FINAL STATEMENT

1. Name: Forgcs dm Soma (contact: fedaykin@inf.elte.hu) 2. My Background in short: I graduated in secondary school as a technical constructor engineer in Hungary, after that, I went to university and studied computer science and programming technologies. After some years next to the computer, I changed my goals and stood up, to do other useful things, to look around in the world, open my eyes and make a difference: with HUMANA People To People in Africa. In the beginning of my program, I was working at Nakkebolle in Denmark with children who had different kind of problems for six month. 3. My work in general: Officially my work was to supervise preschools, to help the teachers and the pupils to improve themselves, but I need to say that I have been worked in much wider area than just this. Beyond the preschool supervising, I have also worked a lot with farmers cooperating with the DNS students and staff. When I came here, there were fifty preschools, and we shared that amount among the Development Instructors, so this way I got seven preschools. 4. A list of the tasks in the outreach activities and my comments to my achievements- as long and detailed as possible: Drama festival: After we first week of my arrival we had this event here in Chilangoma, there were a lot of communities and they had to make a theatre play about HIV/AIDS. My duty was on this ceremony, to make pictures of each communities and artists, and print them with using color, to make a good looking frame and some text under it like Team Chisomo, thank you for participating Drama Festival 2009. After it, I laminated these diplomas and with cooperation of the TCE Field Officers in Patrol nr. 1, we distributed these to the communities. Malaria conference: With cooperating the Teachers Group in Malawi, we had an action to advertise the natural medicines and the new kind of medicine called (LA) nearby Chilangoma Teacher Training Camp. The DNS members and the teachers were preparing a theater and some song for the people and to the preschools as well, to let the children know what to do against malaria in case of need. In short, in Malawi people dont know too much about malaria, many people dont know what to do, and because of this the fatality rate of this virus is very high. So we prepared songs and theatre plays, and we went to Chisomo and Blessing preschool, to spread the word there. In addition, we planted lemongrass around the buildings, so they can have this basic natural medicine as well. In short: lemongrass is good against fever, cold, headache and stomach problems, and it is also good against mosquitoes as well, if you wrap the leaves to your skin, it is a powerful repellent. During the conference, we made pictures as well, and distributed books to the preschools. I need to say, in overall I think this action was very very good and useful, my Chichewa knowledge is not too good, but I could see the people how they enjoyed the songs and the theatre play.

Additional information: after several months, I could see that the community and the people didnt take care of the lemongrass plantations; they let them die without water. Youth Center open day: At Chilangoma we have a youth center, and there are different kinds of activities were available each day of the week. At the opening day, we wanted to involve the communities and the kids, pupils, the students from the nearby preschools and primary schools to join us at the activities after school time. During my period here, we had two open days, and our responsibility area was to organize the event, count the scores at each kind of competitions and make pictures of each team, print them, and distribute it as well. Teacher Training Day: We organized a Teacher Training Day at each month in Chilangoma to educate the preschool teachers. First of all, I had the responsibility to make the budget to this event, to make the shopping list, to go to Lunzu (the village nearby) with the others and to lead the shopping process as well, to organize the transportation, the kitchen staff and the various duties at this day. We made a timetable, and on this day we give away education in different topics, for instance, I gave a lesson to the preschool teachers about healthy food, vegetables and vitamins, and why healthy food is really important. I also made a leaflet and distributed it on this day, so they can bring it home and follow the instructions to make their food healthier. We had various jobs as well beyond teaching, to prepare the room for the teachers, to distribute the food to them rightfully, to clean up the mess after the event and to dish wash as well. Vegetable Garden: One of my own projects which I am really proud at. With the other Development Instructors we dig the hard soil here nearby our houses, and I made a very nice channel system to implement a new kind of irrigations. From Hungary we brought many seeds, and my plan was to make the food in Malawi more various, more healthy. I planted as well medicals herbs: Lemongrass, Mint, and Artemisia too. Malawians basically dont eat too healthy food, they have a lot of vegetables nearby, but in overall they are mostly eating nsima because it is filling. In the marketplace, you can find: beans, peas, eggplant, tomatoes, sometime cucumber and pepper too. So in my garden I planted: watermelon, yellow honey melon, radish, yellow pees, broccoli, carrots, soya, leek prei and different kind of salads as well. My plan was in the future, that we plant these, and we will give away the seeds after reproduction, or sell them at a very cheap prize in Lunzu market (1kwatcha 1 radish seed). This way, we could make their lifestyle healthier, and bring more vitamins into their nutrition. You know, I met with a lot of teachers in the preschools, who were asking that they had malaria, and they dont know what to do with it. Many cases, I met with preschools which were closed, because a child has died. In Europe, I think the biggest tragedy is when a child dies, but in Malawi it is different, the families have many many children, it was not rare that I met with families who have 5-10 or more children. In this case, they cannot afford to cure or to feed every of them on a proper way, and some of the children dies because of the conditions. At the second part of my period I started to see truly what I can do here in Malawi, and I started to involve the teacher, the students here in Chilangoma, and educate them about the natural

