Women for Change & Angels of Mercy

Lise Johnson, Anna Mahango, Emily Sikazwe, Dick Bail

We felt fortunate to spend significant amounts of time with Emily Sikazwe and Anna Mahango this evening.  Women for Change is an impressive NGO with a 22 year track record and a variety of different interventions to help women.  They also have a network of 90 rural schools, which while they are in rural locations appear to be very well managed.  We hope to visit one soon.  Angels of Mercy have now been working with us for about 6 years in keeping students healthy so that they can attend school.

 

Written by Dick
 

Our conversation with Emily also found another similarity between our organizations! We have implemented a psychosocial, narrative therapy workshop to children of all ages called the Tree of Life, which was designed by a program called REPSI. We have incorporated this type of workshop to children and women of all ages for the past four years.The focus of the therapy is to support those who participate in the workshop and have them create a tree that walks them through their history, discusses where they are in life now, their strengths, their hopes and dreams, and gifts they give others. Each part of the tree represents one aspect of their life. Emily mentioned how she has developed a similar therapy which she has used with the women she works with. In the therapy, she also uses a river to allow the women she works with to discuss the events in their life that have played a factor in their life (good and bad). The "river" symbolism helps create an additional dimension to the workshop so that the women come to the realization that the factors that have impacted their lives are behind them and they can start their future with a positive light. It was very reassuring by hearing from Emily, a Zambian who has worked for women in need for so many years, that these types of therapy are essential to supporting people in need.  We have two Tree of Life Workshops planned for the trip, so I hope we will have some pictures to post of that activity in the next few days.

 

~Amy