Global Poverty Monitor

What made you commit to such a huge challenge? Have you always been interested in helping others?

I had been sponsoring a child in Kenya, Kantet Sentero, since 2000 (when I was 16), and had also been volunteering with a local
volunteer group raising money for World Vision. When the chance came to apply for the Ambassadorship it just seemed perfect, like it was actually designed for me. It was the perfect way for me to further my interest in helping the people living in poverty in Africa, and to learn more about my own sponsored child and his life. I really believe that the study tour was especially rewarding for me, on another level to that of the other study tour winners. I was older than the other Ambassadors, and I also thought a lot about my own sponsored child while I was in Mozambique. I feel that the things I saw in Mozambique helped me to understand the life and daily struggles of Kantet, and it also showed me that way that child sponsorship can dramatically change the lives of children and their families. When I applied for the Ambassadorship I was told that it would require a lot of time and effort on my part, particularly after returning from the study tour, but I welcomed the opportunity. I had finally been given a chance to really make a difference.

So in 2005 you were chosen to become a Youth Ambassador for World Vision, how did it come about that you were chosen?

I did the 40 Hour Famine in 2004, and completed an application form to apply for the Ambassadorship. Applicants had to raise at least $160 before applying, and I had raised $642. I was contacted a few months later and had a phone interview, and was then asked to come into the office in Perth for another interview. I also had to make a presentation at the interview, so I spoke about my sponsored child, and then the following week I was phoned and asked to participate in a videophone interview with head office in Melbourne. I was also
told that there were now only three people left in the running, and that one of the three had pulled out for personal reasons. I went to the office and met with the other contestant, Joanne, who I have since become good friends with. I was pretty nervous during the
videophone interview, but it was quite informal and I relaxed after a while. I then found out the following week that I had been successful.

After I returned home from the Mozambique trip, I was approached by the Australian Dolly magazine, who wanted to do an article on the trip. I participated in an online interview, which was then edited into a one-page article. In the following days I’ll post some of the questions from the online interview, and will finally post the finished article.

For the past two weeks I’ve been holding a competition in an attempt to generate new traffic to my blog. Anyone who either posted a link to my blog, or commented on any of my entries, would get a point. The person with the most points after two weeks would have a goat purchased in their name for a family in Myanmar.

This was my first comp and I was really interested to see how it would pan out. It achieved its number one goal of driving more traffic to my blog – I’ve had consistently high numbers of visitors since the comp started. For this, I would like to thank The New Australian, Activist Mommy and Parenting the Adopted for linking to my competition. My stats showed that much of my new traffic generated from your sites, so I thank you for sharing your traffic with me.

To be honest, the competition had mixed results. While it seems that many more people were interested in visiting my blog because of the competition, not many people actually entered. I hope I can learn from this and make my next competition more user-friendly. I enjoyed running the competition and I liked the idea of giving away a donation in the winner’s name, so I thinkl I’ll go with this idea again next time. I will just try and think of different ways for people to enter.

Now to the important part: the winner!

In equal second place, with a big thank you and an honourable mention:
The New Australian
Activist Mommy
Reality Dancing

And in first place:
Parenting the Adopted
Rebecca, would you please contact me with a mailing address. I have purchased the goat in your name for a family in Myanmar, and I would like to send you the gift card with photo as soon as possible!

Thankyou to everyone who has supported my competion and my blog in general.

This idea came about because I would really love to see more children sponsored in schools, but problems arise during school holidays or at the end of the year, when the sponsorship would either be dropped or the teacher would take it up personally. This idea is a short-term version of child sponsorship. The money still goes to the same community, but it is a short-term commitment and the schools will see actual proof of where their money has gone.

Even though it would take several months for the fundraising project to be completed from start to finish, there is a chance that the school was be so motivated after seeing the photos of how they helped that they would be inspired to have another fundraiser for the second semester. I’m more than willing to help with the fundraising, and to meet with the students and discuss fundraising ideas. I think I owe it to World Vision to do the best job I can after returning from the study tour. And I also think that I owe the World Vision staff and the people of Mozambique a great deal after having been treated with such hospitality and friendliness.