medicine. I think the biggest thing what I did was, to put these medicines into jars, and start to distribute them to preschools. You can see my English leaflet here: http://edems_corner.extra.hu/addon/Herbs_n_use.doc You can see the Chichewa leaflet here: http://edems_corner.extra.hu/addon/Hurb_n_use_chichewa.doc The translated leaflet of Chichewa and the natural medicines like mint, lemongrass, Artemisia, and neem-tree leaves have been given away to the preschools and the communities, so they will use it, and after it was working, I am sure they will want more, and want to learn how to grow them. Farmers Club outreach: We went to Limbes Farmer Club Project, and we get some seeds there to our garden from the Development Instructors there. We successfully made an exchange that they took lemongrass from us, so we got seeds like sunflower, okra and mint plantations as well. I must admit, that Malawi is in really lack of fruits. To plant there fruit trees would be a big development, because in the marketplace you cannot find too much of them! Fruits like peach, apricot, plum, cherry, figs would be really good if people would have. Libraries: Some days I went to visit some libraries at the nearby primary schools. I went to a field visit with Fine a Development Instructor from TCE, and I get knowledge about HIV-positive living club and about their income generation as well with mushroom farming. On this trip, we visited many libraries, and checked their situations. I need to say in overall I dont have a good experience about libraries in Malawi. Somehow, people just simply cannot use books, or the teachers didnt though them how to use it, it is like somehow the whole culture about reading books is missing. I have visited DAPP second hand bookstore in Blantyre, and I could get very good books, for 50kwatcha each. Just to compare, 50kwatcha is equal to a price of a bottle coca-cola. My experience in the primary school libraries: that they have many new books, books for study, but they are not using it. When I asked the reason, they just said that they afraid to give it to the student (they are afraid that they will damage it) and it will lost its value. Youth Center programs: In the beginning, I was working at the youth center at every Wednesday. Each Development Instructors had a day, when day had to organize an event in the afternoon at the youth center. My responsibility was to organize sport event on each Wednesday, so I was playing football with the children. I need to say they played much better than me. After Marcel came (a DI who is responsible for just the youth center) I stopped organizing these events. New Preschool Visiting System: We developed that the preschool visiting system could be much better. I made a plan how to improve it and make it fairer. The first and the most important issue what we had to solve is the information exchanging. Before us, we didnt know anything what happened before in the preschools, the Development Instructors wrote notes on simple papers, most of them using their own language (Japanese, Korean, and Hungarian), this way it was very

hard to track down what kind of materials we gave to the preschools and when. The lack of information and the lack of knowledge make us allowing the preschool teachers to be corrupt. I will talk about this in the next topic. So then, we bought Diaries for the preschools and each preschool have one from now. In the diaries we write English, and it goes from hand to hand among the Development Instructors, so if they arrive, they can see the whole history of the preschool. This system was very important to do. Another thing was really important, that we made preschool routes. In the past, we had different kind of preschools, and we goes far far away with passing preschools because it belonged to another Development Instructor. This system had to be change; we made route-systems, so with one cycling route we could visit more than one preschool each time. Note: We wanted as well to allow us to go to preschools without supervisors in case if there are too many preschool Development Instructors. The problem is that it is really hard to find the preschools sometimes, and there are no sign at all in the rural area, this way it is difficult to find them. Trade Fair outreach: We made an investigation at the Trade Fair conference next Shoprite between Blantyre and Limbe. The place was really good, there were many companies and NGOs whose doing development work here and Malawi. They showed us garden and irrigation examples and new kind of pumping technologies as well. In addition we bough seeds here like soybeans and strawberry plantation as well to my garden. 5. A list of my tasks in the project as such and my comments to my achievements- as long and as detailed as possible: List of my preschools: Blessings, Chisomo, Chipembere, Chigonjetsu A+B, Tikondane 2, Ulemu, Katondo About Blessings This preschool was one of the earliest preschools, this way it is a very well equipped. This was one from the few preschools, where the teachers get allowance from DAPP. Sadly I must say, that the teachers are not working in a good way here, so I had to make a change. I found out, that two of the teachers are corrupt, and I had to solve this issue. The fact is, that the DIs before me, gave them a lot of teaching materials, like crayons, pencils, papers, chokes and many books as well, and two from the teachers sold these materials in the local market. The other stuff as well for instance the markers pens were unused as well, I think the reason that they can sell at the market easier if it is new. Note: this is why the preschool diaries are very important, so we can track the materials what we gave to them in the past, and control them if they used it in a good way or not. After that I discovered the corruption, I organized a meeting with the teachers, the community, and with the village headman as well. On this meeting, I forced them to bring me all the materials what they have, so I made a list about the quantity of each things. As a promise, they promised me that they will come to preschool in time, give food to the children every day. Sadly control by

