A Request for Help
Foreword by Marcia Braundy

Emma Kishindo is a friend and colleague. She is currently doing research in Malawi, and during the past winter we have been exchanging emails. Malawi is Emma’s home, a landlocked country just north of Lesotho and South Africa, where her children and husband live while she completes her doctorate in Canada. We met at the Centre for the Study of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of British Columbia. While our stories are very different, the quest to improve the lives of those in our individual communities is shared.

Emma’s quest began last fall with a phone call from Malawi, while Emma was still in Canada. Emma’s daughter, Lydia, a college student, had come home from school for the holidays with several of her friends. They had volunteered at a local hospital’s orphan care program for children whose parents had died of AIDS. They found their work complicated by the famine in Southern Africa which had severely reduced food supplies. Aid from the World Food Program (WFP) was sporadic, often being diverted to the cities as political disbursements, leaving those in rural Malawi with empty bowls. Worried about the wellbeing of the children, and due to return to school at the end of her school break, Lydia phoned Emma. It was a daughter’s call for help which Emma in turn shared with me, and together we initiated a fundraising plan.

Emma listed her needs: immediate funding for seeds for planting in the impending rainy season; food to last until the spring’s planting was harvested; and perhaps a couple of small water pumps in case the expected rains failed to put in an appearance. Within six weeks, students in the Faculty of Education, along with volunteers from two local churches raised just over $4,000 for Emma to help families and orphans in her rural community in Malawi. In January, she boarded a plane to return home. The following is her excerpted correspondence, shared with permission, which documents the realities of the challenge she has taken on.