ANSA International Program Blog

                     I met Linda over a cup of tea at a local cafe in March 2007.  We talked for three hours about her dreams of training teachers, health promoters and village leaders on nutrition and HIV/health in Namibia...if only she could find the funding.  And with just a little more funding, she was sure could put together the first ever National Nutrition Awareness Week so people all over Namibia could begin to realize the link between nutrition and health. 

This certainly seemed like a good investment for ANSA.

Three months and $2500 later, Linda had a 68-page Train the Trainers manual written and a 32-page Participant's Guide to go along with it.  She held the first of three regional week-long trainings on nutrition and HIV/health in July and within another month over 210 health promoters in northern Namibia had been trained.  In October, Namibia had its first National Nutrition Awareness Week; national politicians and local community leaders alike showed up to promote awareness and education at 13 centers around the country as radio spots promoted healthy eating messages over the airways. 

Linda had a tremendous compassion for all people and worked with a spirited desire to affect change.  Today, an overwhelming number of non-profits in Namibia and bordering countries use Linda's trainings to teach clients, staff and community about nutrition and health.  Her legacy reaches far and wide.

Linda died last week following a horseback riding accident in Uganda, where she had gone to work for the World Food Program.  She was 29 years old.  Penduka, one of the many non-profits impacted by Linda's work, has already named their community garden in her honor.  A fitting remembrance, and likely not the last one we'll see. 

It was an privilege to know Linda and to support her tireless efforts.  We honor her memory as we continue her work advancing good health and nutrition in Namibia and throughout Africa.

Peace to all...Mary

The first team trip to Namibia began with three members of the team missing their connecting flight.  Frazzled but grateful, they arrived a day later than planned, so we started our team building and local area orientation with Kudu appetizers and beer shandys at the heavily African-themed Joe's Beerhouse.  Sunday provided an opportunity for everyone to shake off their travel weariness while strolling the street markets of downtown Windhoek.  This was the only time we had to prepare ourselves and the team for a complex, though highly productive, visit.

Sadly, Hope Initiatives founder, Patricia Sola, lost her mother eight days before we arrived.  The sudden death meant that Patricia and her husband, John, had to be out of the office unexpectedly for seven days of funeral activities in Zimbabwe.  Funerals are a very big event in Africa, and as the eldest child, Patricia was responsible for hosting all other family members and guests.  She and John arrived at our meeting on Monday morning only minutes before we did, having driven 14 hours overnight.  They were both drastically tired and visibly still grief-stricken. 

Our primary host was supposed to be Mr. Dumasani, a sharp and talented program coordinator.  But within minutes after we arrived, he received a call that his wife had been arrested during the ongoing mayhem in Zimbabwe, accused of not lowering her prices in the hardware store run out of their home.  Mr. Dumasani had to leave immediately and was gone the remainder of our visit. 

Though we had worked out a full itinerary for each day in advance, the absence of Patricia and John the week before meant that staff were a little unprepared and unsure of what to do with us - understandably; they have a tremendous amount of things going on each day even in the best of times.  Anastasia, a very shy but smart coordinator, and Patricia took us under their wing and led us through a series of orientation tours and meetings with staff, community leaders and two different support groups.  In the HIV+ women's support group, ANSA team member Rachel brought pictures of the women she works with in an HIV+ support group in California.  It was beautiful to see the HIV+ women looking at pictures of other HIV+ women halfway around the world.  Before we left the women gave Rachel handmade gifts to take back for the women in her group. 

In the squatter settlements of Okahandje Park there are 33,000 people using 17 different dialects and 13 languages.  With so many tribes and klans represented in one area, trust and communication present significant challenges.  We learned this firsthand, so were grateful for the time the staff and community took to talk with our team, especially knowing how uncomfortable it was for them at times.  

Hope Initiatives hosted a "traditional African meal" for us early in our trip.  Mopane worms were served, along with mahangu pop and mealie meal.  As the head of the US team, I was offered one of the two chicken feet served at the end of the meal.  Mopane worms taste a little like fish.  Chicken feet taste like...well, the feet of a desert chicken.  I kept everything down for 1.5 days, then with a fever and stomach pains raging, I had to give it all up.

