Monthly : November 2011

A Photo Journey of Malawi

Learn more about Face-to-Face AIDS Project’s work in Malawi through the eyes of one of its volunteers, Lauren Smyth who traveled to Malawi this summer. If you’re interested in helping Lauren raise funds for the Kang’oma Youth Group, check out her campaign on Crowdrise.

: This year was an incredibly successful harvest! With more rain and even better crop development, everyone reported a lot of maize harvested this May. Hoorah!

: Although the giant-mortar-and-pestle is both traditional and easily accessible, the electric grinder makes grinding maize much quicker and easier. However, this one had been broken for quite some time–at least a few months when I was in Kang’oma in May.

: I just loved the contrast between the proper, well-kept girls…and the crazy boys.

: I just loved the contrast between the proper, well-kept girls…and the crazy boys.

: These were some of the only evidence of outside organizations in the 5 villages around the Kang’oma Youth Group office.

: The UNICEF well was a much more recent construction than the government’s, but both were constructed in the last ten or fifteen years.

I’ll admit–neither of them could play very well. But with the gift Ken gave the Chadika Youth Group on one of his visits (I think?), and a homemade instrument, Sandram and Richard were able to pluck out songs. They hope they can keep practicing in the future, and impress everyone who comes to visit!

November 29, 2011
by Ai Hirashiki
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in Updates

Volunteer’s Blog – November 22: Invisible Community

Last week my work with SCC brought me to Siem Reap, home to the breathtaking Angkor temples. Although Siem Reap appears to be a tourist’s paradise, the outskirt of the city is populated with impoverished families who are often unseen by foreign visitors. These vulnerable families are often neglected because 1. The vast amount of income generated by tourism attributes to the misconception that the revenues are being distributed fairly, 2. The multitude of NGO-based businesses suggests that aid is being given to the needy, 3. Tourists are often blinded by the smiling faces and cheerful greeting; they’re given the impression that this is the land of happy people . . . after all, seeing is believing right? Or do we simply see what we want to believe?

November 22, 2011
by Tao Li
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in Events

Making It Happen: A Fundraiser on December 9

On December 9, Face-to-Face AIDS Project will be hosting a special fundraiser to help raise $125,000 to build a community center in Siem Riep. The center will house a wealth of exciting programs, including a school for impoverished children, arts and culture clubs, vocational training for adults, and test plots and ponds for organic gardens and fish farming.

November 15, 2011
by Ken Wong
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in Events

Volunteer’s Blog – November 7: Flu flu go away

: Piset’s Polar Bears

: Pisey’s Birds

I hate the flu. Every year around this time I usually have a few flu-induced vacation days filled with noodle soup, hibernation, and the company of a certain fuzzy purple bunny. There was almost a comfort in the predictability of these r & r days; they were like the annual visits of a very distant (and equally as crazy) aunt, who’d, without fail, barge in uninvited and unannounced.

This year, however, I was convinced there would be a break from the routine. I had escaped the Michigan cold, graduated from midterm-induced stress, heck, I even changed my address! Surely, I reasoned, there was no way this pestering stalker could find me in the middle of rice paddies and cows!

Think again.