My work in Africa - Branjo, DI Teacher 2008

The sun, hot air, nice people, dusty roads and much more – one view of Africa. I am Branjo from Slovakia.
Now teacher for DI s in Juelsminde

The sun, hot air, nice people, dusty roads and much more – one view of Africa. I am Branjo from Slovakia. I spent 18 months by doing voluntary job which change my view about things happening around me, how I see people from other cultures and helped me to be more open minded and sensitive to issues which we sometimes think are unimportant. It was also the time of my selfdevelopment, the place I received a lot of input.  

There was a period in Denmark where I was  preparing myself theoretically and practically work my project in Malawi which is the small country surrounded by Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia.

My project was Teacher Training College what is the place for training new primary school teachers for rural areas. I had more tasks to do but I was also free to do things I liked and thought are important or useful. My main task was to implement educational system at the college, instruct and give courses to teachers and students how to effectively use it. System of their studies allowed them to plan their study time and different activities needed for creativity of a future teachers. You would be surprised how eager are Malawian students to learn how to use computer! Apart from it was involved in work with community outside of the college. 

All my or let’s say our work, because we were more volunteers at the same place, was about spreading the knowledge, teach and motivate people. That was our goal. We wanted people not to be depending on daily help but try to do sustainable development that they are improving their living conditions by themselves. I cooperated with other volunteers by helping them with training preschool teachers. The matter of attending preschools by children is important for their preparation and motivation to continue at primary schools. Children take also first steps about basic hygiene what is very important at the place where children often suffer from preventable diseases. To see African children play games, wash their hands and sing was sooo nice to see. Often all this happens under the tree or they have their classes in the church because there is no other building for that.

Very interesting work was in the prison where we supported education. This idea sparkled in our heads just at the visit. Prisoners are living in very hard conditions. What happens with this people when coming out of the prison? If they do not learn anything and just hang around, it is very likely they will remain the same and might come back. So we tried to concentrate on the bottom of the society that they can learn something new right in the prison. There were a few very smart people who could teach the others. What they needed was motivation and teaching material we tried to provide regularly.  The result was at certain point more surprising than we expected. We were told at one visit that some of them sometimes did not feel like in the prison! It was a long struggle but as many things in Africa are about patience and persistence.

In such a poor country as Malawi you have all the time chance to see that people need help.  I wanted to see some touchable result of my work as well.  I got to know a leader of the group of disabled people. Most of the people live in rural areas and they are depending on the result of their farming.  Who wants to survive has to be able work on the field. But what about the people who cannot do it because of their disability? They can try to do some business what is for many people not easy at all. This experience forced me to find out something. The idea was to start with beekeeping. I found people who had practical and theoretical knowledge and even know how to construct beehives.  What I have done was organizing course about theory and then next time we constructed beehives. Connecting people can be many times solution. My idea was to unite people and start together because it was not possible to construct beehives for all of them. Money earned by selling honey should be used to increase number of beehives. Motivation and mobilizing people is one of the most important things we volunteers do.

During my six months in Malawi I lived 7 kilometers far from closest market and asphalt road. Sometimes using car but very often walking this distance gave as a chance to know many local people and see real life in the villages. At the project I lived close to more than 120 local Malawian students and other people who worked for the project. The culture in Malawi is still alive and we could experience many culture events – ‘real things’ as we used to call it. Music, singing and dancing was always very touching. It made impression that we are a part of a real life in Africa where people appreciate that you were trying to help them.

Do you feel motivated?