Bling Bling and Traveling: Project Juembo

A few years ago, one of the kids at our school had an idea. She had been to many of the villages surrounding us and seen the poverty and lack of school supplies. She then went to the USA and got people to donate backpacks filled with school supplies, T-shirts, shoes, socks, hygiene products, and a small toy.

She called this “Project Juembo.” Juembo is a chichewa (the local language) word that actually means sack. There is not a word for bag or backpack. So, Juembo is really something similar to a small plastic Walmart bag and the name of the non-profit that this girl started.

Today, we went with Project Juembo out to a village on Lake Malawi. In this village a young man has started an orphanage. We were able to bring about 200 backpacks to the kids in the village. All of the children had been registered and assigned backpacks before we got there.

So, when we arrived I helped to start up games with the village children. We started playing duck, duck, goose . . . we changed the words to the Chichewa language, and since a duck and goose are the same thing in Chichewa we played duck, duck, chicken.

After a few games, Frisbee tosses, and dance circles, we began handing out the backpacks. We got the children one at a time, had them put the new shirt on and hold up the backpack, shoes, toy, and a thank you sign. It was really fun. The kids were so excited about the new stuff they got. For these children, this is the first brand new clothing item they have ever owned. Here, when you get clothes you buy them in the second hand market. So, they have never ever owned new shoes or new clothes. Most of them weren’t wearing shoes either. So, after the picture I would help the children put their new shoes on.