The Great Big GOLD Reunion

It is over a year since Team Malawi went our separate ways at a bus station in the middle of Malawi and this weekend is the first time our whole team have been together again! As we have found out, coordinating six active Girlguiding members to be at the same place at the same time is a very challenging task - in the words of M, it was easier to organise a project in Malawi that get everyone together for a reunion!

Despite some very cold and wet weather, we have made the best of our time in Weston-super-mare, and have had fish and chips on the beach, played arcade games on the pier and made a good start at catching up on what has been going on in everyone's lives over the last year! Living up to our reputation as a team, we have not stopped talking since we arrived.

So what have our GOLDies been getting up to over the last year and how are we surviving a life without GOLD? Since returning to the UK, we have had 7 house moves (by 4 people), 6 new appearances on the Girlguiding website, 5 job changes, 4 months volunteering at Sangam, 3 new cars, 2 country reps at Go for GOLD, 2 new Queen's Guides, 1 new hamster, 1 new husband, 0 regrets.... and all of our lives changed by the experience!

Not all of the action has been happening on the UK side of the team though! We have been excited to follow the work of MAGGA since we have left them and have been so proud at how hard they have been working. A special mention should certainly be made for Lucy who is now one of 5 champions selected by WAGGGS for their work towards the UN global goals for sustainable development and the #TeamGirl campaign. It's great to see everyone's efforts to continue the work of GOLD after our team came home.

Speaking of GOLD projects, MAGGA have been exceptionally lucky this year and have had another U.K. team running a project this summer. We haven't heard all that the team got up to this year but we hope that they had just as much fun that we did and that the lovely ladies of MAGGA have benefitted from another year of training.

It is very strange to think that we have reached the end of our GOLD journey, but we are all so grateful for the experience and are looking forward to new adventures. Thank you to everyone who has supported us throughout our journey, we hope we have inspired you to get involved in some Girlguiding adventures of your own.

Lots of GOLD love,

Team Malawi x

The end of project

It's the last day of project and we are all trying to work out how we got here! We've had an emotional, at times exhausting but at the end of the day rewarding project where we are all really pleased to see how the girls have progressed during our trainings and how MAGGA are prepared to continue their own version of GOLD in Malawi into the future!

Camp at Senga Bay was lots of fun and certainly a different training environment for us all! We arrived in the dark so could only hear the lake but it was a brilliant view in the morning to wake up to its vast blue waters! Our wake up call on Saturday morning was punctuated by the arrival of many baboons running wild on the camp but we managed mostly to keep these at bay.

After breakfast we found some shade on the beach to begin training so started with some First Aid. We got very sandy practising the recovery position on the beach but everyone picked up the skills rather quickly and enjoyed learning the topic. In the afternoon we started on Advocacy and got some great ideas from the group on how they can speak out. It was interesting to train these topics with the girls on camp as they were a much older group than we have worked with when we trained these topics with the patrol leaders so we had a lot of different contributions.

In the evening we had a bit of a party on the beach with the girls and enjoyed spending some time getting to know each other. Andreah certainly gave some of the girls a run for their money in the dance competition!

We got up early on Sunday morning to watch the sunrise over the lake. It was such a clear day that we could see across to Mozambique! As the sun rose, Emily made her promise as an adult leader on the beach - a special moment for us all to be part of. At 6am we were joined by the MAGGA girls for morning exercises, putting on quite a show for the guards and other campers!

Our theme for Sunday was MAGGA development and we included activities to help both the rangers and MAGGA GOLD team develop their respective unit meetings and trainings to be effective and informative. The girls were very invested in the training and took lots of notes so that they could use everything we taught them in the future.

We got very sandy playing with the parachute on the beach, but it was a good opportunity to show the GOLD girls how to use it as we will be leaving it for them. Before we knew it, it was time to say our thank yous, hand out a few badges and pack away our tents so that we could drive back to Lilongwe. It was sad to leave the lake but was such a great experience to be able to go and stay there.

On Monday we met with a very tired MAGGA GOLD team at the office along with Dinara and Mphatso to finish training them on agendas, SMART targets, training plans and long term goals. We had a 6th year party for the final year of GOLD and surprised everyone with our cake, streamers and balloons. We were pleased that we could leave the GOLD team in a position where they knew their next steps and should hopefully be able to run their first trainings before December.

We headed back to the MAGGA offices on Tuesday to meet again with Dinara and Mphatso and evaluate our whole project. We shared some of our favourite things of project along with our hopes for the development of the GOLD team. Dinara and Mphatso were equally pleased with the project this year along with the previous 5 years of GOLD in Malawi and were sad that there will be no UK team coming out next year.

