"If it was possible for me to walk to Australia, I would walk there, just so that I could thank the people for all the help that they have brought to our village. But since it is not possible, please take my words to them".

"We used to work huge sections of land and harvest very little, but now that ADRA has come and taught us, we grow our food on small plots of land and harvest very much!"

These were just some of the comments that I heard in the villages today.

When Winston Chikopa met me at my hotel and told me that he would be showing me the SAFARI project I was not sure what to expect. Was ADRA Malawi helping the local people learn how to make money in the tourism industry? Would I be spending the day filming leopards and elephants? Winston quickly set me strait. SAFARI stands for Southern Africa Food security and AIDS Response Initiative, funded by the government of Australia.


Over the years, since ADRA and other Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), have been doing development work, much has been learned about how to conduct successful programs that bring about positive and lasting changes in the lives of poor people. There once was a time when NGOs would drop into a village, drill a well, install a pump and go home patting themselves on the back for doing such a good work. While the new well in a village was an excellent idea and brought with it the potential of improving lives, it often caused new problems and quickly failed. The women of the village suddenly had 5 or 6 extra hours in the day with nothing to do. A big part of their culture had been suddenly removed with nothing to replace it. Within six months the pump may fail and the people would wait for the NGO to come back and fix their pump.

The next time an NGO showed up at the village with a new idea to help the village, the chief may not be so receptive.

The SAFARI program is a perfect example of how far the field of development has come in just 30 years. Today, a well is rarely drilled as a stand alone project. It is usually only one very small component of a large, integrated program of community-based improvements that bring about positive changes in the lives of the people. Today the new well is followed up with latrines, health education, agricultural training, small business management classes, small loans to help people start their own businesses.

Of course the only real way for programs like these to succeed is when the people at the local level are on board. They need to not only agree to be helped, they need to sing on. It is only as the people agree to bring their own assets to the program and form a partnership with the NGO that they will build personal ownership, and then work hard themselves to make sure that the program succeeds.

This is what SAFARI has done. The initiatives of the program are so extensive that the only way it could possibly reach it's goals is to set up an extensive volunteer network in the villages. In each of the 65 villages that SAFARI is working ADRA has worked together with the Headperson (or Chief) of the village to establish community based organizations or CBO's. Five representatives from each village are sent to ADRA workshops where they learn many things that can bring positive improvements to their villages. They learn from the latest research on agriculture on what seeds and methods can bring the greatest harvest from their soils and growing conditions. They learn about the importance of balanced diets and good nutrition. They receive new information on health and sanitation, and what they can do to avoid malaria, diarrhea and other killer diseases. They have open and candid discussions relating to the issues of HIV and AIDS and the importance of every member of the village going in for "Voluntary Counseling and Testing" or VCT. They also teach them ways that they can develop and strengthen the CBO in their village into a powerful co-operative where the resources of the community can come together with the inputs of the SAFARI program to provide a new dynamic association that can benefit everyone in the village, especially the most vulnerable.

The ultimate goal of every responsible development program and NGO is to progressively make it self obsolete. The SAFARI project will work with these 65 villages for a period of five years, at which time it is hoped that the CBO in each village has become so self reliant that they no longer need ADRA's help to continue. Already, after only a year and a half, amazing progress is evident. The maize is high and the death rates are low! One lady told us, with excitement in her voice, how she had made enough money to build a nice new brick house after just one year of growing cabbages, "the ADRA way".

As we entered the last village, members of the local CBO were there waiting for us and as we piled out of our vehicle they greeted us with dancing and singing. In any culture, change can be hard. It can be difficult to lay aside the traditions of your ancestors and adopt the ways of strangers. I applaud the way that these people have been so willing to embrace change, and it was such a pleasure for me to see the excitement and thankfulness in their faces, at the way their lives have improved. Truly, they had something to dance about!