control, the promise was just word, and one of the teacher didnt appeared in the school, didnt working properly, this way I had to organize a meeting, and remove the teacher called Flawless. Statistics: Three teachers belong to this preschool, 14-38 children participating approximately. About the school building, it is in a very good condition, one of the best so far I saw, they have a lot of materials (more than a lot), a playground as well next to the school building, so the education NEED TO BE high level. About the community: they could not manage to provide enough food to the preschool, we required to contact with an organization called Feed the Children of Malawi. So far I donated to this preschool: Nothing. Since the corruption issues and other preschools status I decided that other preschools need materials and aid much more than Blessings. This preschool in supervised by Shake. About Chisomo This preschool is also have very good conditions, the building is well made, a proof of a good community. We made the Malaria action here as well; we planted lemongrass just next to the preschool. However, sadly after pushing them, they dont want to care about the plantations. In this preschool there is income generating activity, and they had one pig. I managed to buy another one, so they can start reproduction business with pigs. My calculation for this: two pigs costs 6.000 MK, and pigs reproducing 2 times a year. Each time a pig mother approximately has about ten children. A cost of one pig is 3.000 MK, so if we made a calculation after a year the income from two pigs will be 60.000 MK. This is why we tried to promote this business, and pigs are easy to feed as well, since they eat almost everything. The teachers in this school are really good, if I do a surprise visit I always found them active, the kids are playing football, with the jumping rope, practicing English or reading from books. Statistics: Three teachers, but usually one working, 20-46 children participating approximately. About the school building, it is in a very good condition as well, they have a lot of materials too. About the community: the food was always enough, the community was doing good. So far I donated to this preschool: Box of 64 crayons, Box of 48 crayons, 20 mark pens, 3 What can you see book, roll of paper, 2 footballs, 1 jumping rope, 2 box of chocks (200) This preschool in supervised by Vincent. About Chipembere

The teachers in this preschool give really good education, they practicing the calendar, numbers, and I can see on the children replies that they really know and understand them. In this preschool there is also Income Generating Activity, we had many discussion with them, and they also started pig business, rabbit keeping, and bakery projects with local cake called mandasi selling. The building was about the finish, we had many issues about it that they didnt kept the promised time, but after the pushing the building was successfully finished at the 8th of July and we could have the opening ceremony. Statistics: Three teachers, all of them are really good and hard working people, amount of pupils are about 15-30. About the school building, since they are just finished with the construction, I must say that they done a good job. The roof and the walls are in good conditions, the floor is plastered as well. The toilet and the kitchen are a requirement as the next step to build. About the community: a good and strong community, they speak English as well, I am in a good relationship with them, because they are good people, they know how to work hard. So far I donated to this preschool: big pot for cooking, 2 boxes of white chocks, 1 box of colorful chocks, 1 football, 3x Box of 34 crayons, 12 Mark pens, 1 bucket. At the opening ceremony I also donated to them 2 Toy dolls, 2 Toy cars, 1 box of animal puzzle, 100 book for children, 1 Jumping Rope, 2 football. As a bonus for their work, we decided to give them a solar panel as well so they can start to make income faster. This preschool is supervised by Shake. About Chigonjetso A+B Both of the preschools dont have any building. Temporary, both are using a church. At Chigonjetso A there is only one teacher, but he is really good, he can speak English as well. They playing outside games with the children, running competitions, counting games with rocks, they are creative. Statistics: 22 children. About the school building: not exists, got the building temporary from the church. About the community: Not exists. So far I donated to this preschool: 2 footballs, each, the problem is that they dont have a locker or a room where the donations could be secured. To Chigonjetso A also donated 35 cups as well. This preschool is supervised by Vincent. About Tikondane 2+Ulemu Tikondane 2 is located after Mambo village, the community was supplied by my sister who was a Development Instructor here before me, and she started an Income Generating Activity here: a bakery business. Sadly the teachers stopped working with some reasons, but the community is still doing the business very well, to generate a nice amount of income by selling Malawian cake. Note: this is a cheap cake, made by maze flour, easy to produce. We had a meeting with the

