Collaborating for Change in a Developing Country: The Malawi Project at North Carolina A&T

1. Liz Barber & Tom Smith Collaborating for Change in a Developing Country: The Malawi Project at North Carolina A&T

2. Dr. Tom Smithsmithtg@ncat.eduDr. Liz Barbereabarber@ncat.edu

3. Every summer students & faculty from 3 universities travel to rural Malawi for service learning experiences that build global understanding, competence & leadership. Who: NC A&T, VA Tech & Radford University 3-6 Professors 21 Students (currently) What: Year-long A&T Course, Interdisciplinary Teams When: 4 Weeks, Cool Dry Season, June to July Where: 4 Schools & a Rural Hospital Why: Leadership, Service Learning, Research, Sustainability Studies How: Learning & Serving Through Participatory Action Research

4. Outcomes for university students, faculty: Develop global awareness and cross-cultural competencies. Notice, question global colonialism. Hone ability to work in interdisciplinary teams. Develop global leadership competencies. Sharpen ability to think critically, problem-solve in diverse settings. Come to understand self in terms of globally situated others. Build ability to learn from diverse others. Develop deeper awareness of sustainability issues. Life-changing experience personalizes third world awareness, develops global “ethic of care.”

5. Malawi is the poorest country in the world, or tied for the poorest.

6. Devastating HIV/AIDS epidemic; 10 people die every hour. Life expectancy 38.5 for men, 37 for women. Yet Malawians remain hard-working and hopeful.

7. 91,000+ children living with HIV/AIDS, ½ million orphaned.

8. Malawi’s universal public education initiative started only in 1994.

9. Few schools and teachers. Many schools still under the trees.

10. Because teachers are in short supply, some have little more than a Standard 8 education, themselves.

11. Their pupils must pass high-stakes tests at the end of every Standard in order to continue in school.

12. Typically one textbook for every 5-6 pupils. Most lack paper or pencil, pen. Class size 100+.

13. In summer 2009 teachers told about the need for classes in Literacy in the Mother Tongue. LMT was mandated, but no teacher training was available. 17 languages spoken in Malawi, 3 in the Southern Region where we work. Schooling in ChiChewa & English (2 national languages) only. Standards 1-4 taught in ChiChewa, English taught as 2nd language. Standards 5-8 taught in English, all tests in English. Children who come to speaking Yao or Ngoni cannot understand the language of instruction, lack a “bridge language” to English.

14. Desperate need for Literacy in the Mother Tongue leaves many learners striving with little to latch onto.

15. Teachers assessed LMT needs & co-planned for summers 2010-11. Chifundo Ziaya, Miriam Sherrif & Liveness Mwanza formed the school planning team.

16. Rotary Clubs in the Carolina Piedmont agreed to fund the LMT Project.

17. The LMT class brings 100% of teachers, administrators from 3 schools. Joy is the word.

18. Across the month, university students, faculty assist in everything from book selection to book-making to strategies for translating.

19. Teachers translate commercial big books into needed local languages.

20. Lucy Kapenuka designs 3-language puzzles for Std. 1 children using TALULAR materials.

21. Yao speakers are at a premium:teachers value each other in new ways.

22. Student Michele Delgado “scribes” translations as a blind teacher dictates.

23. Gift Kawiza crafts a bilingual conceptual map.

24. Here’s the Yao.

25. It takes a global village, but the LMT project is launched, to be continued summer 2011.

26. However, just as we approach the top of one mountain, we acquire the vista of all the mountains to come. . . • Teachers asked: Could we help them start a child feeding program at a 2nd site, Domasi Demonstration School, just for the starvation months?

27. We want our projects to be sustainable . . . • In 2009-10, children at Malemia School grew maize to provide 60% of what was needed to cover their child feeding program, and are working toward 100% sustainability. • Teachers at Domasi Demonstration School want to start 2 projects to help work toward making their starvation months feeding program sustainable: 1- Raising chickens, both for eggs and roasters. 2- Sewing and selling school uniforms.

28. Farming, raising chickens & sewing are all part of the Malawian curriculum from Std. 1-8. If the kids kept the accounts for both projects, would they be better prepared as entrepreneurs after Std. 8, when most end their formal schooling?

29. Now we are seeking a chickens person, a sewing person, for 2011.

30. What’s all this got to do with leadership? • There is a compelling need for leader development in Sub-Saharn Africa. • We watch students emerge as different kinds of people – as leaders with a “global ethic of care” who will engage the world differently. • We are learning that PAR is a powerful way to scaffold leaders in a developing country: Gift, Chipo, Ruth, Limbani, Hampton, Chifundo, Miriam, Liveness . . . • We are learning that little is known in the literature about leadership in Africa, a continent of microcultures. • We are learning some the mythologies that undergird the many cultures in Malawi – 17 different languages & ethnicities, just in this one country.

31. What’s next? • We continue our work every summer. • Hunt partners and grants to leverage all the engagement that we can for our friends in Malawi. • Take people with us – in every sense of the words. • Write and represent as widely as we can. • Contribute to the knowledge base by doing work that is immediately helpful.

32. We hope we have done well.

33. Lives depend on it.