have no idea how!!!!
We arrived to start training at 9am this morning, there were meant to be 100 ladies and girls, but when we arrived there were about 20. We waited around for a bit while a few more filtered in and then started our training.
Myself (Lorelei), Ruth and Hayley trained with the young girls aged 8 - 17 years old and Kirstie, Elizabeth and Emily trained the ladies 18+.
With the under 18's we started with some promise activities. The whole day proved quite difficult as the girls spoke very little English and our translator, didn't translate very accurately, making it quite interesting! We had also planned to do some activities which involved cutting, but once we started we realised that the girls had never used scissors before and struggled cutting. The girls were all very friendly and started off quite shy, but by the end had grown in confidence and enjoyed chatting to us in broken English. They broke into songs and dancing throughout the trainings and we realised that Malawians are good dancers and singers at any age!
Kirstie here updating you on our day with the adults. We started off with some getting to know you activities and then moved onto our main focus of the day outdoor activities. We taught the ladies how to do a scavenger hunt and they enthusiastically ran out of the door to try and find as many different leaves as they could. We also taught them about treasure hunts and they enjoyed setting each other clues to follow. They were quite quiet today, but seemed to enjoy it, we are hoping they will engage a bit more as the training progresses.
We ended the day with 62 girls and ladies and are hoping to reach 100 by tomorrow.
We are heading off now to try some sugar cane.
Lots of love
Team Malawi
xxx
Lorelei, Ruth and Kirstie updating the blog.
After a fairly restful night - minus the 4.45am wake up from the mosque next door we had a plain breakfast of - bread, bread and more bread! Kirstie and Emily slept through the mosque wake up call, I have no idea how!!!!
We arrived to start training at 9am this morning, there were meant to be 100 ladies and girls, but when we arrived there were about 20. We waited around for a bit while a few more filtered in and then started our training.
Myself (Lorelei), Ruth and Hayley trained with the young girls aged 8 - 17 years old and Kirstie, Elizabeth and Emily trained the ladies 18+.
With the under 18's we started with some promise activities. The whole day proved quite difficult as the girls spoke very little English and our translator, didn't translate very accurately, making it quite interesting! We had also planned to do some activities which involved cutting, but once we started we realised that the girls had never used scissors before and struggled cutting. The girls were all very friendly and started off quite shy, but by the end had grown in confidence and enjoyed chatting to us in broken English. They broke into songs and dancing throughout the trainings and we realised that Malawians are good dancers and singers at any age!
Kirstie here updating you on our day with the adults. We started off with some getting to know you activities and then moved onto our main focus of the day outdoor activities. We taught the ladies how to do a scavenger hunt and they enthusiastically ran out of the door to try and find as many different leaves as they could. We also taught them about treasure hunts and they enjoyed setting each other clues to follow. They were quite quiet today, but seemed to enjoy it, we are hoping they will engage a bit more as the training progresses.
We ended the day with 62 girls and ladies and are hoping to reach 100 by tomorrow.
We are heading off now to try some sugar cane.
Lots of love
Team Malawi
xxx
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
We have arrived!
So after taking an age to work out how to change the language on this computer from Arabic to English, Kirstie and I (Emily) have made it finally to leave you another post! Woo!
Last night we stayed at the MAGGA HQ where we had a 3 hour powercut to start off with. Which was the longest one we've had yet! We had a slight problem when Ruth shut the door and Elizabeth tried to open it the door as jammed!! After much panic Lorelei saved the day and heaved the door open allowing us to escape.
We got up at around 5.30 to travel to Mangochi where we are doing our next training. It took us 4 hours to get here in a very squashed truck which included our driver, Ruth (one of the national trainers), Kirstie, Emily and Elizabeth in the cab with hand luggage, cabbages and carrots and the others in the back of the covered pick up truck with all the bags and 200 eggs (10 of which are now stained on Kirstie's bag). Along the way we had people trying to sell us food through the windows, beautiful scenery and people waving at us as we went past.
