One of my best friends had a birthday party and asked for donations instead of presents. She donated to the pandas at the zoo.

I thought this was cool. My mom asked me if I would do something like that.

I said, “I guess so.” Then I thought about it and decided it would be great to donate stuff to the SPCA because I love cats. Two years ago I got a kitten, named Lovie, from Santa and I knew Santa got Lovie from a place like the SPCA.

This year, I had a “spa-tacular” birthday party at my house with nine of my friends from school. We did our nails, toes, faces, hair and massages.

On the invitation to my party we printed the wish list from the SPCA. My friends brought me — really the animals — so much stuff. I got a lot of bags of dog food, cans of cat food, treats, toys, towels, blankets and dish soap.

I was so excited that I was having nine friends sleep over, I didn’t care that I didn’t have any presents for myself. I did get some presents from my family and other friends.

My mom wouldn’t send the donations to the North Pole, so we took the donations to the Annapolis SPCA where I knew they could use them. We’re going to go back there with some of my friends that came to the party to take a tour.

My mom said I have enough stuff in our house so it would be nice to “give” on my birthday instead of “get.”

You know what? It did feel good. I didn’t even notice that I didn’t get a lot of stuff and I know those animals needed presents more than me.

I think everybody should do this one time after they turn “double digits.”

— Madeline Szanyi

Happy Mother’s Day Amy Szanyi

Son’s music dream realized

I would like to be the first to announce the new member of DRUHILL.

This is a group that generated in Baltimore. My son Antwuan, stage name Tao, is from Annapolis and has lived here all his life. Antwuan has worked an honest 9-to-5 job for years, at places like Whitmore Printing and Central Trucking Company to make his dream come true.

He has sung all his life, but never could achieve what he was aiming for until now.

He never gave up on his dream. He would say to me: “Mom, if I don’t make it this time, I am through.” But he made his dream come true!

As his mother that has endured hardships with her life, it makes me honored to see him put Annapolis on the map. We have so much talent here and never hear about it.

Antwuan wants to let everyone know that he never gave up, that no matter how hard life seems, if you keep going your dreams can come true.

— Proud mom Mona Johnson

Happy Mother’s Day Mona Johnson

Money needed to help families in Zambia

My name is Caitlin Dunn and I am a 23-year-old serving as a Peace Corps volunteer. I grew up in Anne Arundel County, and am an alumna of St. John the Evangelist and Seton Keough High School. I studied International Relations at Pepperdine University in California before joining Peace Corps Zambia in January 2007. I now live in a village called Kashima West that is located in a very remote part of the Northwestern Province of Zambia.

My primary project is focused on rural education development. I ride around on my bike a lot to monitor and evaluate schools in the zone, work with teachers to train them on the latest methodologies (like interactive radio instruction), hold continuing professional development meetings, and offer encouragement and advice wherever I can. Essentially, I work as a liaison between the Ministry of Education and zonal head school, trying to help organize the administration and improve their management.

I help to sensitize communities on the importance of education and explain parents' roles and responsibilities in helping their students succeed. I am currently trying to have each school develop and implement income-generating activities. Outside of school, I am free to work on any secondary activities I see a need for, so I am trying to focus my attention on youth and helping them build life-skills.

I started a youth club in which we discuss topics like confidence & self-esteem building, analytical thinking and planning for the future, HIV/AIDS and other health issues, as well as business skills and "gender" issues. I am hoping to form some women's groups both to teach about health issues and to empower them economically. We'll see.

Getting "work" accomplished can be a difficult and frustrating experience, but I am learning that all I can do is try my best and focus on developing relationships with people.

Zambia is a very beautiful country, known for its rich culture, big sky, and great game viewing, but mostly, the warmth and generosity of its people. Known as the "friendly country," it is one of only two countries never to have engaged in civil war despite having more than 70 tribes. At the same time, Zambia is one of the poorest countries in the world with a GNP per capita of only $290 USD and a huge national debt that is crippling its struggling economy.