My second and main idea is a fundraising challenge for all of the schools. I would ask each school to come up with a fundraising idea to raise money for a project in the Cahora Bassa ADP. It would work the same way as a sponsor sending a Gift Notification for their sponsored child. The school would raise the money, and decide for themselves what area they would like their gift to go towards. I would provide ideas of course, from the experiences that I have had in Mozambique, and could advise them on some areas where the money is most needed. For instance, the school may decide they want to raise money for school materials, or for shoes for kids, or for water access, or to help kids get to school, or for medical supplies for a hospital, or whatever else they come up with. They may even choose to provide some livestock for a family, that the ADP Managers could then choose.

The area would be pretty wide, so that when the ADP receive the money they can have a wide discretion as to what the money should be used for, since they obviously know better than us what is needed. I would collect the money and send it to the ADP with a letter saying in which area the school would like the money to be spent, in exactly the same way as a sponsor sends money to their child’s family and community. Then the ADP would spend the money where they think fit, and would take photos and send them back to me, and I would then present them back to the school. I think that this kind of fundraising is great because the students will be able to see exactly where the money has gone, not just towards a particular cause. They can think ‘we raised this much money and it bought this borehole well’, or ‘these three cows’, or whatever. I would also set up a website with all the details and so that the students or teachers can contact me. There will be an achievements page, where all the schools will be listed along with their fundraising ideas, how much they raised, and eventually what their fundraising money was used for, along with the scanned photos of what the money has bought.

I’ve been back for two days now, and things are pretty much back to normal, except that I don’t feel normal at all. Dancing starts again this week, today in fact, but I’m not going to go (which is very unlike me) because I just don’t think I can go back to doing ‘normal’ things yet. Its like everything I do now has to be about ‘me going to Africa’, otherwise I’ll forget and it will all be over too soon. I’ve got a huge list here of people I want to write to and things I want to do before I lose the passion of what I’ve experienced. I’ve been thinking a lot about what projects to do now that I’m back – it’s like when I go to schools I’ve got this huge opportunity to reach so many people, and I want to make sure that I get the right message out there.

Firstly, I will be promoting the 40 Hour Famine. But since that’s not till August, I will be promoting some other ways that people can get involved now. I’d like two promote two things – one that involves fundraising, and one that doesn’t involve money. For the latter, I’m still really excited about the pen pal program with the Maputo High School. I’d need to get in touch with the school and see if they had students that were interested, and they would have to be students that were learning English so that the letters would not need to be translated. And I would also need the Australian people to send a reply-paid envelope with every letter, so that the Mozambican students would not have to pay for postage. That could be the most difficult part. I went to Australia Post and asked if there is any way we can buy stamps or prepaid envelopes here that can be used to send mail from Mozambique to Australia, and basically the answer was no. So I guess we would need someone in Mozambique to get the stamps for us, or we could send a small amount of money to the students to pay for postage, but that raises the problems of currency, and the issue of sending money through the mail. I would really love for this idea to work but I need some advice on how it could be run.

We got back in the van for our final drive around Maputo before heading to the airport. At the airport, we checked our luggage in and paid the airport tax, and then went to the international lounge and waited for our flight. There were a few shops there, and so we had our final chance to do some shopping in Mozambique.

The service ended shortly after, and we all went to the Maputo World Vision office for a short meeting. We met with Ventura again, and some more of the World Vision staff. We discussed our experiences in Tete and they asked us for our opinions on the development work that is being carried out. Near the end of the meeting, Ventura asked those of us who are child sponsors why we starting sponsoring in the first place. Serena asked me to answer since I’ve been a sponsor for the longest, and so I explained about always having wanted to sponsor a child, but deciding to wait until I was financially able to continue the commitment, and then watching the documentary about the little boy in Kenya and what his life was like. I spoke for a few minutes, and kept looking over at Ventura to see what he was thinking, but his expression gave me no indication. A few more questions were asked, and then the meeting was wrapped up as we had to move off to the airport. As we stood up to leave, Ventura came over to me and thanked me for my story, and said that it was very moving. That really meant a lot to me considering he is so high up in World Vision Mozambique.

We checked out of the hotel and were picked up by the van and taken to the local church where we were to attend a devotions service for World Vision staff. It had already started when we got there, so we sat down and listened to what was going on. The service was in Portuguese, so we couldn’t really be sure what was being said, but there were some speakers and some songs. Then James welcomed us and introduced our group to the World Vision staff, and we were asked to introduce ourselves and say what our most memorable experience was in Tete. Will spoke for a while, and since I was at the end of the pew, I introduced myself first. We all spoke in English and it was not translated, so I’m not sure how much was understood.