Wednesday is our last official day of project so we headed back to the MAGGA office with a few gifts for all of the staff. It was lovely to see how excited everyone was about their gifts, both personal gifts and some to the three regions of MAGGA. Dinara and Mphatso took us to visit the plot of land MAGGA have bought to build their new offices on and talked us through the plans. It is very exciting to think about the development and how much of an impact it will make to the girls at MAGGA.

After a lot of hugs and farewells to the MAGGA staff, our preparation for onward travel has begun! We made a visit to the market for souvenirs and are now starting to pack ready to leave for Dedza in the morning.

We might post some updates on our travel on social media to let you know what we are all up to over the next week. You are welcome to keep in contact while we travel, however we would like to remind you that all donations and fundraising monies have gone solely towards our time on project whereas our travel is now being paid for by our personal money.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us during our project, both at home and in Malawi.

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Last few trainings in Lilongwe (don't cry Ruth)

Team Malawi have had quite a few varied and unexpected days! On Tuesday we had our final day of training with the patrol leaders in Lilongwe. We trained the girls on Violence against Women which they were all very knowledgeable about. It was interesting to hear some different comments from the girls than we heard in Blantyre but also was promising that even the youngest girls were very clear on what behaviours are abusive and non-abusive in a relationship. It is good to see how involved the girls get in our trainings and how much information they take on board.

In the afternoon, we taught them some of our much awaited crafts! We changed things around from Blantyre a bit, this time teaching paper flowers, pencil toppers and friendship bracelets. All of our crafts were very popular and we had to rapidly prepare extra resources whilst the girls were rushing to do all three!

On Wednesday we were invited to the MAGGA board meeting, but unfortunately when we arrived in the morning, a lot of the board members were still travelling to the offices. Never wanting to waste a dull moment, we pitched up outside and used the time to plan our trainings for camp at Senga Bay. We were invited to join the meeting in the afternoon and the board members were very interested to hear how our project has been going. We updated the board on the progress of the girls and the MAGGA GOLD team in particular so that we could give them feedback on their next steps to develop the project for the future.

Thursday was yet another unexpected day - as you may have gathered from Facebook and Twitter, we were invited to the MAGGA AGM. It was not quite the format we expected and a bit difficult to know what was going on at times due to some of the speeches being in Chichewa, but it was great to see so many people there all passionate about guiding. The theme for the meeting was 'Let us unite to end violence against women and girls'. There were a lot of passionate speeches on the topic from all ages, including a very young guide from Mzuzu. A lot of the girls we have trained in Lilongwe were involved in the meeting with their fellow Brownies, Guides and Rangers showing some of their chants, sketches, self defence and exercises.

An MP from the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare was a guest of honour at the meeting and gave a rallying speech to the girls and women, encouraging them to stand up against violence and abuse. She also presented flowers to members of MAGGA who were being recognised for their achievments and even called Ruth up to the stage to represent our GOLD team!

We were given our moment on the stage to summarise the whole 6 years of GOLD in Malawi and the work we have been doing this year. In true guiding style we finished our presentation with a few songs! We lit some candles to sing Guiding Light and finished with the Rainbow, Brownie and Guide closing songs.

We were invited back onto stage a few more times including during a speech from the MP, however since a lot her speech went into Chichewa, we ended up looking very confused on stage!

At the end of the meeting, we were scooped up into a bit of a disco on the stage with all of the Brownies, Guides and Rangers. A lot of the girls who have been to our trainings came running over to see us, some already with badges pinned on that we had given them.

Since returning from the AGM, we have been hastily packing for camp at Senga Bay and will be on our way on Friday evening. Quite an eventful few days but the adventure is not quite ending yet!

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi xx

Tours and trainings

On Friday we were given a tour of Lilongwe by the MAGGA GOLD team - who knew you could fit so much into a day! We started by driving to the new stadium. This was especially interesting for Ruth as it was not built last year. The stadium can seat 50,000 people and can be seen from all over Lilongwe. Unfortunately we could not go into the stadium to look around as it is still a building site but it would be interesting to see it in a few years time in action!

We then travelled to see a monument for the first world war and on to visit the parliament building and the mauseleum. The mauseleum was a memorial for the late president Banda. We had our lunch at an authentic hostel where you could stay in mud huts by the lake. The MAGGA team took us to the Lilongwe Wildlife centre in the afternoon and stopped at a village on the way home that is often frequented by Madonna on her trips to Malawi! We were exhausted by the end of the day!!

On Saturday we spent the day at our hostel preparing our training plans for the next week. In the evening we were invited to a fundraiser at MAGGA to subsidise fees for our camp at Senga Bay next week. It turned out not to be quite the English tombola fundraiser we were expecting - the music and dancing started early and we left when the party was in full swing!