On a brighter note, we had a chance to meet with the Director of Nutrition for the country, as well as the country's clinical mentor for HIV and several vital area non-profits, including Catholic AIDS Action and Penduka.  There are no dietetic training programs in Namibia, so it was exciting to talk about the vast opportunities at hand in to increase access to nutrition and health training. 

Outcomes: With the emotional impact of the squatter settlements and jet lag weighing heavily on the team, it was sometimes difficult to recognize the accomplishments of each day.  But in the end, we achieved an enormous amount together and laid the foundation of a very special partnership.  The partners agreed to focus initial efforts on improving nutrition, health and self-sufficiency programs while strengthening organizational systems and infrastructure.  The size and limited geographic focus of Hope Initiatives makes it easy to have a big impact wiith just a little input.  We expect that new successes will happen fairly quickly as new technical assistance and funding are directed where they can do the most good.  And here in these settlements, there's a lot of ways to do good.

Peace to all...Mary

We started our first team trip in South Africa by getting acquainted with Cape Town, enjoying lunch hillside above the acacia trees at Rhodes Memorial, ambling the splayed expanse of table mountain, and sipping evening sundowners from the shores of Camps Bay.  Monday morning began the marathon two weeks of meetings, township tours and robust community discussions to get our South Africa partnership off to a highly productive, warm and spirited start.  The staff were fabulous, allowing us to sit in on program updates and talking frankly about their challenges related to food and nutrition.  We toured creches, senior centers, clinics and garden programs, always welcomed with song and smiles (photo courtesy of Patrick Schultz).  We also met with several non-profit organizations with whom Ikamva Labantu works.  We were fortunate to have an  opportunity to thoroughly understand the challenges and opportunities at hand as we begin our work with Ikamva Labantu. 

Outcomes: Our South African partners are at a time of significant evolutionary change.  There is a terrific sense of directional shift, with a broader focus on opportunities within Black Economic Empowerment programs and an extensive review of infrastructural needs in the context of their new multi-purpose center business model.  (Seventeen MPCs are planned, five are already built.)  New CEO Ishrene Davids is gracious and amazing in her compassionate approach to staff and community development.  She gave an eloquent talk to the staff in closing a weeklong series of program meetings, saying, "You have given us your best this week, and most of you have done so in a language that is not your own.  You have been amazing and we thank you.  We may have many languages, but we have only one voice - the voice of love and purpose." 

It's an exciting time, and everyone recognizes there is much to do.  Therefore, our initial partnership plans will focus significantly on core capacity building to ensure sustainability of all programs within the new business model.  The partners agreed to address resource and leadership development and monitoring and evaluation along with health and nutrition programming.  These will be the key building blocks upon which a successful - and truly purpose-focused - partnership is built.  (The monitoring and evaluation framework will be the model we use for Namibia and for the ANSA program overall, so big thanks to AIDS Project Los Angeles for their contributions to this portion of the partnership work!)

And next - see you in Namibia!

Peace to all...Mary

ANSA helps strengthen and support organizations by providing them with, or linking them to, resources that can help them deliver quality nutrition programs in their communities.  We were born out of a culture of information and resource sharing, understanding that collaborating together makes us individually and collectively more successful.  Our work in the international arena is the same, so part of my job is to determine which resources we can provide to our Africa partners, and which resources are available in their own local and national communities that we can link them to.  We love networking.

Before getting started with partnership activities between the U.S.-based teams and our global partners on this return trip to Africa, I first needed to stop at the small industrial town of Port Elizabeth, located along the central coastlne of South Africa, several hundred miles northeast of Cape Town.  I was there to look at a few programs I thought might be good regional sources of information or support, particularly the Ubuntu Education Fund, a highly regarded organization with programs similar to our partner Ikamva Labantu but with a more locally focused geographic reach.  The folks at Ubuntu spent the day showing me some of their many inspiring programs and they took me to my first true community HIV education workshop, held under a tree with men on one side and women on the other.  At the end of the day we had great discussions about ways that ANSA, Ikamva Labantu and Ubuntu may be able to work together. 