village chief, and we asked her to reselect teachers because the preschool need to run again. She confirmed that she will make actions. Statistics: 0 children at Tikondane 2, 21 approximately in Ulemu. About the school building, Tikondane 2s building is made by using reed and wood. The building is very unstable; a stronger wind can easily destroy it. It is not waterproof at all; it is only against the strong sunshine. About the community: Strong one, they doing the bakery business every Saturday. So far I donated to this preschool: 2 footballs, each. This preschool is supervised by Vincent. About Katondo My favorite preschool, they started without any materials. I made an agreement with them, the community and the village chief, that if they manage to build up the school (the walls) in one month, I will pay for the iron sheets to make the roof, the nails and from my own money I will pay for income generation activity as well. In this very very short time, they were not lazy, they were hard working and they built up the preschool in no time! I need to mention, that Shake also pushed them a lot, and told them, that they need to do it, so they did. I kept my promise as well, so in one and a half month, a whole preschool have been built up, the walls and the roofing too. Since they did the amazing job, I gave them even more that I promised, as a bonus for their hard work. Statistics: Two teachers, 15-22 Children participating approximately. About the school building, the walls and the roofing is just made; the plastering and the kitchen/toilet construction is has to be done in the future. About the community: A very strong one, with lot of hard working people, they are really doing effort to develop their village. Note: this preschool is used by three villages. So far I donated to this preschool: Iron sheets for the roofing, nails, 1 big cooking pot, 5 Box of 12 crayons, 10 empty A5 books, 3 footballs, 2 Toy Dolls, 1 Toy Car, 1 Jumping rope, 1 Puzzle Game, 1 Number Game, 1 Scissor, 1 Box of Aid-tapes, Small LEGO game, 1 Box of 24 mark pen, 8 meter rope. This preschool is supervised by Shake. Overall notes I also gave away a lot of stuff to my fellow Development Instructors to help them with footballs for example, and with various toys. From my own money I paid the roofing for my supervisor (Shake). I think he is hard working person who cycle a lot, and I think that helping someone who is giving away much more to his fellow Malawians is also development. 6. Practical Information that I must hand over: (Names of contact persons, agreements with communities, other important knowledge)

Included in the answers before. 7. My guideline to the next development instructors in my project. What kind of project would be good if the following Development Instructors could continue? Signs at the road, so we could find the preschools on our own. Calculation: a signs cost approximately 200kwatcha including the paint. There are fifty preschools, so the investment is about ten thousand kwacha for this project. Preschool Teacher ID cards important, DAPP have a very good reputation in Malawi, almost every people know if we mention. Giving away ID cards to the teachers would be a way how they could be proud to themselves, since they are working voluntarily as a teacher. Note: I have a sample form; please contact (fedaykin@inf.elte.hu) for more information. Distribute/Sell the new kind of vegetable seeds to the people in Lunzu market

8. My comments to the five best tasks which I have done and the footprints I left. The vegetable garden: I am really proud that I took care day by day of the garden, so I could provide natural medicine to many preschools. Medicine equal to saving lives!! New preschool visiting system: I think with the diaries and all, we can deal with the corruption. Chipembere opening ceremony: I always told them Something for something. If they gave me something, I will give them something, the basic of business. They understood that I will give them a lot of goods if they start to act. And so on, they were dreaming about footballs, after they finished with the building, they got many, with the other stuffs as well which is listed before Katondo construction: This community is a very very good one. It was a pleasure to work together. I am sure we will remember each other. In my last days they will organize a goodbye event for me, I will miss them as well. Making a difference: It tells everything 9. Five things I like the most about Malawi. The food: It was really nice to eat fresh vegetables directly from the fields, even if we have poor variability; I really enjoyed tasting fresh, just harvested tomatoes and foot. Since I am vegetarian, I really loved the food here. The simple life: We didnt have hot shower, or fresh clean water, we made fire every day and cooked on it. I think its something what I will miss in Europe: the simple way of being.