On Sunday we started our training with patrol leaders in Lilongwe. The group turned out to have a mix of Brownies, Guides and Rangers but they were all very enthusiastic and gave some good contributions to our trainings on Advocacy and First Aid. Having done some of these activities before in Blantyre, it is interesting to see the different ideas that come up in our discussions. The activities went particularly well considering we were competing with at least 6 different church services at once throughout the day that were in different rooms around the school.

We have continued training these girls on Monday, running activities on Teamwork and Leadership. The girls were especially excited to play with our parachute, as it is something they have never seen before. Since our training with these girls has taken place in a school, today we got chance to meet a class who were having an English lesson in the classroom next to ours. We certainly caused a stir with our acivities and games when the school children came out for their break!

It has been a busy few days but it is really nice to see how much the girls have learnt from our trainings.

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

P.S. Somehow we have managed to increase the amount of luggage we are carrying between hostels! Hopefully we can cut this lot back down again before we fly home...

(Ruth has been shopping!)

A Malawian birthday

We may have been a bit quiet on the blog over the past few days but its only because we've been doing lots of trainings! Our journey back up to Lilongwe on Tuesday was a lot better than we had expected thanks to Ruth's savvy bargaining skills in the bus station. We piled onto a local bus with all of our bags and resources and settled down for a long journey back up. The journey didn't take nearly as long as we expected and we were soon back in Lilongwe, as if we had never been away.

On Wednesday we started training the Malawian GOLD teams at the MAGGA headquarters and finished the training on Thursday. We started the training with only 4 participants but by the end of the two days we had trained about 20 people. It was nice to train some different topics and hopefully we have left the Malawi GOLD team in a position to start planning their own training sessions for guide units around Lilongwe and then further afield in Malawi.

We have spent a lot of time training the team on how to plan, deliver and evaluate their own training sessions on Teamwork, Communication, Advocacy and Leadership. Some of the girls are ready and enthusiastic to start trainings but we also hope we will be able to help them set up the Malawian GOLD project as a sustainable venture which the younger girls we were training in Blantyre will be able to join with when they are older.

Today has been a special day for Team Malawi as it is Louise's birthday! We had a treat at lunch as the girls appeared with a cake that had 'Happy Birthday Louise' written on it. We have started our evening with having our dinner in our dresses we had made in Blantyre. We are now going for a chilled out pamper evening after our busy days of training.

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

The last day in Blantyre

Our last day of training was a sad one because it meant we are leaving Blantyre, but it was still very successful. The weather changed on us this morning and we woke to a cold damp day. We were pleased to find pretty much the same girls as yesterday arrive so we could build on our trainings. The leaders told us they had been testing the girls on our trainings last night, so they all showed us the recovery position and told us what they could remember about advocacy. It was really nice to see that everyone has been taking our trainings seriously and have been practicing what they have been taught.

We started this morning with our violence against women training, discussing beauty around the world, stereotypes of men and women and qualities of good and bad relationships as well as the importance of a girl-only space in guiding. Everyone got really involved in the session and came up with a lot of good ideas.

In the afternoon we taught a few crafts - a very popular topic, and hopefully something they will be able to reproduce without us. We finished the day with some songs and a lot of photos with all of the girls.

It is sad to be leaving this group of girls in Blantyre, but it is nice to know that they have found our trainings useful and that they will continue to spread our messages with the people they meet.

We are now preparing for a long journey back up to Lilongwe tomorrow so it's an early night for Team Malawi!

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Probably the most unexpected day yet!

What a day! We have managed to fit so much into today - the second day of training is complete. We had a slightly older group today, mostly the older girls from yesterday but a few new girls as well. We started the day with a few more leadership activities before starting our morning session on advocacy. The girls worked really hard and had a lot of ideas about what issues they should stand up for and how they can speak out.

Our afternoon session involved a lot of first aid activities which we think the girls found really useful. They are all now well trained in the recovery position, things to put in a first aid kit and the importance of washing hands properly amongst other things.

The surprise of the day was that our dresses were ready! We are all very pleased to have had traditional dresses made for us and are looking forward to wearing them.

We stayed at MAGGA in the evening to have a campfire with some of the girls. They shared some of their songs and dances with us and we shared a few of our songs as well. We particularly enjoyed the songs that we both knew, especially because we couldn't join in when they sang in Chichewa!

We are looking forward to tomorrow's training but are sad that it is our last proper day in Blantyre. I am sure further adventures are waiting to greet us when we arrive in Lilongwe.

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x