While at Ubuntu I met several staff, including a wise-beyond-her-28-years case manager named Fezeka, and several program participants, including the two pictured with me here, Zethu and Nandiba.  Zethu (middle) is 17 years old and a longtime head of her household.  Nandiba is 15, and also head of her household.  I am only 5'3", so I could tell both girls showed clear signs of stunted growth, a frequently seen condition among African children due to early childhood malnutrition.  While these girls represent two common concerns - child-headed households and the affects of childhood malnutrition - they also represent something else found in African youth: a powerfully resilient spirit. 

The day I met Zethu she had just received a FedEx package containing autographed photos of her with Bill Clinton, taken when she delivered a speech at the Clinton Global Initiatives meeting in April at the request of Mr. Clinton.  Take just a few minues to hear Zethu's bold story of resilience, and Fezeka's equally polished and powerful introduction here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8ZkUVoxdcc.  You'll see right away why ANSA is proud to be working with the current and future leaders of Africa.

Stay tuned for exciting news about the first team activities - including the blossoming relationship between Ubuntu and Ikamva Labantu!

Peace to all...Mary

I am beyond excited that ANSA is now "officially" partners with Ikamva Labantu of South Africa and Hope Initiatives of Namibia!  These two organizations are doing extraordinarily good work under extraordinarily challenging circumstances.  We have much to learn from, and to share with, both partners.

Seven U.S. agencies are ANSA Global Member Agencies (GMAs): AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA), Community Servings (Boston), Food & Friends (Washington, DC), Food for Thought (Sonoma), Lifelong AIDS Alliance (Seattle), Open Arms of Minnesota, and MANNA (Philadelphia).  To identify how to put together the GMA teams that work collaboratively with our African partners, I needed to spend a little time with each agency to understand the capacity and expertise within their organization.  Over a whirlwind seven days I visited five cities on both coasts to learn a great deal more about the awesome talent we have within the ANSA family. 

In the end, the GMAs chosen for the South Africa partner team will be APLA, Community Servings, Lifelong AIDS Alliance, and Open Arms of Minnesota.  These agencies have various levels of experience working with international programs and/or have particular expertise within their organization that will lend good perspective to the volume, race and cultural complexities that well-established Ikamva Labantu deals with daily in the South African environment.  The Namibia partner team will be Food & Friends, Food for Thought and MANNA.  These agencies have particular in-house skillsets and organizational cultures that will lend well to the core infrastructure and program design support that Hope Initiatives needs at this time in their young evolution.  

The individuals heading to South Africa will include; Dr. George Ayala of APLA, a monitoring and evaluation specialist who teaches organizational capacity building to CBOs both domestically and abroad; Patrick Shultz of Lifelong AIDS Alliance, a nutrition services director with valuable experience as a special diets chef and a grant writer; and Rosario Dominguez of Community Servings, a program director with a long history of leadership in child and family welfare programs.  Joining us will also be Tony Zappa, an Open Arms board member and a pharmacist currently volunteering for a year in Cape Town, and Cade Fields-Gardner, an HIV nutrition specialist who has been working with dieticians in the Western Cape for many years.

The individuals heading to Namibia will include: Rachel Gardner of Food for Thought, a client services director and master gardner who helped plan and implement Food for Thought's amazing community garden (profiled by the New York Times in 2006); Emily Piccirillo of Food & Friends, a grants manager with a background as an art therapist and executive director of a children's AIDS organization; and Sue Daugherty, a chief operating officer and dietician with many years of experience in illness-related nutrition.  Also joining us will be Margie Erwin, an HIV dietician from Sacramento who has worked with childrens' nutrition programs in Kenya and Ethiopia.

These organizations and individuals have the pioneering spirit necessary to put together a strong foundation for the partnerships and the ANSA International Program.  That will be a key priority for us when we begin our work together on our first team trip to Africa in mid-July.  But before then there's a whole host of things to do to get us ready!

Stay tuned...

Peace to all...Mary