Lot of things to do: One of the things I mostly liked here, that I was very very useful, I could help the people, I could do something for the people!! The nature, the lake and the Mt.Mulanje. Malawi is beautiful. Especially when we are going northern. The lake, Zomba plateau, Mt. Mulanje, these places I really loved the untouched nature. The clean air: not like the concrete jungle and smoke, like in the big cities in Europe. 10. My 5 biggest problems in Malawi and how I have tried to solve them. Garbage: Plastic hazard. In overall, somehow Malawi is not ready to eliminate the plastic. In the past, I think they never had problems if they threw out the leftover; it went back to the nature in no time! But since they have import things from Europe, China, the different kind of cookies with the plastic wrapping, they dont know what to do with it, so they throw it away. You can often see that people just putting out from the window the plastic bags from the moving minibus, because they simply dont know what is recycling. Big cities are full of with junks, like Limbe, in the channel system next to the road: it is full of with trash, and people keep throwing away these things. It is hard to say how to solve it, I feel myself to little for this issue, but the government should definitely do something against it. Like public plastic collecting centers, or giving away money if they would bring to them a kg of plastic rubbish. Note: the degrade rate of plastic is really slow; it can take several hundred to two thousand years as well. The drivers in Chilangoma: I had problems with them. Promises, then waiting and waiting, we had to burn the TTCs money because their behavior. For instance, we organized with the Driver Responsible that we will shop for the Teacher Training Day in Lunzu, and they didnt come in time. It is okay for them, that we are waiting for 1-2 hours, so we had to hire a pickup. I dont like if we have to burn money for reasons like this. People try to benefit on you: People are kind, because youre skin is white, they are waving, and smiling. But the next thing what they say: Give me my money. If we would count this sentence as English knowledge, the English speaking rate would be 100% in Malawi. Time: I think as European people, we too much addicted to the time. We always watching the time and we start to be nervous, if we need to wait. It happened a lot of times that we organized a meeting with the community, and people started to appear after two hours, three hours. Sometimes they forget about it, and with this problem, they work is being delayed and delayed. In Malawi, things not going as fast in Europe, everything needs time. And our time is short here. 11. How my cooperation/communication has been with: a. People involved in the project (students, families, parents etc.) It was good at all. I can just say positive things. b. Staff

The staff in Chilangoma is very kind and helpful. It is a really good place to work. I always had a very good and interesting conversation with everybody here. c. Other development instructors in Malawi and in England/Denmark We Development Instructor helping each other as much as we can, I am sure about it. There is no problem with cooperation here. d. Project Leader I need to say Chilangoma is in good hands, Iben is a really good leader. She is supporting us in a lot of ways, and solving if we have an issue or problem. e. Country Director Cedrik is a really helpful person as well, not any problem with cooperation here; I can say just good things about him. f. The school in England/Denmark/USA My headmaster in Denmark was always very supporting and helpful. I didnt require any assistance here in Africa. 12. How food, clothes, home has been? Food: It was very good, we were cooking on fire each day, we ate simple food, but I really liked it. Clothes: Since we came with 15kg, including a lot of teaching material, our number or variety of the clothes are very limited. I never felt underdressed for the events neither when everybody was in uniform around. In case of need, cheap clothes are available in the second hand DAPP shops all over in Malawi. House: Our houses were very good and comfortable hostels in Chilangoma, with - we can say so stable electricity, there was a week only when electricity was off continuously. The ground water was clear; I never had health problems because of that. The only thing I want to mention, that it is very cold from May till August, and we have to bath in cold water every day. I got a continuous flu for like two weeks at the ending. 13. My general experience as a development instructor in Malawi (write what you would like to tell which is not included in the other questions). Time is short. I believe half a year here is very short, everyone can realize it when they are here. My suggestions to everyone, to make plans, read the reports, and try to cooperate with the Development Instructions in the past, so we wont lose time by getting involved of the situations here, or you can continue an already prepared project.

What is necessary, to give away our report to the other Development Instructors, so they could now what is the situation here, what do they need to improve! Language issues, Chichewa. I say to myself sometimes, oh I would like to understand them so much, it is like watching a move without voice. You can see the reactions, the smiles, but you are just guessing what is going on. I would like to advice to the Development Instructors in the schools, if they coming to Malawi, start learning basic Chichewa in your free times, most of the people dont speak English. About health: Malaria tablets in Europe are extremely expensive; my advice is to all the Development Instructor to buy the medicines here, the pharmacies are well equipped with malaria prophylaxis. The cost is approximately 1.500 kwacha for half a year; it is less than ten euro! 14. My contact with the coming Development Instructor who will take over from me Since I dont know anything about the new Development Instructors, I could not tell them anything to them. I think the people in the schools should try to make contact with us if they have any questions, or if they know that they will probably come to these projects, not vice-versa. The DI teachers duty should be this task, to give our 6week/midway/final reports to their students.