When we arrived we were driven to several hotels which we looked at but there was no room at the inn with some or didnt do dinner! We eventually found a hostel where we are sharing in two's our own small house which is interesting... Elizabeth and Hayley have found a scorpion in their sink, Lorelei and Ruth have no hot water and Emily and Kirstie have a broken toilet seat!
We have just chilled out this afternoon which has been needed and are looking forward to starting training tomorrow with the Young Leaders and Guide Leaders!
Lots of love
Team Malawi x
Last night we stayed at the MAGGA HQ where we had a 3 hour powercut to start off with. Which was the longest one we've had yet! We had a slight problem when Ruth shut the door and Elizabeth tried to open it the door as jammed!! After much panic Lorelei saved the day and heaved the door open allowing us to escape.
We got up at around 5.30 to travel to Mangochi where we are doing our next training. It took us 4 hours to get here in a very squashed truck which included our driver, Ruth (one of the national trainers), Kirstie, Emily and Elizabeth in the cab with hand luggage, cabbages and carrots and the others in the back of the covered pick up truck with all the bags and 200 eggs (10 of which are now stained on Kirstie's bag). Along the way we had people trying to sell us food through the windows, beautiful scenery and people waving at us as we went past.
When we arrived we were driven to several hotels which we looked at but there was no room at the inn with some or didnt do dinner! We eventually found a hostel where we are sharing in two's our own small house which is interesting... Elizabeth and Hayley have found a scorpion in their sink, Lorelei and Ruth have no hot water and Emily and Kirstie have a broken toilet seat!
We have just chilled out this afternoon which has been needed and are looking forward to starting training tomorrow with the Young Leaders and Guide Leaders!
Lots of love
Team Malawi x
Monday, 1 August 2011
Last day of training with the National Trainers
Hey guys,
Change of plan!! Surprise surprise :) We are still in Lilongwe and are traveling on to the next place tomorrow morning instead. We're going to be getting a lift with some of the guide leaders who live in the town. So it's going to take 2 1/2 hours instead of 5 hours on a National bus! So will be alot better and more comfortable.
So to give you an update of our mad 48 hours as its been pretty packed!!
We did training yesterday morning on WAGGGS and their mission, goals and vision and some communication activities. We taught the ladies how to make vases from plastic bottles.
In the afternoon we finished early due to campfire preparation but while waiting we were invited to a traditional Malawian bridal shower for the daughter of one of the national trainers. All of the trainers and GOLD team went along on the back of pick up trucks (great fun!!) and joined in the festivities. It was quite an experience to see their culture. We did lots of dancing and had to give money which is traditional at the ceremony. Kirstie, Ruth and Emily were given roses and had to go and dance up the front with some other ladies and we had to give money to the couple but got to keep the roses! This is another Malawian tradition. All the money collected over the evening goes towards the wedding. It was amazing!
We went back to HQ where we set up our tent for the night and then had a campfire with the ladies. We did even more singing and dancing and had roasted sweet potatoes over the fire which were delicious!! We eventually climbed into our tents.
This morning we started training and did more communication activities and finished off activities on the history of Guiding and WAGGGS. We finished with a closing ceremony where we gave each of the ladies a friendship knot badge as a present. They really enjoyed the training and said they got a lot out of it.
So now we have a well needed evening to relax and the day tomorrow after arriving to rest before starting the next lot of training on Wednesday.
Lots of love,
Team Malawi x
Change of plan!! Surprise surprise :) We are still in Lilongwe and are traveling on to the next place tomorrow morning instead. We're going to be getting a lift with some of the guide leaders who live in the town. So it's going to take 2 1/2 hours instead of 5 hours on a National bus! So will be alot better and more comfortable.
So to give you an update of our mad 48 hours as its been pretty packed!!
We did training yesterday morning on WAGGGS and their mission, goals and vision and some communication activities. We taught the ladies how to make vases from plastic bottles.