It is beset by many of the same problems that keep people trapped in a cycle of poverty, namely a formidable HIV/AIDS rate, poor infrastructure, and inadequate health and education services. Life expectancy is only 35 yrs and falling, as HIV continues to wipe out the country's most productive part of the population. This disease has reached its deadly hand into every town and village, affecting every man, woman, grandparent, and child. Its effects are seen everywhere: in the overwhelming number of orphans (whether begging on the streets of Kitwe and Lusaka or living with an already over-burdened family member in the village trying to make ends meet); in the shortage of nurses, teachers, and businessmen; in the silence and stigma they are trying to fight; in the sadness they are forced to overcome.

Despite these challenges, the people of Zambia are incredibly hard working and are struggling to develop themselves and their country. They are kind, generous, and resilient.

The last 10 months have been full of new experiences, both good and bad, which have challenged my worldview and caused me to learn so much. While issues of development in sub-Saharan Africa are much more complicated than I ever realized, and I often feel overwhelmed by the poverty and the inter-connected problems I see, I have great hope for the future.

In a world full of such wealth - not only economic, but also cultural - with creative, artistic, and intelligent individuals, I know we can help boost up our brothers and sisters who happen to have been born in less fortunate places.

I have come to firmly believe the key to development is education. Foreign aid - while needed at times - is not beneficial unless coupled with education. We need to invest in people and build their own capacity. There is so much human potential being wasted because it simply hasn't been tapped into.

The saddest part of my job is seeing kids full of potential, who want to learn and better themselves but they can't simply because they lack opportunities. Many of the kids I work with are single and double orphans who have to support themselves and their families. They are both students and farmers, taking on "piece-work" when available to raise money for school fees.

There isn't one simple compact solution, but rather, these challenges must be tackled "pace a pace" as we say in KiKaonde, or bit by bit.

One step forward that the Kashima community has decided to take is to develop a community resource center and library. The original reason this project was developed was to help improve literacy rates of pupils in the zone. Children are being passed along from grade to grade without being able to read, only to hit a dead-end when they fail national exams. Youth are then left idle - with no skills or job opportunities - to engage in detrimental practices such as drug and alcohol abuse and risky sexual practices.

When we asked ourselves why this was so, we developed a long list of contributing factors and decided to work with those we could change. No. 1 being a pure lack of materials - how can one be expected to learn to read without books or even being exposed to written letters?

Secondly, children are only in school for a few hours a day and then are sent home to a family that doesn't necessarily understand the value of education because they themselves weren't educated. Instead of encouraging their children and helping them further their understanding of subjects, they often put their children to work in the fields.

As a way to combat these problems, village to village sensitizations were held and a committee was formed to develop a plan of action. The structure will have three parts: a teacher resource center, the main lending library, and a youth wing.

However, this project is not about the building as much as it is about what will take place inside of it.

The teacher resource center will serve as an area where teachers throughout the zone can come together to hold continuing professional development meetings, be trained on the latest teaching methodologies, and share strategies and challenges with one another.

This wing will also contain teacher's reference books that will help teachers to diversify their techniques and shift to a more learner-centered teaching style.

Furthermore, the teachers will be able to access reading materials to help them continue with their own education courses. Many of the problems with schools in rural Zambia are related to the fact that teachers must leave their stations for a week or more at a time to go visit libraries in urban areas that are between 600 to 2,500 km away.

This facility will lead to better trained, more motivated teachers and thus better prepared, happier students. The lending library will include books relevant to daily life, and alternative practices conducive to sustainable, healthy living in the Kashima area.

Publications dealing with agriculture, health, nutrition, HIV, business skills, aquaculture, income generating activities, gender issues, and more will help empower residents to make positive changes to the Kashima community.

For many of the region's poorer villagers, or those too busy to attend school - in particular to women - the resource center might be the only opportunity for education. Students will benefit by having a greater number and better variety of study materials.