For my most memorable experience, I spoke about the boarding school that we visited in the Marara ADP, and how impressed I was with the innovative ideas that the school had, and the way in which it was teaching skills to the students that would be beneficial to them for the rest of their lives. After we had all spoken, Will spoke thanked all of the World Vision staff for the hospitality they had shown us and commended them on all their work. He also presented them with a small boxing kangaroo for their office.

After we left the classroom, Olga started talking to a female student who said she wanted to show us the swimming pool. She lead us to the second floor and through corridors and rooms, until we were on a balcony overlooking an enormous pool. It really was huge, with lanes marked in rope, and groups of children having relay races at the time. The girl said that the pool was for the use of students at the school and also youth who lived in the nearby community. The room was in great condition, as was the pool, and it was another positive thing to add to what I had witnessed at the high school.

It was a very positive experience for me, because these students are happy to be in school and are making the most of the opportunity. I would love to set up a pen pal program between students in Australia and students at the Maputo High School. It would be a way for Australian students to support World Vision and become involved even if they can’t afford to sponsor a child or make any other kind of monetary contribution; it would help the Mozambican students with their English skills, and it would teach Australian students a lot about what an opportunity school can really be. I think that the passion that the Mozambican students have for their school and their future career ambitions might even rub off on Australian students. It would also of course give both sides a chance to learn about a different country and culture.

Olga approached a group of year 10 students, and they agreed to speak with us. We all filed into a classroom and they sat down, while we stood at the front. I was amazed at the behaviour of these students – they were voluntarily in the classroom with no teacher, being asked to speak with a group of white (and in their eyes, rich) students, most of which were their same age. But there was not a single problem, comment or anything, except when a girl wolf whistled when Joseph started to speak. Most of them spoke a small amount of English, some more than others. We were asked to introduce ourselves, but most could not understand and so Olga, with the help of a few students who spoke English very well, translated for us.

We talked about our ages and also what we are studying or what grade we are in at school, and some talked about sports or music that they liked. Whenever someone said something that the Mozambican students agreed with, they let us know. It was a very friendly, relaxed environment, and (except for the translations) I don’t think it would have been any different even if Olga hadn’t been there. When asked if they like their school, they all cheered, and when asked who out of them wanted to go to university, they all raised their hands and said that they wanted to be doctors, architects, computer scientists.

When we got to the Holiday Inn, James appeared with Olga. He had arranged for us to visit a high school, and was a little upset that we were not ready to go. It had been mentioned when we were in Maputo the first time, but we didn’t know that the plans had been finalized, and no time had been set.

So we all piled into the van, and for some reason James didn’t come with us, but left us in the hands of Olga. We went to the Maputo High School, and had a look around, but unfortunately whoever it was that we were supposed to be meeting with was not there because we were too late. I found the school to be very impressive – the students were all wearing a clean, smart uniform, and the school looked well maintained. The school was huge, two storey, and although the classrooms were old-fashioned, they were clean and roomy, with enough seats for everyone.

We flew for around 45 minutes, and then had a stopover for about 45 minutes before flying the rest of the way, slightly longer in the second half. The plane did not change during the stopover, and was the smallest plane I have ever been on. There was one seat, and aisle, and then two seats. I counted 10 rows, so in total the plane carried 30 people. When we disembarked at Maputo, we got our luggage quickly because there were not many people to compete with. When we went outside, our old van was there waiting for us, but unfortunately with a different driver.

We were taken to the Holiday Inn, and on the drive there I realized that only days before, we had driven the same route on the way to the same hotel, but on that occasion it was the first time we had actually seen poverty. I remember we all stared out the windows in amazement, and I videoed the whole trip because I was worried that there was no way I would be able to explain what I saw to everyone back home. It amazes me that we have become so conditioned to those sights in such a small amount of timer, only a matter of days, that they hardly have an effect on us anymore. Is that why the few wealthy people in third world countries often do little to help their own people – because they are so used to the sight of poverty that it no longer has any meaning to them? It makes me wonder if there is anything that I ignore or dismiss merely because I am so used to it.