My name is Brett Stevenson and I am a 26 year-old chemical engineer. I was born and raised in the Yukon, lived in Calgary for several years and recently moved to St. John’s, Newfoundland. I like to say that I am a child of Canada as I am hesitant to call any specific part of Canada my home. This blog will chronicle my 13-month placement in Malawi volunteering for Engineers Without Borders Canada. Starting March 2007, I will be embarking on a new partnership with a large international non-governmental organization called Concern Universal (CU). Feel free to check out their website at www.concern-universal.org.
This blog is my life-line to Canada and my main means of staying connected to all of my friends and family. I hope that you will be interested in sharing my learnings and growing with me as I experience life in Malawi. This will be a space for me to discuss culture, development and the world as I see it.
The last thing that I want this blog to put forth is a “World Vision”-esque vibe pulling at your heart strings with pity-seeking pictures of poor Africans. My goal is to show you both the truth and balance of their lives as I best as I can see it. I want to open my blog as a forum for exploring the reasons for global disparity and to help celebrate the humanity that exists inside all borders. Feel free to post replies or email me anything you wish. Discussions are most welcome. To start things off, I invite you to visit the site http://www.gapminder.org/downloads/presentations/human-development-trends-2005.html.
Concern Universal focuses on empowering local people to create opportunities for choice and a way forward in which communities collectively express their priorities in development. My role will be within CU’s water and environmental sanitation department. This department implements projects that enable communities to gain access to clean water and promotes sanitation and hygiene. The desired impact of these projects is to decrease the incidences of water related diseases in rural areas.
According to Concern Universal, Malawi is the11th poorest country in the world. 54% of the population lives below the national poverty line of US$0.11/day. Based on the Water Poverty Index (established by the World Water Council in 2002) Malawi is ranked the fifth lowest in the world based on access, recources, capacity, use and environmental impact.
Such interesting reading, Brett or should I say Betty!! I was so excited to read about your new life. You seem such a powerful person, to live without electricity, learning a new language and living all alone in such a large country, in such a remote location. I loved to read about the cooking and experiences with changing your hair. It is amazing how even African women want to look good and will add hair extensions to do so. Keep the blog growing…we are learning a lot from your experience.