Normally, since resources are limited, students are confined to what they can learn from a didactic 30- to 60-minute lecture derived from a single source. There are no opportunities or resources for extracurricular learning or reading.

The last section will be focused of children and youth. There will be a "kiddies corner" which will focus on setting a solid foundation of strong literacy skills using various interactive techniques, and a "youth friendly corner" which will have information on adolescent issues like HIV/AIDS prevention.

We hope to access educational media typically unattainable to rural Zambians; a computer with interactive software, a TV with VCR/DVD capabilities, and other interactive tools that will provide alternative and hands-on approaches to learning. These devices will be powered by solar panel (readily available in Zambia, and already used with limited frequency in the Kashima area), which will also provide lighting for study and work after dark.

In addition, the committees have decided to use the facility as a place to hold "study hall" and offer tutoring sessions for pupils, as well as, offer adult literacy classes so that all members of the community will benefit from the center.

While teachers have already begun this informal program in local churches, our goal is to hire several villagers (ideally people who has passed grade 12 but are just sitting idle because of lack of job opportunities) as "community school teachers/ librarians" who will not only manage the center, but will offer such classes.

They will be paid for by membership fees, in-kind contributions, and long-term income generating activities. When not in use, this area will be opened to all organizations in the community, be it youth clubs, women's groups, farmer's co-ops, to hold meetings since currently, there is a huge shortage of classrooms/ general infrastructure.

The community resource center/library project has unlimited potential as far as how much it can benefit the Kashima area. It might be a cliché, but it is no less true: knowledge is power. Denying people access to information will only hold them back, hindering their development as individuals and as a society. A library will introduce the community to a host of new ideas and concepts, which is the first step towards development.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

1. Donate Money: Go to www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&pro jdesc=611-033 to donate directly to the project construction. If the link does not work then you can go to www.pc.gov and search there for partnership projects, then search for Zambia, Maryland, or education. We are trying to raise close to $20,000 in as quick a timeframe as possible. I will only be living in Kashima West for another year and want to make sure the center is completed and being utilized before I head home. Also, being primarily a subsistence farming based community, there is a limited window when construction can occur - being after the rains and before the next planting season. According to the PCPP rules, we can't start construction until all finances have been raised.

2. Donate books: We desperately need books. If you have extras, or old ones, that are in decent condition, we would be happy to have them. All books - from beginning to read, to novels, to textbooks, to reference materials - everything will be appreciated. I constantly have kids stopping by to borrow magazines and novels. While we are looking for local language materials within Zambia, English is the official language and will help pupils to learn.

3. Donate time: I have very very limited access to the internet, so in order to get this project rolling, I need as much help as possible marketing this project and soliciting for funds/books.

GOALS & OBJECTIVES:

1. To improve literacy skills among the local people, especially the women and children. a. To encourage women to continue their education by offering adult literacy courses and providing them with books specifically focused on women's issues and other topics of interest. b. To expose kids to various interactive learning techniques, as well as provide adequate materials at appropriate levels so that they can build their vocabulary and raise their reading levels.

2. To promote community development by exposing people to information that can help them to improve their daily practices and better their standard of living. a. To expose community members to a vast array of reading material and, in doing so, help to develop a culture of reading and inquiry. b. To provide resources and encourage the exchange of information on topics which are applicable to their daily life (i.e. agriculture, business, HIV/AIDS).

3. To encourage teacher development and increase job satisfaction, and thus motivation of teachers. a. To provide teachers with resource materials so that they can further their own education while still remaining at their station. b. To encourage the exchange of information and useful teaching techniques among teachers and, as a result, provide the pupils with better-trained instructors.

4. To create a center where all members of the community can come together to learn from one another and participate in recreational activities. a. To create an environment conducive to learning and studying. b. To provide a place where youth can come after school and engage in productive and fun activities, thereby decreasing the number of early pregnancies and drug and alcohol abuse.

- Caitlin Dunn

Happy Mother's Day Joan Dunn