What I Have Been Working On

        The problems that plague Togo are numerous and overwhelming for volunteers.  I chose for my first 2 years in service to focus on projects that I was interested in and had a lot of community support but were not necessarily in my particular program, Small Enterprise Development (SED).  For example I worked with a small village close-by called Tembio.  In this village I talked to the chief and he asked me if I could help them in some way.  This is a normal request, but what really made me want to work with him was that he didn’t ask for money he asked for education and training.  Unfortunately I didn’t know quite what to do because I’m not a NRM Peace Corp volunteer (NRM is Natural Resource Management which is the sector that deals with agriculture like better farming techniques, etc.  Now the sector has changed its name to EAFS: Energy and Food Security) so I said, “well I don’t know, maybe you can plant different things than what you are currently growing.  You can start a garden with carrots, beets, green peppers, etc.” To my surprise they seized enthusiastically on the idea.  I bought the seeds though because I felt that I would hate myself if the village saved money, bought the seeds and they couldn’t grow it or worse, they couldn’t sell the produce.   So I spent around 2,000CFA about $4 and bought them tons of seeds.  They immediately planted the seeds and did all the work themselves.  I checked in once, a few months later and everything was growing well.  Many months passed and I hadn’t had the opportunity to go out and see the village because of other responsibilities.  Finally I did and they asked me where I had been because they sold everything.  I was shocked.  I was even more shocked when they said that they saved all the money and was waiting for me to come back to show me.  They had around 45000CFA, $90 and this was all profit (well, minus the seeds).  On top of this they sold the vegetables to my village, Adjengré therefore increasing the access to nutrition for the people in my town where, normally, there is only onions, tomatoes, okra and something that tastes like spinach, but isn’t.  I was very happy.

        Besides the village garden there were numerous other projects I did such as an English Summer Class for 2 hours every day and teaching girls who are involved in a groupement (the translation is group, but here it means more of a co-op where each person works and puts in some money and then the group shares the profits) that has a small farm of ginger or makes baskets, money management techniques for their business.  Towards the end of my first year I also became an editor on Farm to Market for a year.  Farm to Market is a magazine that Peace Corps volunteers from Togo produce.  The articles are written by Peace Corps volunteers and help Peace Corps volunteers all over West Africa by giving them ideas of projects and information that they can use in their work.  The magazine covers topics that are both SED and NRM related.  It is read by a lot Peace Corps countries, mostly in West Africa.

        Towards the end of my second year I was gradually doing more and more work specifically for the Peace Corps Togo office in the capital, Lomé, like organizing our resource center into Dewey Decimal, entering books into the library management system, and creating an offline database of the resources available so volunteers would be able to search what resources are available and request resources while they are in their village, not the capital where the resource center is located.  In order for the database to be updated the librarian has to send out an update over email.  Still even that is difficult here because of the lack of available internet and even when you do have internet it is shotty at best.  I also have worked on a better contact directory of Peace Corps volunteers that will soon include staff and made it easy to import directly into your Gmail or Outlook.  Just simple things that make Peace Corps volunteers lives and Peace Corps staff’s run a little more smoothly.

        For my 3^rd year I was planning on wrapping up projects in my village and continue work for the office, however fate intervened and my Country Director nominated me for a conference in Senegal on the new Peace Corps Malaria Initiative.  I was planning on turning it down.  I had no background in malaria and thought that other volunteers would benefit more from such a conference.  I was planning this until friends convinced me otherwise.   I’m very glad I went and I understand why she chose me.  I would be a perfect conduit to teach those who had never done any work on malaria being someone who didn’t do any work on the topic myself.  It was in September 7-18 and it was intense.  10 days of practically 7am-9pm crash course on what malaria is, what is happening nowadays with malaria and how to implement the initiative in our respective countries.  There were about 20 people there, representing something like 11 Peace Corps countries.  It was really interesting getting to know those who attended the conference learning about the different Peace Corps cultures in the various countries.  However, what I learned about malaria has stayed with me and fueled the projects that have been consuming most of my life from then until now.

        Malaria kills one child in the world every 30 seconds according to the UN.  90% of malaria deaths are in Sub-Sahara Africa where I am located.  It can kill a child within 2 days of the initial bite of the mosquito giving families not enough to get to the local hospital if the family can even realizes that the child has malaria.  It is a disease that is considered to have been eliminated from the United States in 1951 yet it is endemic in Africa to this day.  It accounts for millions of dollars lost of GDP and millions of dollars of healthcare costs.  As if that isn’t enough according to WHO it is the leading cause of death for children under the age of 5.  The number one reason that little kids die is because they get sick with malaria.  In Togo alone, according to 2009 data from the National Malaria Control Program of Togo, an average of 50% of deaths of infants under the age of 5 were due to malaria.  This is unacceptable and this is what I and now other volunteers are working on combating here in Togo.  When I came back from the conference I started up a new committee called MAC (Malaria Action Committee).  Volunteers applied to become a member of the committee and currently we have 11 members.  We have already been requested by WHO to be the independent evaluator for their latest mosquito net campaign.  This has involved designing a rapid household survey, explaining the survey and indicators, training Peace Corps volunteers and Togolese and creating a system to rapidly compile the data.  We plan on trainings to be held May 15^th and the surveying to be done around May 20^th.  It is a lot of work, but we are doing.

For those interested in additional in how malaria works watch this really awesome video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szlfndj0TFE

To follow our Malaria Action Committee (MAC) visit: mactogo.blogspot.com. A warning, it has only just begun so we have 2 posts on there and we haven’t put any pictures or made the blog as nice looking as we want it.

To follow the Peace Corps Malaria Initiative called Stomp Out Malaria visit: http://www.stompoutmalaria.org/

        I will be moving down to Lomé this month to finish out my service.  In Lomé, besides malaria work, I’ll be working with WHO and other NGOs in order to develop work opportunities for Peace Corps volunteers who want to do a 3^rd year.  Also I’ll be working more in the Peace Corps office.  Improving efficiency and helping automate a lot of tasks with my programming knowledge.  I am sad about leaving Adjengré, I have a lot of friends here and it is very calm here, but I will come back and visit.  I am also excited about the work that I’ll be doing down in Lomé and happy to not to make the 6 hour one-way once or twice a month!