In the afternoon we finished early due to campfire preparation but while waiting we were invited to a traditional Malawian bridal shower for the daughter of one of the national trainers. All of the trainers and GOLD team went along on the back of pick up trucks (great fun!!) and joined in the festivities. It was quite an experience to see their culture. We did lots of dancing and had to give money which is traditional at the ceremony. Kirstie, Ruth and Emily were given roses and had to go and dance up the front with some other ladies and we had to give money to the couple but got to keep the roses! This is another Malawian tradition. All the money collected over the evening goes towards the wedding. It was amazing!
We went back to HQ where we set up our tent for the night and then had a campfire with the ladies. We did even more singing and dancing and had roasted sweet potatoes over the fire which were delicious!! We eventually climbed into our tents.
This morning we started training and did more communication activities and finished off activities on the history of Guiding and WAGGGS. We finished with a closing ceremony where we gave each of the ladies a friendship knot badge as a present. They really enjoyed the training and said they got a lot out of it.
So now we have a well needed evening to relax and the day tomorrow after arriving to rest before starting the next lot of training on Wednesday.
Lots of love,
Team Malawi x
Saturday, 30 July 2011
3rd Day of Training
Hey guys,
So today was our 3rd day of training with the National Trainers from all over Malawi. Today we covered topics on conflict management, budgeting, how to do good presentations and communication skills. The ladies were really active today and did some great presentations to us about MAGGA and some funny role plays of different types of conflict and how to solve problems and issues. Today has been one of those days where we have continually laughed! The ladies had lots of fun playing duck duck goose and we were in fits of laughter over it.
Tomorrow there will be no blog post as we will be staying over night with the ladies which will involve a campfire and lots of singing and dancing which we are all looking forward to. We will be travelling on, on Monday to Southern Malawi to do training with Guide leaders and guides. We will try to post as soon as we can when we arrive with an update.
Blog soon and enjoy the new pictures!
Love from
Team Malawi :) x
So today was our 3rd day of training with the National Trainers from all over Malawi. Today we covered topics on conflict management, budgeting, how to do good presentations and communication skills. The ladies were really active today and did some great presentations to us about MAGGA and some funny role plays of different types of conflict and how to solve problems and issues. Today has been one of those days where we have continually laughed! The ladies had lots of fun playing duck duck goose and we were in fits of laughter over it.
Tomorrow there will be no blog post as we will be staying over night with the ladies which will involve a campfire and lots of singing and dancing which we are all looking forward to. We will be travelling on, on Monday to Southern Malawi to do training with Guide leaders and guides. We will try to post as soon as we can when we arrive with an update.
Blog soon and enjoy the new pictures!
Love from
Team Malawi :) x
Friday, 29 July 2011
2nd day of Training
Hey guys,
Woke up this morning to our 4th powercut so cold breakfast was on the cards. 2 slices of bread and fridge cold scrambled egg.
Training today involved time management, more getting to know you games and learning about outdoor games. We ran, and the ladies prepared a scavenger hunt and a treasure hunt; which was a lot of fun as the treasure turned into a rotten Paw Paw and the scavenger hunts were finding different types of chairs and leaves around HQ. The ladies have amazing sense of humours and we are having a lot of fun working with them.
Lunch was nsima (surprise surprise) and beef with cabbage and rice. We also got to try our first Paw Paw.
On the way home Elizabeth, Emily and Hayley travelled by back of a pick up truck which was great fun and caused a fair bit of attention while the others sat inside.
More pictures to come soon!
Love from Team Malawi x
Woke up this morning to our 4th powercut so cold breakfast was on the cards. 2 slices of bread and fridge cold scrambled egg.
Training today involved time management, more getting to know you games and learning about outdoor games. We ran, and the ladies prepared a scavenger hunt and a treasure hunt; which was a lot of fun as the treasure turned into a rotten Paw Paw and the scavenger hunts were finding different types of chairs and leaves around HQ. The ladies have amazing sense of humours and we are having a lot of fun working with them.
Lunch was nsima (surprise surprise) and beef with cabbage and rice. We also got to try our first Paw Paw.
On the way home Elizabeth, Emily and Hayley travelled by back of a pick up truck which was great fun and caused a fair bit of attention while the others sat inside.
More pictures to come soon!
Love from Team Malawi x
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