Our Ha Mali Community Center

We are only a month away from opening the Ha Mali Community Center! The idea for its creation came from hearing all the different problems facing the families in my village when I went door-to-door for my household survey. My work at the schools didn’t seem to touch many of the problems the people in my village complained of: not having easy access to a clinic, not having jobs or training for them, the number of orphans living with elderly grandparent and sanitation issues. What seemed to be needed was a center for outreach and skills training within the village. World Vision recently built a pre-school, the only communally owned building in my village, and one that fit the outreach/ community center scheme perfectly. Maliba Lodge’s Community Development Trust was equally enthusiastic about the idea and agreed to help with the funding and applied for another Peace Corps volunteer to help make it a reality.

The progress started pretty slowly. It was winter, not the right time to start gardens or to motivate people within the community. As spring arrived, so did our new volunteer, Maggie, who has extensive experience with eco-tourism and project management, and the project quickly got underway. As of this week, we have started 9 small garden plots, with 18 of the 30 orphans in the village. Chickens, and chicken tractors, are planned to arrive next month to provide eggs and protein for the orphans. Chicken tractors are a type of free-range chicken run, placed directly on top of the plots to fertilize them as well as removing grubs and weeds before they are planted. It seems pretty fun, we have a chicken tractor building session planned for the village next month, using locally found materials.

There have definitely been set backs. The recent number of funerals in my village, five in the past month, reveal the real need for clinic outreach and HIV workshops. But culturally you cannot dig or touch soil when someone is being buried, which has been every weekend this month. The more funerals there are the more eager we are to get our program going, but the slower the progress actually is. However, we have been making progress. The building is starting to take shape after several repairs and coats of paint. Soon it should be ready to host after-school literacy and business classes, as well as a monthly clinic outreach program. There is so much that the center could potentially do, it’s very exciting! Whatever the current issues the people within my village see themselves facing, we now have a place to hear them and hopefully address them, or better yet—give them the skills to address those problems themselves.