I am excited about the potential that these two projects will have for those working in rural and remote areas with poor road and electricity infrastructure and for us, who will be able to collect real-time information about what the needs are in the field and how we can develop programs and innovative approaches to strengthen health systems at the last mile.

Although my time in Malawi was quite busy, I was glad to have had the chance to visit an under-5 clinic, where large numbers of women brought their children to be weighed (for growth monitoring purposes) and to be immunized. In Malawi, like in most of the world, women spend their days collecting water and firewood, washing clothes, caring for handfuls of children, tending to their fields, and preparing meals. Yet these women were willing to put their other duties on hold so that their children could receive vaccines and have a chance at growing up healthy. The health workers in Kwitanda have done a great job at educating these women about the importance of vaccines and health care for their children.

-Jessica, Logistics Manager

Welcomed by song and dance, I was incredibly excited to learn that the communities had formed committees to maintain the bicycleambulances and regulate their usage.  The committees each had an appointed treasurer who gathered and secured funds to ensure that thebicycle ambulances would be well kept as a community resource.  Of the three communities I visited, one community had used their bicycleambulance twice, another once, and the third had still not used theirs.  While at first this seems like the bicycle ambulances are being underutilized, to me it reflected a real valuing of the bicycle ambulances;the communities were not allowing them to be abused and were reserving them for truly grave emergencies.   This was a perfect (and heartening) example of real community buy-in, which at the end of the day is one of the few variables that can really support true sustainability.